Southern will restore a full train service from next Tuesday after a driver’s union suspended planned industrial action.
Aslef members had been due to strike for three days next week but the union suspended industrial action before fresh talks between the two sides aimed at resolving a dispute over driver-only trains.
A ban on drivers’ overtime was also lifted at midnight last night but it came too late to prevent widespread disruption to today’s service.
Whilst the strikes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday next week have been called off, separate action will take place on Monday by members of The RMT union. The union has, however, requested to join peace talks beginning today.
Southern said it would not be able to reintroduce a full timetable before Tuesday because work rosters were issued before Aslef called off the strikes.
Advertisement
Angie Doll, Southern’s passenger services director, said: “The RMT should now recognise that their industrial action is wholly futile. They should stop the strikes, get back round the table with us and move forward together with us, delivering a better railway for our passengers.”
“Whilst inevitably there will be disruption next Monday, the good news is that due to the changes we’ve now fully rolled out, we’re now able to run more services on more routes serving more passengers and ultimately we’ll have fewer cancellations and delays.
“Next Monday, 200 extra trains will be running and several routes will have their first service on an RMT strike day.”
Southern said it will run more than 70 per cent of its trains next Monday - 10 per cent more of its normal timetable than it has operated on previous conductor strike days.
This includes previously suspended routes between Eastbourne to Hastings, Lewes to Haywards Heath and Chichester to Portsmouth and Southampton.
Advertisement
A spokesperson for Aslef said industrial action could not now be reinstated if talks failed.