3rd Tube Strike begins this evening

From 9pm tonight - 2nd November the TSSA and RMT unions will start the third of their 24-hour strikes. That's drivers and station staff. Maintenance engineers will be walking out earlier at 7pm.

Remember as with the previous two strikes, the trains don't all suddenly stop at once, as staff continue working until the end of their shift. Plus not everyone who drives a London Underground train or works at a Tube station is a member of the above unions or will be striking.


As before it's best to check with TfL's (now sadly familiar) tube strike page this evening and on Wednesday 3rd November to see what is actually running and what's not (it's been updated to include a list of stations which are expected to be closed). On the last strike in October around 60% - 70% of trains weren't running.


Yesterday Boris Johnson called the strikes pointless and said: 'Londoners have shown that they will not be deterred from their daily business by these pointless strikes.

'The action of the union leaderships may cause some inconvenience but we are determined to keep the Capital moving by providing a plethora of alternatives so that people can get around.

'Whether by bus, boat or bike when Londoners beat the strike for a third time I hope the RMT and TSSA leaderships will face facts and see that their action achieves nothing aside from depriving their members of another day's pay.'


October 4th Tube Strike -- TFL Employee by C. G. P. Grey
Transport Commissioner, Peter Hendy, echoed this and said of the unions' grievances over the 800 job reductions: "We have explained that the changes come with no compulsory redundancies and no loss of earnings, and mean that stations will continue to be staffed and every station with a ticket office will continue to have one.

"Despite exhaustive talks over the last week, the union leaderships remain intent on disrupting Londoners."

Both unions blame Boris for breaking his election pledges to keep ticket offices open. RMT leader Bob Crow said "The message is simple: suspend these cuts and we will suspend our action." TSSA General Secretary Gerry Doherty added "Instead of trying to impress the Tory shires with his anti trade union rhetoric, he should be sitting down with us to work out a fair solution to this dispute which no one wants."

Even though "no one wants" the disputes, we should brace ourselves for yet another strike which is due to take place from 7pm on Sunday 28th November. Commuters now seem to be resigned with the strikes, with no resolution in sight and we could easily see these disputes running through to Christmas. Sadly for Bob Crow he won't find Londoners who want to "look across the [English] Channel to the kind of resistance being mobilized by the French trade unions, which enjoys overwhelming public support." These strikes have an overwhelming lack of public support and I can't see this changing any time soon.

Good luck getting to work and home on Wednesday.

In case you missed the web's best London Underground Strike Jokes from the Telegraph! It may help to cheer you up!

Update - Wednesday 3rd November

Very few lines are running a full service and those that are have a number of station closures.


This is the status as of 9.08am on TfL's site, so please check your lines before travel today. Even though the strike ends at 9pm tonight, things are unlikely to get back to normal until Thursday morning. Good luck!