Today, I received this update from South Western Railway regarding proposed strike action.

From: Andy Mellors
Date: 21 November 2019 at 4:15:04 pm GMT
To: Nikki Barton
Subject: South Western Railway Update

Dear Cllr Barton,

I am contacting you regarding the prospect of industrial action taking place on the South Western Railway network and the impact this could have on passengers in your local area.

The RMT union has called 28 days of strike action which will disrupt our train services throughout December. The action is due to commence on 2 December and last until the New Year.

I very much hope we can avoid the strikes happening at all and we’re still open to discussions with the RMT.

However, we are working very hard planning for how we keep our passengers moving if the strikes do go ahead. 

This dispute centres around the role of guards on SWR’s trains.  We have publicly promised that there will always be guards on our trains, helping deliver the train service passengers need and want, and that our guards will have a safety critical role.

All we’re asking is that our guards work with us to bring in our new trains, which our estimates show could mean over 10 million more passenger journeys arrive on-time in peak hours every year.

We still hope these promises will help avoid strike action. However, we are putting plans in place to keep as many passengers as possible moving throughout the strike should it proceed:

• By early next week we will publish downloadable, detailed timetables for services that will still be running during the strike, once these have been finalised. We will also be publishing some frequently asked questions to help passengers plan their journey

• We are working with other transport providers so as many tickets as possible can be accepted on other rail and bus networks

• We are committed to doing everything we can to provide people, business, councils, community groups and other organisations with the most detailed and up-to-date information we have and will be providing the latest travel information on our website

I don’t want this strike to happen. It doesn’t need to happen, and I hope the promises we’ve made to our guards will help reassure them that the strike is unnecessary.

However, if the strike does go ahead we will be doing everything we can to get our passengers to where they need to go in the run-up to Christmas and New Year.

We will provide you with regular updates as and when new information is available.

You can find the latest information at www.southwesternrailway.com/strike 

Kind regards

Andy Mellors
Managing Director
South Western Railway