Railway users urged only to travel by train if ‘absolutely necessary’ as union members set to strike over pay and working conditions

Staff at Network Rail and more than 2,100 SWR members of the RMT union are set to take strike action over pay, jobs, and working conditions on Saturday, October 8.

South Western Railway customers are urged only to travel by rail if ‘absolutely necessary’ on October 8 and 9.

SWR will run a severely reduced service on October 8, with significant parts of the network closed entirely, and October 9 will also be significantly impacted by the strike with first trains across the network starting much later than usual.

Long-planned engineering work will also reduce the network available to SWR, meaning fewer services will run compared to previous strike days.

Specifically, SWR will be unable to run services between Basingstoke and Southampton on the mainline and services towards Windsor will only run as far as Hounslow.

Steve Tyler, performance and planning director, said: ‘I’m sorry that due to strike action we must urge our customers to only travel if absolutely necessary on Saturday, October 8 and Sunday, October 9. Those needing to travel should seek to do so by other means.

‘Large parts of our network will be closed on the strike day and there will be a late start up on the morning after.

‘Those who must travel are urged to carefully check the times of first and last trains and avoid them if possible as they are likely to be very busy.’