Train strikes: Rail drivers walk out ahead of Eurovision final

A strike by train drivers caused disruption for rail passengers on Friday and services are set to be affected across the weekend.

Members of the Aslef train drivers' union walked out from 16 companies, with some running no services at all.

These included TransPennine, Northern, Avanti, Thameslink and Southern.

On Saturday - the day of the Eurovision final in Liverpool - the RMT union is taking separate strike action, which will affect 14 rail operators.

As well as Friday's walkout, Aslef is also striking on Wednesday 31 May and Saturday 3 June - the day of the FA Cup final.

Aslef insisted that Friday's strike was not scheduled to affect travel to the Eurovision final.

But both Aslef and the RMT have been accused by Transport Secretary Mark Harper of targeting the contest.

Train companies said the action was "likely to result in little or no services across large areas of the network", with services also disrupted on the days immediately after the strikes.

Passengers need to plan ahead and check services before travel, they said.

The first that Monika, a 26-year-old librarian from Whitstable, knew about the strikes was when she turned up at the railway station on Friday morning.

She told the BBC she had a flight booked from Stansted to Warsaw for an important family gathering, but when she tried to get a taxi to the airport, they were all busy.

She then travelled to Canterbury, thinking it would be easier to get a cab, but by the time she got there she had missed her flight.

Monika booked another flight from Heathrow, but then had to get a taxi there. All in, with cab fares and plane tickets, Monika paid out nearly £600 - wiping out most of her savings and forcing her to borrow from her parents.

"It is a lot for me," she said. "I work in a library so I'm on a low income."

Monika said she felt "really frustrated" by the situation. But she added that she feels sympathy for the striking train workers and is "100% behind" them.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan told the BBC that if the union had deliberately targeted the Eurovision final, it would have taken action on the "Friday, Saturday and the Sunday" instead.

Mr Whelan added: "We don't want to hurt anybody, but there is no good day for a strike. If you pick any one day in any given week you'll hit some event."

However, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents train firms, insisted that the action was timed to hit Eurovision and would "disrupt the plans of thousands of fans".

The Department for Transport said it was "hard to believe" Aslef would be "unaware of the huge impact" on Eurovision of its action.

Mr Whelan was asked whether Aslef would be able to find a "middle ground" with the government, but he said talks were not ongoing.

"I haven't seen the government since January... they take no ownership," he told the BBC. "They don't talk to us, only the [rail] companies."

Rail Minister Huw Merriman insisted Aslef had been offered a "fair and reasonable" pay deal.

"We had a good positive meeting... and it was agreed with Mick Whelan and the Rail Delivery Group that they'd go off and have further talks," he said.

He added that a pay offer was put to Aslef but had not been "put through" to members to vote on, which he was "disappointed" with.

Asked why the government was not doing more to end the disputes, Mr Merriman argued that being a train driver is a "well-paid job" and said it would be "even more so if this pay offer was put forward to members and accepted".

"At the moment a train driver is paid on average, for a 35-hour week, just short of £60,000," he told the BBC. "The latest offer would take them up to £65,000."

But Mr Whelan told the BBC it was a "malicious lie" that the offer was fair and reasonable "because the strings attached to it rip up every condition we've gained over the last 140 years".

He said the offer was less than inflation "so in effect it's a 20% pay cut for giving all our terms and conditions", and negotiations had been "scuppered" by union "red lines" being put back into the deal.

Harry Cunningham, 23, who lives in London, had been planning to get the train on Friday to Liverpool and stay the night for the Eurovision Village grand final on Saturday.

When the strikes were announced, he and his friend looked into other transport options but any alternative would have been three times longer than the train.

He said it was "crushing" and "heartbreaking" that they wouldn't be able to go.

"It's a huge disappointment... this is something we've been planning and prepping for since September."

There have already been six strike days in Aslef's long-running pay dispute.

The industry and the government say the railway's finances are unsustainable, so ways of working have to change and efficiencies be made, in return for wages going up.

Unions point out the pay rises on the table are way below inflation, and argue their members' jobs and working conditions are being attacked.

Last month, Aslef rejected the latest proposals from the group representing train companies.

They included:

Separately, RMT members who work as maintenance workers and signallers at Network Rail voted to accept a deal in March, ending that dispute.

But the parallel dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions with 14 train companies goes on.

The RMT's committee has rejected the train companies' latest offer, including a 5% pay rise one year and 4% the next.

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