Deserted railway stations across the UK resemble the “darkest days of Covid”, Network Rail’s chief executive has said amid the biggest rail strikes in three decades.
Speaking from the concourse at Waterloo station on Tuesday morning, Andrew Haines said the major London transport hub was like a “wasteland”.
“It’s devastating for passengers,” he told Sky News. “I mean this is a wasteland and it’s like the darkest days of Covid – passengers alienated from the railway because we can’t run a service for them and it breaks my heart.
“I really, really apologise to passengers who are facing that and we know there are some real life issues for people who can’t travel today. It’s so wrong.”
Mr Haines also denied that the government pressured to cap a proposed pay increase for rail workers at 3 per cent.
Half of Britain’s rail lines will be closed on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday as members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and Unite walk out over pay, jobs and conditions.
Commuter chaos as Londoners brave rail and Tube strikes to get to work
Commuters faced the full force of travel chaos this morning as they crammed into buses, waited hopelessly for trains and walked for miles in the hope of making it into work amid Britain’s biggest rail strike in 30 years.
Victoria, Waterloo and Euston stations were almost empty on Tuesday morning with just a tiny fraction of the usual crowds of commuters waiting for a reduced train service as others turned to alternative means of getting into offices.
Reporters Thomas Kingsley and Maryam Zakir-Hussain were on the ground in London speaking to people as they attempted to navigate the strikes this morning:
Chiara Giordano21 June 2022 12:42
Bar manager forks out £30 for Uber in place of local train service
MJ Shannon, a bar manager, had to take a £30 Uber taxi, instead of a local train service, from Hale, Cheshire, where she was at a training event, to get to Manchester Piccadilly before a train home to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Ms Shannon, a bar manager, said: “I’m trying to get back to Newcastle. It’s not the worst inconvenience in the world, all the major lines are still running.
“Hopefully my train home will be in 45 minutes. We will see what happens.”
People wait on an empty platform on the first day of a national rail strike at Manchester Piccadilly Station
(Phil Noble/Reuters)
Chiara Giordano21 June 2022 12:30
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