Going off the rails: strikes, fare rises and broken signals pile on passengers' misery

Two weeks ahead of the next fare rise, millions of rail passengers are enduring miserable journeys.

- SIMON CALDER JABED AHMED

A combination of toxic industrial relations, widespread infrastructure failures and repeated line closures could undermine travellers’ trust in the railway.

The deterioration in service is despite public subsidies being at an all-time high, with taxpayers pumping £400 per second into the railway – an annual total of £12.5bn.

Here are the main issues facing railway passengers at present in 2025.

Railway strikes

The UK’s busiest rail route – the Elizabeth line through the heart of London – is closed all weekend for engineering work. Later this month a series of train drivers’ strikes will begin on the line, causing chaos for commuters and visitors to the capital.

The drivers, who are members of the Aslef union, have emphatically rejected a 4.5 per cent pay offer that would have taken their annual wages to £75,725 for a four-day week.

Mick Whelan, Aslef’s general secretary, accused the employers of failing to “recognise the input, the importance and the value of train drivers”. The Elizabeth line is expected to be largely shut down during the walkouts on 27 February and 1, 8 and 10 March.

On Fridays and Saturdays from 7 March to 26 April, train drivers working for Hull Trains will strike. Aslef says the rail firm, which links Hull with Doncaster, Grantham and London, “unfairly sacked a train driver who raised a safety concern”.

The shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon said: “When Labour kowtow to trade union barons, it’s the public who are left feeling the effects.

“This weak Labour government cannot negotiate its way out of a paper bag, bowing to union demands time and time again, and now look at the consequences.”