Three-day weekend strike affecting South Western Railway services begins
A strike on South Western Railway (SWR) services started overnight, and is due to last all weekend, causing disruption to commuters.
The three-day strike started at midnight Friday and runs until midnight Sunday, leaving SWR running a reduced service across all routes save its island line to the Isle of Wight.
It affects lines from locations like Reading, Bristol, Southampton into London Waterloo and Clapham Junction.
Around half of normal Saturday and Sunday services will run this weekend, while SWR will put some additional services on to carry passengers going to the Bournemouth Air Festival and between Salisbury and Yeovil.
Bus replacement services will run, with tickets being accepted on other rail and bus networks. You can find more details on SWR's website.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash, whose union voted for the industrial action, said members are “standing rock solid and united across the SWR network”.
It is calling for SWR to keep guards on trains, claiming it has reduced their numbers of trains. SWR disagrees, claiming it has committed to roster a second person on all of its trains.
"Instead of winging it on passenger safety today by deploying well-paid and under-trained managers as bogus guards the company should be round the table working out an agreement that puts safety first and keeps a real guard on our trains,” said Cash.
“RMT is angry and frustrated that efforts by the union to get an agreement on the guard guarantee with South Western Railway bolted down has been repeatedly kicked back in our faces by a company that refuses to move the process on and address the fundamental issues.”
An SWR spokesperson said: “As the RMT persists with this unnecessary action on the final weekend of the summer holidays, we are working hard to keep customers moving and minimise disruption as much as possible.
“Customers should check before they travel and expect services to be much busier than normal.”
Strikes will affect services at the same times on Saturday 8 September and Saturday 15 September.