West Midlands Railway confirms reduced timetable ahead of industrial action

West Midlands Railway (WMR) is urging passengers to plan their travel in advance ahead of two days of strike action due to take place next week.

On Friday 22 May and Saturday 23 May a very limited service will be in operation on the WMR network due to strike action by members of the TSSA trade union. Passengers are advised to only travel if necessary as trains will only run on a small number of routes.

Services on both dates will operate to a reduced timetable with no trains running after 7pm on Friday and a later 7am start of service on Saturday.

Ian McConnell, WMR managing director, said: “We encourage TSSA to continue talks with us to reach a resolution to this dispute. This strike action will cause disruption to our customers with a significantly reduced timetable in operation on both dates. We are doing all we can to minimise the impact as far as possible and apologise to customers for the inconvenience. However, where services are running, we advise customers to only travel if necessary and to allow more time for their journey."

Routes with a limited service on Friday 22 May and Saturday 23 May are:

• Cross City Line (Lichfield Trent Valley – Redditch / Bromsgrove via Birmingham New Street) – 2 trains per hour
• Wolverhampton – Walsall via Birmingham New Street – 1 train per hour
• Rugeley Trent Valley – Birmingham International via Birmingham New Street – 1 train per hour

Train times will be available in Journey Planners. No trains will run on any other WMR route, including all routes via Birmingham Snow Hill, the Camp Hill Line or between Nuneaton and Leamington Spa.

Some minor disruption to services is expected on the morning of Sunday 24 May due to displacement of trains.

For further information, see www.wmr.uk/industrialaction.