‘Significant impact on customers’ expected as strike by ASLEF next Friday forces Northern to advise people to make alternative arrangements

Northern will be unable to operate any of its 2,500 daily services next Friday (8 December) due to strike action by the train driver union ASLEF.

This industrial action is not related to the agreement the RMT union has made with the rail industry and is scheduled to go-ahead as planned.

The train operator has also advised customers to ‘check before you travel’ for all journeys between Friday 1 and Saturday 9 December due to ‘action short of strike’ by ASLEF members and strikes taking place on other train operators’ services during those dates.

Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said: “This strike by ASLEF will have a significant impact on our customer’s ability to get where they want to be.

“Unfortunately, our advice is that Northern customers should not attempt to travel on Friday 8 December and should make alternative arrangements.

“Given that ASLEF has organised multiple strikes on different days for individual train operators, people travelling with Northern to connect onto other services across the country between 1st and 9th December should double check all legs of their journey before attempting to travel.

“We can only apologise to customers for the inevitable disruption this action by ASLEF will cause.” 

For more information, visit: www.northernrailway.co.uk/travel/strikes.

The strike by ASLEF comes just before the new winter timetable takes effect (on Sunday 10 December), when rail timetables across the North of England change in line with the rest of the National Rail network. Customers are encouraged to use the ‘Check My Timetable’ feature on the Northern website for more information about their local station.

Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.