Thousands of Huddersfield commuters will face rail chaos on Monday when industrial action takes place on Northern’s network.
A revised train timetable which will operate during the action was published by Northern today.
The train operator says it expects to run approximately 980 services, or around 40% of its normal timetable, carrying more than 100,000 customers across many but not all of its routes in the north of England.
Northern says all of its services are expected to be extremely busy and says customers ought to give themselves extra time to travel and consider whether their journey is necessary.
The RMT union is disputing plans to bring in more driver-only-operated trains, with the union describing the revised timetable as a “scab timetable” and said it “comes at the price of passenger safety”.
On Monday, Northern’s first Huddersfield to Leeds service will be the 7.56am. Thereafter, there will be a further nine services on the hour finishing just before 6pm along with 10 Leeds/Huddersfield services.
A Northern spokesman said: “As it stands there are no Northern services heading south out of Huddersfield.
“We are currently working on rail replacement bus provision and hope to be able to provide further updates tomorrow at the latest.
“At present we would advise customers in Marsden to look at taking the local bus service to Huddersfield – which I believe is the 180.”
Richard Allan, deputy managing director at Northern, said: “We have focused our planning efforts on maintaining a train service on our busier routes between 7am and 7pm, and are looking to provide replacement bus services on some routes where trains won’t run.
“We are acutely aware of the important role that Northern plays in keeping the north of England moving, would ask for your patience on Monday, and ask all our customers to individually take time to consider whether your journey is necessary and if it is, please plan carefully.”
“Northern has more than 100 trained managers and other colleagues who will be carrying out some conductor duties to operate the revised timetable following the decision by the RMT union to hold a strike by Northern conductors on 13 March.
“We will have people out across the network during the coming week to assist customers and answer any questions they might have.
“Information will also be displayed on posters at all stations across our network and on customer information screens where available.”
