New Tube and Train strikes coming - More misery on South Western Railway

Thank you so much for the info!

Thanks Nigel!

Nigel:

I was in London in early November, 2016, to attend Bonfire Night in Lewes. One of the train unions scheduled a strike on November 5 which cancelled return trips from Lewes for a period of 24 hours starting at 12 noon. Any predictions on whether this will happen again this November when I will be back in England to attend Bonfire Night? In 2016 I paid for for a round trip fare on a bus chartered by a meetup group so I took the train to Lewes and returned by bus.

Thanks.

Geor(ge)

Last year there were no trains to Lewis after midday for 'public safety reasons'. It appears that this year they may run to 17:00.

Since 2010, 818 injuries have occurred during these events.

Does the Piccadilly line serve Western England, we are arriving Wednesday and will be taking a train to the Bath area.

Update on the Piccadilly Line strike this week:

From today's Evening Standard Newspaper:-

Crisis talks were taking place today to try to avert two strikes this week on the Piccadilly Line.

Tube chiefs warned the line's 800,000 daily passengers of "little to no service" if the talks fail.

The RMT strike involves a 48-hour walkout from midday on Wednesday until the same time on Friday, and another from 8.30pm on Friday until 1.30am on Saturday.

The talks did fail and the Piccadilly is now on strike.

Thanks for the update Nigel!

Nigel - thanks for the info. We are in London now. Staying at Captain Bligh. Our flight leaves at 9:55 am on Tuesday, October 2nd. We have Southern Railway tickets to Gatwick. Lady who owns apartment suggests we take a cab to Victoria Station and take direct train from there, rather than the tube or bus. Mainly because we'll have luggage and need to leave so early that morning.

We have researched all options and tend to agree that would be easiest.

What do you think?

Thanks for your help
.

No strikes that I am aware of on October 2nd. Don't know anything about Cap'n Bligh other than the boat chap.

I don't know if there is a bus from where you are (which borough, for one) to Victoria? If so since your flight is at about 10 and for a domestic flight you need 90-120 minutes ahead, for a transatlantic flight 3 hours and the train from Victoria to Gatwick is about half an hour you need to be at Victoria maybe around 6:30? What time is the train for?

If you have been told take a taxi by your flat and you are comfortable with that or prefer that then when not do that?

I personally never take a taxi unless somebody else is paying but I don't stay in flats in London (or hotels in London - I go in for the day from where I live). But if you have luggage and an important flight, why not?

Perhaps somebody who knows Cap'n Bligh might chip in with an alternate idea.

But they will only see your question if they are interested in the strikes.

If you want your question answered directly it is better that is a new question specifically on that topic.

I had gone in to London for the day on Wednesday (to see an English National Ballet rehearsal) and got caught at Paddington at 6pm in a giant mêlée. For a moment I wondered if I would be trampled. Once I got clear of the entrance to the H&C line, it was just the normal crowds, except that the Heathrow Express and other trains were busier than usual. (Thanks for the heads-up!)

Thanks all. Sorry I tagged onto a post about strikes.

We have decided to take a cab to Victoria. Just plain tired of lugging our suitcases up and down any more stairs. Been a wonderful 5 weeks.

We have decided to take a cab to Victoria. Just plain tired of lugging
our suitcases up and down any more stairs. Been a wonderful 5 weeks.

Glad to hear it. It's IMO by far the most sensible thing to do, especially at the start of a long day of travel. I've also taken a taxi to Victoria from my hotel to get the Gatwick train when traveling with luggage. Safe travels!

UPDATE

Now another Underground line:-
The Central Line has announced two strikes, one this Friday the 5th of October

and the other Friday the 9th of November.

We were just in the London area for business last week, and one of our (U.S.) colleagues asked why the strike was just the Piccadilly line (and now the Central line)? Do the different Tube lines operate independently? or is it just a way of causing some havoc but not TOO much misery? (by keeping the other lines open). If we have a BART strike here, all lines will be down (of course, the entire BART system carries fewer people than just the Piccadilly line alone).
I figured I'd ask here, with all these knowledgeable Brits! Thanks.

Individual lines are staffed individually. The disputes are local - in this case - to individual depots or groups of depots.

There is generally a division between the sub-surface lines (Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan) and the deep lines (everybody else). Before they were joined by London Transport many years ago all the lines were independent and functioned competitively.

The Piccadilly Line runs old stock that has a tendency to develop wheel flats especially when there is poor adhesion.

The problem with leaves on the track is that leaves contain sap. Trains run over the leaves and squash them. Sap comes out, mixes with the squashed and pulverized leaves and water and forms a material which is both very sticky so it is very difficult to remove from the railhead and simultaneously very slippery so that trains cannot stop as quickly or sometimes for a long time. If there are fewer trains there is less to run into if the train runs into trouble. Fewer trains to get delayed too.

I was once was working on a train which ran away on the leaves for nearly 3 miles. A small 3 car train, very light, all aluminium, on the West Coast Main Line. That was fun... not.

Also ran away on a small diesel train on a branch line and went completely through a station without slowing down at all even though brakes were full on.

People laugh at "leaves on the line" but it actually is deadly serious. It is easy to forget that most of the Piccadilly Line is on the surface.

There are special trains which patrol the most at risk lines and treat them with a special mixture including grit and orange juice to provide adhesion, and other trains with very powerful high pressure water jets to remove the leaf mixture - like trying to remove chewing gum.

From a commuter point of view this new timetable is about making their
performance figures look good, not providing a decent service.

This sounds like an airline. For example, Delta has flights between LGA & BOS that are scheduled to take 90 minutes. It's a 30-35 minute flight but they don't want their on-time performance to suffer so they pad the trip as a 90 minute itinerary from departure to arrival.

UPDATE

Now another Underground line:-

The Central Line has announced two strikes, one this Friday the 5th of
October

and the other Friday the 9th of November.

Thanks for these updates, Nigel. The latter date will affect me given the location of my hotel, but as they say forewarned is forearmed. Or something about forearms, or was it elbows . . . ?

I'll make plans with this in mind, and keep an eye on updates.

new UPDATE

Central Line strike hours and widening effect

The 24 hour Central Line strike is scheduled from 12:01 am this Friday until 11:59 pm this Friday night. Talks to avert the strike have been unsuccessful. It is likely that any settlement - were it to come - would not be until the last minute.

Further impact is that Friday night's Night Tube on the Central Line won't run.

Another impact is that the same staff who operate the Central Line also operate the WATERLOO & CITY line so the Waterloo & City will also shut down all Friday.

REVISED DATE of the second strike: I oopsed. The second Central Line strike is scheduled for Wednesday the 7th of November.

Source: London Evening Standard

Thanks, Nigel and Emma.

I appreciate the tips. I've already been looking at the maps. Even before news of the strike, I was looking at bus routes. There are a lot of buses running along the road by my hotel and I'd been planning to use the buses more than I have in the past. Besides the buses, there are other Tube line stations within a reasonable walking distance from my hotel. At least I have time to plan for this, and I'm on holiday. I feel for those who have to get to and from jobs and school on those days, who will be impacted by the strike. Ugh.

Thank you, Nigel, Emma, and Marco, for the information about the various Tube lines. Fascinating stuff! I feel like I should have known some of it, but I've obviously forgotten. The fact that the lines used to be independent reminds me of SF's cable cars; in the late 1800s there were almost two dozen competing lines with different gauges.

And thanks for the warning about the Piccadilly line's winter schedule. We use the Piccadilly line a lot (relatively speaking), as we visit London several times a year (lucky us!) and fly in to LHR and stay in Holborn. We now spend our last night at a hotel near LHR after an incident in December 2016 – we had schlepped our stuff to the Holborn tube station the morning of our flight, but they weren't letting anyone enter the station (people were exiting just fine). No explanation was given, that we could see; children were singing Christmas carols in the lobby area just outside the turnstiles, but they weren't really in anyone's way. We were told we could walk to Covent Garden station. Luckily it's pretty close and we travel light (thanks, Rick Steves!), but we were spooked enough to take measures to avoid such a situation in the future. And the recent strikes have only confirmed our new MO.

Emma, that makes sense (escalator repair) – closing the station to incoming passengers b/c children were singing Christmas carols didn't make sense to us, but it was all we could think of (since there was no signboard, and the employee didn't tell us anything other than that Covent Garden was open). Normally it would not have been a problem at all, and we would have enjoyed listening to the carols (we leave a lot of room in our sightseeing schedules for serendipity and exploring when we travel), except we had a plane to catch :-)