Tube strike 2017: Chaos as one million passengers hit by Underground and Southern Rail walkouts

Dick Murray22 February 2017

More than one million passengers suffered major disruption on Wednesday as combined Tube and rail strikes hit services across large parts of London and the south of England.

Sections of the Central line, used by more than 800,000 passengers a day were closed with severe delays to the remainder of the route.

There was no service at the Eastern end between Leytonstone and Epping via Woodford with delays throughout central London to West Ruislip.

Waterloo & City line services – the direct one-stop link between the mainline station and Bank – used by 32,000 passengers a day were suspended.

Tube Strike: 22nd February 2017

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Southern Rail mainline services, carrying 300,000 plus passengers a day, suffered cancellations and delays because of a 24-hour walkout – the 29th strike – by train guards in the long running dispute over driver-only operation (DOO.)

The company reported disruption to all 10 line groups including the Brighton line and Gatwick Express.

Southern commuters changing to South West Trains services arriving at Waterloo were then hit by the strike on the Waterloo & City line.

There were no trains at all on some routes including those between Clapham Junction and Milton Keynes Central via Kensington Olympia/Watford Junction. Some services between Eastbourne and Brighton and London Bridge were cancelled.

On the Tube stations serving other lines were much busier than usual as commuters sought alternative routes to and from work.

Disruption: Large crowds formed at Ilford 
ITV London

The situation was not expected to improve – on either the Tube or Southern - during the day with passengers facing the same problems getting home again in the evening.

There were huge queues outside many stations including Chingford, Ilford and Leytonstone.

The Victoria line was also much busier than usual particularly at Walthamstow Central along with the Jubilee line between London Bridge and Waterloo.

The Tube dispute is over the “forced” transfer of eight drivers from their home depot at Leytonstone to others further afield, mainly Earl’s Court.

A new row broke over the transfer as London Underground (LU) said it was entitled to move the drivers under a “mobility clause” in their contracts, seen by the Evening Standard.

That states: “Your normal working location will be Leytonstone Train Crew depot Central Line.

“LU will endeavour to allocate you to an operating location convenient to you but reserves the right to require you to work at any place it may from time to time determine within the area served by LU and London Buses.”

Peter McNaught, Operations Director for the Central line, said: “I apologise to customers for the disruption that this unnecessary strike is causing.

“We have made all reasonable efforts to resolve this dispute through talking through the issues with the unions, and we have minimised the number of employees affected from over 30 to eight.

Strike action: The Central line will have no service east of Leytonstone
Transport for London

“All of these moves are within the long-standing agreements we have made with the unions. We call on the RMT to honour this long-standing agreement ‎and join us for more talks to resolve this issue.”

An RMT spokesman countered: “LU has made absolutely no effort at all to allocate drivers to their home depot. That is the point of the argument – they are just pushing people across the network without agreement.”

Mick Cash, RMT General Secretary, said: “Let us be in no doubt, if LU are allowed to get away with this move on the Central Line they will start shunting drivers around the combine at the drop of a hat regardless of the consequences.

"Our members will be sent out from pillar to post to plug gaps that are solely down to staffing shortages. With massive budget cuts in the pipeline at LU this is a straw in the wind as to how the company expects to operate in the future.”

Finn Brennan, Aslef’s organiser for LU, said: “For weeks (LU) didn’t even bother to meet with us; when we offered to explore alternatives to forced displacement that would incur no extra cost to the company, they dismissed it out of hand.

“This isn’t just a matter of management not sticking to agreements, though we don’t believe they have.

“No reasonable employer would force staff to move location, adding hours to their travelling time without exploring other alternatives.

“And when staff show just how upset they are by a large strike vote, you would expect any reasonable employer to say ‘clearly there is a problem here, we need to find a way to fix it’.

"Instead, LU directors seem to shrug their shoulders and think ‘let them go on strike if they want to’.”

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