Train strikes and travel planning

Rail workers recently voted to continue striking. With a general election likely later in the year and a probable change of government, some would argue they have little incentive to settle. And summer strikes ensure maximum disruption and embarrassment to the government in the lead up to the election. The alternative view is they will want to minimise strikes so as not to derail Labor's chances at government.

Having said that, I have been traveling a lot by train in the UK recently and have never taken strikes into account when booking. You'll get at least two weeks notice, and the opportunity to change your bookings. Not to mention not all train operators are affected at any given time.

Renting a car for places like Edinburgh or Liverpool is a guaranteed way of spending of hours staring at traffic on the motorway. Ditto Bath and Stonehenge. I would be extremely surprised if its cheaper to rent a car- have you taken into account cost of petrol? Certainly you'll end up wasting time.

Having a car in bigger cities is a waste of time. Parking is difficult and expensive. And gas/petrol isn't cheap.

As stated, you will get two weeks notice if a strike is called.

Weekends are when scheduled maintenance is usually done so you have to keep an eye on that.

If going from London (Kings Cross) to Edinburgh, I suggest you use LUMO trains - who seem to be unaffected by the strikes. However, LNER might run some services and note that LUMO do not stop at York - which is well worth seeing.

If you are going from Liverpool to Bath, I suggest that you use Transport for Wales Trains (TfW) who are not affected by the strikes. TfW will get you from Liverpool to Newport where you change to Great Western Railway (GWR) for Bristol & Bath. Note that the TfW route involves a change at Chester - which is well worth seeing - so maybe spend a night here? Also note that Newport is only 15 minutes away from the Welsh Capital - Cardiff - also worth seeing as it has 4 castles within 7 miles of the centre. Google Caerphilly Castle, Cardiff Castle, Castell Coch & St.Fagans Castle & Museum of Welsh Life.

Yesterday, GWR were on strike - but they did run an hourly service Cardiff > Newport > Bristol (Temple Meads). So, had you travelled yesterday, you would have needed a local bus from Bristol to Bath (or taxi).

So, that leaves Edinburgh to Liverpool. If you hire a car for that leg, I would definitely make a detour to the visit The Lake District.

Note that to use the westerly route operated by TfW, you need to put via Ludlow in the search - otherwise you will be sent via Birmingham - which is more expensive for little time saving. (Some offerings will go via Crewe rather than Chester. You may wish to consider leaving Liverpool and spending 1 night in Chester before starting the journey south).
On some routes, splitting the fare works out cheaper but the train company websites don't tell you this.
Here is one website that does splits - and charges a commission on the amount saved:> https://beta.trainsplit.com/
www.nationalrail.co.uk won't tell you if splits are cheaper.

The current pattern is for each train company to strike only on one day but also to have an overtime ban on for several days. And they are only striking on at the most one a month. So your chances of being affected are fairly small.

Having said that we have just been caught this morning by the Cross Country strike yesterday. We were due to take a train from Aberdeen via Edinburgh to Preston but the 8.20 has been cancelled. I imagine the train is in the wrong place. But we’ve been redirected via Glasgow and will get home an hour later. No big deal and we should get a refund.

This is all so helpful! Thank you for helping me figure this out without spinning my wheels. We will plan on taking the trains and use the routes mentioned. The suggested stops are so helpful, too. THANK YOU!!

LNER DO run services on strike days. The other open access operator (so not affected by strikes) who does stop at York is Grand Central Trains - on their route to Sunderland.

It sounds like you will be doing a lot of travel by rail. That being so, consider getting a Railcard. (You can pre-book on the assumption that you already have the Railcard - but you must have it on you when you travel).https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/railcards/

On the last strike day, LNER did run trains from London to Edinburgh at 2 hourly frequencies. Normally there is an LNER train every 30 minutes - so I guess the trains they did run were rammed with displaced passengers.

From personal experience and anecdotal evidence, the trains that do run are the opposite of rammed on strike days.

Indeed, today is an overtime ban on Avanti, a train of theirs a friend of mine was on earlier had 16 people on board...

wex cal - That’s really good news to hear. Sounds like the locals who don’t have to travel have avoided the trains on strike days thus freeing up space for those who really need to travel - such as foreign tourists.

they walked all 9 or 11 carriages counting heads?

They were Train Manager and they only checked 16 tickets before Carlisle. Train was 9M55 if you want to know.

I will say its very route dependent, the northern WCML and even the ECML can be surprisingly quiet while routes such as Birmingham to Reading seem to be busy regardless (though the latter is frequently only a four-car train which is busy at the best of times).

We were on the 12.30 from Glasgow to Preston yesterday, the day after a strike anded and still on the overtime ban and there were plenty of customers. By no means packed but probably half full around where we were sat in coach F.

Is a railcard better than paying per trip? We will be in the UK for only 12 days (planning 4 days in London). Have been to most of these places over 20 years ago when local friends drove me around. If I do the railcard, I think an 8 day pass would be good--that way we only use it when leaving London (or arriving in London if we save London touring for last). With the pass, I could change the times in case we want to stay later/leave earlier from one city to the next?

please understand that a Railcard is not a pass. That could be a Britrail or regional Rover or Ranger.

A Railcard, bought for £30 and valid for a year takes membership in a group such as seniors, students, young people, disabled travellers, people who live near London, etc., and allows tickets to be bought for a 1/3 discount.

It is not a pass to jump on any train in a certain time period.

Have a read: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/railcards/

Got it. I confused the two. I'll compare getting both railcards and passes. I saw some options for family/youth discounts when looking at a Britrail pass.

Those. numbers may well be true Nick, but they miss out a very important factor. That is that most UK families will already have access to a car for their day to day lives. That puts the decision about whether to drive or take the train to be a very different calculation to those coming from overseas who will have to pay for the car in the first place. By the time you have added up the costs of hire, insurance, fuel etc plus parking which can be difficult and/or exorbitant in many of the locations visitor want to go to the calculation is very different than for locals. Not to mention also the issues about driving on the "wrong" side of the road for many visitors.

edit:- this doesn't seem to make much sense now that Nick appears to have withdrawn his post!

9M55 was the 1156 GLA-EUS via Birmingham, an 11 car train today. It would have got busier further south, but I agree GLA-Carlisle can be very quiet at certain times of the day, likewise northbound trains north of Lancaster after about 7pm are often deathly quiet. On 11 car sets I quite frequently have either a whole train car or nearly a whole car to myself these days- which never ever used to happen.

That's why there are such amazing Advance Fares.

The effect of the long running strikes is sometimes so evident. On the last train up the Cumbria Coast I am more often than not the only passenger north of Millom. When the bridge was under repair at Workington a few weeks ago Northern cancelled all rail replacement buses after 7pm eventually, because literally no-one was using them, so the last service was 3, eventually 4, hours earlier than normal.

A lot of the Carlisle College kids have abandoned the train, and one of the major employers at Sellafield is now providing daily chartered road transport for all employees who used to use the train.

@blueskies0305- Bath to Edinburgh is the one expensive train on that itinerary and the one where a railcard (if you qualify) would really be worth it.

Edinburgh to Liverpool, especially on the through trains is very often less than £20 (or around £13) on a railcard. That is one journey where I would usually book it as EDI-Carlisle, Carlisle to Liverpool to be a bit cheaper. And don't bother about seating capacity. The TransPennine trains never run anything like full on that route, unless there is very severe service disruption on Avanti West Coast.

Oddly TPE are often busier in 1st class than standard, because the 1st class offering is now so good.