Train services were cancelled over the weekend after the trade union Aslef told drivers – who’ve recently been given a bumper 15% pay rise by Labour – not to walk on snow, calling it “basic safety stuff”. The Telegraph has the story.
Avanti West Coast services between Liverpool and London did not run for several hours on Sunday morning after members of the Aslef trade union refused to walk to their trains.
The drivers were among those given a 15% pay rise by the Government last summer, sending their salaries soaring to just under £70,000 a year.
Ten trains were prevented from leaving the depot on time, leading to about 14 services being cancelled, according to a Telegraph analysis of Network Rail data. This is likely to have resulted in thousands of passengers having their journeys disrupted and delayed, leaving them in line for Delay Repay compensation. …
Photographs of the Liverpool Edge Hill depot, taken in the small hours of Sunday morning, show about two inches of snow on rails, electrical cables and other equipment. …
Health and safety representatives from Aslef told drivers not to turn up at the depot until the snow was cleared because the site was unsafe to walk around, a railway insider claimed.
The insider said: “Edge Hill depot [was] not gritted last night. All walkways covered in snow/ice and therefore no trains are able to leave as there’s no safe walking routes for drivers.”
An Aslef spokesman said: “The walkways were covered in snow and ice, making them unusable. Once they had been cleared, the drivers could access their trains and did so. This is basic safety stuff.”
The spokesman dismissed suggestions that health and safety representatives had been “over-reaching” and instead claimed Avanti was to blame.
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