This Saturday, West travel to play City of Liverpool at the TDP Solicitors Stadium. Fans making their way by public transport are asked to bear in mind that routes in an out of Liverpool will be affected by a planned RMT strike, which means that services from Manchester will be limited to around 1 per hour, and may be subject to replacement bus services.
In addition, this weekend sees Liverpool host the Giants Spectacular, which will see a number of roads closed and congestion expected both on public transport and roads around Liverpool. You can find a list of road closures here: https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/16952773.giant-spectacular-road-closures-and-parking-restrictions-revealed/
With this in mind, West fans are asked to plan their journey to and from the game accordingly, and expect that there may be delays or diversions.
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) is striking over Northern Rail’s plans to introduce driver-only trains. In a press release written ahead of their last strike, RMT said:
Rail union RMT says that new statistics released by the British Transport Police (BTP) show that guards are needed to stem a shocking surge in crime on unstaffed stations.
The BTP figures show that all crime in the area served by the Northern franchise (BTP C Division Pennine) increased by 4.09% to 7,611 offences in the year. Violence against the person has increased by a shocking 19.38%.
The statistics include 382 serious assaults, 809 common assaults, 2 firearm/explosive offences, 167 sexual crimes including 100 sexual offences against females, and 1522 instances of theft of passenger property:
* Violence against the person increased by 19.38%
* Line of route offences increased by 4.91%
* Theft of passenger property increased by 7.94%.
* Robbery increased by 7.69%
* Theft of railway property increased by 8.48%
At the 330 unstaffed stations on Northern routes, protection and assistance for passengers and the train driver at stations is currently provided by the guard who is on all trains. Read more
Northern Rail released the following:
We expect to run around 30% of services and all customers are advised to plan carefully if they intend to travel on the rail network.
Unfortunately, on some routes, we aren’t able to run services, while others have a limited service. On those routes where we are able to operate trains, we expect all services to be extremely busy. We also have replacement bus services available on some routes where trains aren’t running.
On Sunday there will be planned cancellations on a small minority of routes, primarily in the north west, and again customers should check up to the last minute before travelling.
This weekend also sees a significant event taking place in Liverpool with the third visit of The Giants – a large street festival with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend.
Liam Sumpter, Regional Director at Northern, said: “On Saturday, as a result of RMT strike action, we will only be able to run a very limited service, with most trains to and from Liverpool starting after 8am and finishing before 7pm.
“Those services we are able to run will be extremely busy and I am calling on our customers to plan their travel carefully and, where possible, to seek alternative means of travel to and from Liverpool.”
Our priority during a strike is to keep you informed and on the move and all timetables can be found below. At any time you can keep up-to-date by following us on social media:
@northernassist
/northernassist
Or by going to journeycheck.com/northern for train running information.
You can find projected train timetables at the bottom of this page: https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/strike?gclid=Cj0KCQjww8jcBRDZARIsAJGCSGtJ-dpuhneFsCkK2YufU_weBhjgxA5XNaEaTHxMGzVM3iUnX-EUDG8aAg48EALw_wcB
