What are your experiences of trying to travel on a train strike day?

[StrandedUpNorth22]

I need to travel between Manchester and London on one of the days when there is a train strike. I'm aware that the train operators have tried to maintain a minimum service on major routes on previous strike days but didn't pay much attention at the time as I didn't need to travel.

For anyone who did travel by train (or attempted to) on a strike day, what was your experience? Was the timetable for the strike day published very late on? Were there still unplanned cancellations on the day? How busy were the trains that actually ran ie could you get on them?

My husband managed to travel on strike dates - just his normal commute so about a 50 minute journey into London.

He kept checking the timetable and it was accurate on the day and not too bad as so many people didn’t travel.

Just keep checking the timetable and make sure that there is a minimal service rather than no service. Good luck 😊

We found a train operator that was not taking part in the strike and booked tickets and seats so all was ok. The train was not overly busy. However that was inbound. Going out, we used a company that was striking, and they had cancellations a couple of days leading up to strike day (assume due to logistics of keeping trains where they needed to be after strike day).

It would never put me off travelling on a strike day again.

Even striking companies have some trains running but we didn't trust them to cancel last min.

Thanks for your replies. It's about a 6-hour journey by coach and only 2 by train so I think I will probably take my chances on getting a train.

Sorry to jump on this but would also love to know! I have just seen three strike days announced and need to travel on two of them . One of them I really can't change but both my local train companies are on strike