'Only travel if necessary': Rail travellers warned of Bank Holiday weekend disruption during strike

A train operator is warning of “significant disruption” to the rail network ahead of this Bank Holiday weekend.

Rail passengers are being warned “a very limited service” will be in operation on the West Midlands Railway (WMR) network on Friday and Saturday (May 22 and 23) due to planned strike action by members of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) trade union.

The operator is warning passengers to “only travel if necessary” as trains will only be running on a small number of routes.

A spokesperson for WMR said: “If you do travel, please be prepared for significant disruption to your journey.”

No WMR services will be operating on the Shrewsbury to Birmingham line via Wolverhampton, along with all routes via Birmingham Snow Hill, the Camp Hill Line, Hereford Line and between Nuneaton and Leamington Spa.

Three routes on both dates will operate to a reduced timetable, with no trains running after 7pm on Friday and a later 7am start of service on Saturday.

Those running include the Wolverhampton to Walsall via Birmingham New Street line which will be running one train per hour; the Cross City Line (Lichfield Trent Valley to Redditch/Bromsgrove via Birmingham New Street) which will be running two trains per hour; and the Rugeley Trent Valley to Birmingham Internation line which will be running one train per hour.

Ian McConnell, WMR managing director, said: “We encourage TSSA to continue talks with us to reach a resolution to this dispute.

“This strike action will cause disruption to our customers with a significantly reduced timetable in operation on both dates.

“We are doing all we can to minimise the impact as far as possible and apologise to customers for the inconvenience.

“However, where services are running, we advise customers to only travel if necessary and to allow more time for their journey."

More informaton, including FAQs, can be found on the West Midlands Railway website.