Would you miss a day of holiday or travel on a strike day?

[reggiethebulldog]

Our much awaited summer break is next week. Going for a week to the coast. Booked our train tickets when they came out to ensure we could get reasonable first class travel, and wouldn't struggle for space or seats et cetera. 5 hour journey from London, direct train.

Because of the train strikes, our train has been cancelled. Yipee. Now on the strike day, we can get there by going for 3 hours in first class (no first service or reservations) and 3 hours in standard class (no reservations. Or we can skip the first night of our holiday, and travel down on the Sunday where we could have first class for 4 hours and standard for the last one.

What would you do? Has anyone travelled on a strike day?

Last time I needed to travel on a strike day I went by coach. It was fine, and so much cheaper. We will do it more often now.

I get antsy about cancellations on strike days so personally I would avoid on a nonessential journey, but you might be absolutely fine. Maybe price up going a day earlier and having a night in a basic hotel, if the alternative is paying a premium for first class.

oh no - god forbid you have to travel standard class, I can't imagine the horror :-)

yeah I missed that angle!

Maybe I spent too many years commuting, I am more concerned whether they will turn up at all.

I'd go the next day.

I had to Manchester to Euston last night, had a prebooked seats so I was ok but it was sooooooooooo busy, you couldnt get through the vestiblules to go to the toilet, huge cases filling the aisles, one carriage had no a/c so everyone was trying to escape that. It was that busy because everyone was trying to get to where tehy wanted to be before they started shutting down the trains for the strike.

What is your route, are there any events on that will make it busier? The West coast line is diverting through Birmingham at the moment which is slow going and adding extra to journey time.

Short answer, no I wouldn't travel on a strike day even with reservations because they can and will just cancel the service.

I wouldn't miss a day's holiday if trains are running and taking a similar length of time. Pita about the reservations but I've travelled on strike days and it's been fine as long as I've targeted the trains that are running . There might still be disruption the next day due to trains not on the right place etc so I'd just bite the bullet personally.

Isn't it more the lack of reservations and potential busyness of the train, which might lead to not having any seats, which is the issue? Rather than travelling in standard class..

maybe, I have no idea

personally I would look into going the evening before & maybe staying over somewhere local to the holiday

I have zero sympathy with the train staff anymore, selfish and need to get real.

If you can afford a first class train ticket then I'm not surprised you can't empathise with those striking.

Do you have kids with you? And how old are they?

Personally I think it's very risky, they could cancel the train completely, stop it half way there and kick you off, or you could end up standing and like sardines the whole way.

Is going a day early and staying in a premier inn or similar an option?

You should know that first class can be declassified if standard class gets extremely overcrowded. It's extremely difficult to predict how crowded trains will be on strike days.