Tube strike February 2017: Walk-out under way as Transport for London warns of rush-hour chaos

Tom Powell22 February 2017

Transport bosses said the 24-hour Tube strike set to cripple two London Underground lines is going ahead despite last-ditch attempts to thrash out a deal.

Central line services were set to become increasingly infrequent from 9pm Tuesday evening as the drivers’ walk-out got underway – with stations expected to begin closing around 11pm.

But the full impact of the strike, held by members of both the RMT and Aslef unions, is set to be felt during Wednesday morning’s rush hour as hundreds of thousands of Londoners seek alternative routes to work.

The Central line will be left with no service east of Leytonstone and a reduced service on the rest of the line all day.

The Waterloo & City line, which uses the same pool of drivers, will have no service all day.

A Transport for London spokeswoman told the Standard on Tuesday evening: “The strike is still going ahead from this evening. We will start seeing services closing slightly early but the main impact will be tomorrow.

“We will try to run as many services as possible but we don’t know how many drivers are going to turn up.”

Signs at Queensway station (NIGEL HOWARD)
NIGEL HOWARD ©

London Underground (LU) has issued a warning to passengers that other lines will be busier as a result of the disruption and said passengers may have to queue outside stations during rush hour.

Anyone travelling to or from Leytonstone is advised that buses from the station will be extremely busy. TfL urged passengers to take a bus from Stratford or Leyton instead.

Tube strike chaos

1/17

Those wishing to use Ilford station could take the bus to Barking and use the District or Hammersmith & City lines.

Peter McNaught, operations director for the Central Line, said the strike was "unnecessary".

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

He added: "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.

"All of these moves are within the long-standing agreements we have made with the unions.

"We urge them to engage with us to resolve this issue and to withdraw the strike action, which will only cause needless disruption to Londoners."

Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: "RMT negotiators have made strenuous efforts through the Acas machinery to resolve this dispute but the door has been slammed in our faces.

"To up the ante, LU have now written to us confirming that they will be bulldozing through the displacements regardless.

"If LU are allowed to get away with this move on the Central Line they will start shunting drivers around 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.

Faces of frustration: Battling the Tube strike

1/17

"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."

Normal service is expected to resume on Thursday morning.

For updates follow TfL on Twitter or visit the Transport for London website.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in