Simon Calder delivers verdict on rail disruption this winter

Simon Calder delivers verdict on rail disruption this winterSimon Calder, The Independent, PA

Transcript

00:00 I'm afraid it is going to be a miserable December for rail travellers.

00:06 Effectively there's an entire advent calendar starting with nine days of an overtime ban

00:12 by the train drivers union Aslef, a whole series of rolling strikes right across England,

00:19 then we get into the schedule cuts and who could forget Christmas engineering works which

00:24 are going to be particularly bad on Christmas Eve.

00:28 Thank goodness that at least part of the industrial strife that has made passengers journeys

00:34 miserable for the last year and a half is finally looking as though it's over.

00:40 The RMT I think pretty exhausted, they've lost thousands of pounds in striking, they

00:45 are going to be happy to settle for a no strings increase and then talk at a local level about

00:53 productivity improvements.

00:55 Train drivers unions say we want a decent no strings pay increase, some of us haven't

01:01 had any wage rise for five years and if you want to talk about productivity we can do

01:06 that but it's going to cost you extra.

01:09 The government and the train operators meanwhile say you're joking, revenue from ticket sales

01:15 has collapsed, we're 20% down, the only way we can afford to give you any kind of pay

01:21 rise is if you make things more efficient.

01:25 caught in the middle of the poor old passenger.