Scotland’s rail network disruption continues into Wednesday amid strikes

Major disruption across Scotland’s rail network will continue into Wednesday after the first of three planned one-day strikes.

Network Rail members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union began industrial action on Tuesday, and will continue on Thursday and Saturday this week.

ScotRail said it is only able to run services on just five routes on these days, which will only operate between 7.30am and 6.30pm.

But on the days in between, there will be continued disruption to services, the train operator warned.

This is mainly due to a delay to the start of services as signallers and control room staff are not doing overnight shifts.

ScotRail said while the large signalling centres at Yoker, West of Scotland and Edinburgh will be able to operate from 7.15am, this will not be the case at manual boxes elsewhere and it may well be early afternoon before many routes are able to operate as normal.

The train company said this is particularly the case for routes outside the Central Belt.

Some routes, including the Dundee to Aberdeen and Dundee to Glasgow routes, will only see one train running on Wednesday.

Inverness to Glasgow will only see three services running in the afternoon, with Glasgow to Perth and Stirling services just running one train each in the evening.

ScotRail has advised passengers wishing to travel on Wednesday and Friday to look on its website for updated timetables as services will be more reduced than normal.

Some 40,000 members of the RMT union and 13 train operators walked out on Tuesday in a bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

Much of Britain had no passenger trains for the entire day, including most of Scotland and Wales and parts of England including the whole of Cornwall and Dorset.

Just a fifth of trains across the UK ran on the first strike day, and half of all lines were closed, with more cancellations and delays expected to continue this week.

Many passengers’ journeys took several hours longer than normal while those who chose to travel by car instead were met with large traffic queues.

Gordon Martin, RMT regional organiser for Scotland, said the strike is the last resort for members and said they were looking for a “meaningful offer” to resolve the dispute.

Nick King, a spokesman for Network Rail in Scotland, said a modernised railway could improve its pay offer for staff by passing on savings.

He told Good Morning Scotland the strike could be resolved if the union moved its position on working practices and any reduction in staff would take place on a voluntary basis.