East Midlands Railways (EMR) is warning passengers to expect “significant disruption” next week, with no trains running at all on Friday 5 April. And the RAC predicts congestion on the roads this coming weekend, with more than 14 million leisure journeys being made in cars over the weekend. Good Friday (29 March) is expected to the busiest day.
Industrial action by the train drivers’ union Aslef is behind EMR’s inability to run trains on Friday 5 April. It coincides with a period of industrial action which includes overtime bans between Thursday 4 April and Tuesday 9 April.
EMR warn of the possibility of short notice cancellations and alterations to the normal timetable. On Saturday 6 April, EMR will operate an amended timetable between Liverpool Lime Street and Sheffield to better accommodate the number of customers it is expecting to use this route. This will mean a change to the routes normal stopping pattern and customers are advised to check their full journey, including first and last trains, before travelling.
“This approach from the Aslef union means different parts of the network and different train operating companies are affected at different times”, Will Rogers, EMR’s managing director, said. “Unfortunately, this will mean customers could be impacted by a complicated period of possible delays and disruption.
“Customers are advised to check our website to understand how their whole journey is affected before setting off and can expect possible disruption or late notice cancellations.”
Before that, though, is the Easter weekend, which is traditionally one of the busiest times on the UK’s road networks as school holidays and an extended bank holiday weekend coincides with at least hope of warm weather.
National Highways say that they are lifting 850 miles of roadworks over the bank holiday to help motorists, and that as a result, some 98 per cent of England’s motorway and major A road network will be free from roadworks.
They had set themselves a deadline of 6.00 am this morning (Thursday) to remove the roadworks, and say that they won’t put them back until Tuesday 2 April.
“With Easter falling earlier than usual at the start of the school holidays, it could be ‘carmageddon’ for holidaymakers”, RAC Breakdown’s Alice Simpson said. “Anyone who can delay leaving on Thursday 28 March until much later in the evening or set off as early as possible on Good Friday is likely to have a better journey than those who travel during the peak periods of the day.
“On every journey there are key pinch points where you can save yourself lots of valuable time if you can get through before everyone else. This will be especially true over the whole Easter holidays as our research shows two-thirds (64 per cent) of drivers will be making a leisure journey on major roads at some point.
“Lengthy queues can be expected along routes to the usual hotspots like the West Country, the Lake District and the south coast, especially during the middle of the day when most people make trips. While a good proportion of drivers aren’t yet tying themselves to a date, there may be even more cars on the road than anticipated if the sun decides to make an appearance.
“To have the best chance of a straightforward journey, we encourage motorists to check fuel, oil and coolant levels, along with tyre pressures and treads, before setting off.”
