Apparently this Easter season could prove to be a major problem for national rail users. This news comes as millions of travelers face travel problems caused by a strike threat. This would be the first national rial strike since 1994.

The maintenance workers and signalers with the RMT union are currently being balloted on action over job cuts and changes to working practices. The results of this ballot are due next week. Network Rail, which owns the country’s tracks, signals and stations, said a walkout by signalers could bring trains across the network to a halt.

The Network Rail director of operations, Robin Gisby, said that he expects 5,5000 signalers and thousands of maintenance staff to strike at the same time over the Easter holiday. He went on to say that their guess is that it will come together Easter weekend. Despite this threat, the company will not be backing down over the changes to shift patterns and voluntary job cuts. Robin said that he cannot live with the RMT holding the whole country at ransom.

Network Rial currently employs some 18,000 maintenance workers and is cutting about 1,500 posts. The vast majority of these cuts are being achieved through voluntary redundancies as new equipment and techniques transform the duties of maintenance staff as a whole. Network Rail said that they would be able to withstand a strike by maintenance workers for a week. Anything longer could speed restrictions imposed in order to protect tracks. Some of the branch lines would have to be shut down altogether. However, a strike by signalers would cause significant problems across the board.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 10:04 am and is filed under Travel News, UK News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.