Northern issues ‘do not travel’ warning to Leeds rail passengers ahead of week long strike action

The whole of the rail network is affected by strikes, planned for Tuesday 21, Thursday 23 and Saturday, June 25.

Northern is currently working with Network Rail to agree what services it can run with the industry prioritising essential routes on mainlines and routes in to major cities.

Therefore, the train operator is expecting to run a very limited timetable and is suggesting customers do not travel on the strike dates and, wherever possible, not to travel on those in-between as well.

Customers should try to find alternative transport if their journey is essential with details of the services able to run to be released as soon as possible.

In response to the RMT announcing strikes, Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said: “Our ability to get customers where they want to be will be significantly impacted and our advice, regrettably, is simply not to travel during the week of strike action.

“We apologise in advance for the disruption and inconvenience that the RMT’s industrial action may cause. We continue to be keen to speak to the RMT to find a resolution and avoid any strikes.”

The timing of the strike action has a knock-on effect on the days in-between with disruption of operations, the displacement of their trains across the network and shift patterns.

Northern usually runs nearly 2,000 services a day to 540 stations across the North of England.