More strike action on the South's railways today
South Western, Southern and Great Western services are affected
Last updated 18th Aug 2022
We’re at the start of a several days of disruption for commuters in the South, as around 40,000 members of staff walk out across the country.
Three unions - the RMT, Unite and the TSSA - are all staging 24 hour walkouts on Thursday (August 18th) in a continuing dispute over pay and conditions.
Here in the South, South Western Railway, Great Western Railway and Southern are all affected.
SWR will run no services at all in Dorset on strike days, while no trains will run to Portsmouth stations and only a limited number will operate from Southampton Central to and from London Waterloo.
Great Western Railway has scrapped services to and from Southampton, Portsmouth and Weymouth on days with industrial action.
And Southern will not be running any trains between Southampton, Portsmouth, Chichester and Bognor Regis.
Another strike day's planned for Saturday (20th August) and we're also warned that morning services will be affected tomorrow (Friday 19th) and Sunday (21st August) as well, due to trains and staff being in different locations, and signal staff not starting work until later than normal.
People have already been advised by train operators to seek other means of travel for the rest of this week.
South Western Railway’s Commercial Director, Peter Williams, said:
“We know that a combination of sunny weather and school holidays make a day trip to one of the brilliant beaches on our network a tempting prospect. That’s why we’re sorry to have to ask our customers to only travel if absolutely necessary over the forthcoming strike period.
“The scale of the action will be incredibly disruptive for our customers with large parts of our network closed on strike days and a late start up on the morning after each strike day. First trains will run much later than usual and are likely to be very busy, so if you have to travel, please do so later if you can.
“We are sorry that strikes will again cause such disruption. We are grateful to our customers for their continued cooperation, patience, and understanding as the rail industry works to bring this damaging nationwide strike action to an end."