Daily Mail
Rail bosses have warned that this Christmas could be leaner than usual if militant Mick Lynch goes ahead with more national strikes this summer.
Industry chiefs fear that a winter crisis could be on the cards if freight trains carrying billions of pounds of presents, food and drink and festive decorations up and down the country in July and August are disrupted by further RMT walkouts.
Last week the Government largely averted a freight crisis by prioritising freight over passenger services to avoid supermarkets running out of food.
But with 1970s-style firebrand Lynch threatening further strike action – potentially as early as next month – and a surge in shipping containers of goods from China imminent, rail bosses warned: ‘If this strike escalates, then it might not be the Christmas our children are hoping for’.
Sources told the Telegraph: ‘As the year goes on freight gets busier, particularly containers, so that’s the big worry. The China surge will come in. And those ships are sailing now.
‘It always gets busier as you go into August, particularly when we start seeing the Christmas stuff start to come through. Because obviously if you’re selling it in October, you’re shipping it in August, September. So the Christmas surge isn’t December, it’s well ahead of that’.
Richard Ballantyne, chief executive of the British Ports Association, said ports were bracing to be inundated with shipping containers from China in the coming weeks and hoping to avoid the supply chain chaos witnessed during the Covid lockdown.
He added: ‘Moving forward we are going to approach those busy pre-Christmas periods. It could be particularly unhelpful for further strike action then.’
It also emerged that last week’s strikes forced many rail enthusiasts to miss train convention Rail Live in Stratford-upon-Avon. One source told The Sun: ‘How stupid the RMT chose to strike when such a big exhibition was held for rail staff’. A female attendee added: ‘It was empty as no one could get there, which was ironic’.
And dozens of student doctors had their exams yesterday cancelled at the 11th hour because of the disruption caused by Lynch’s rail strikes.
Students were told by email at 5pm on Friday that post-graduate Practical Assessment of Clinical Examination Skills exams were postponed as a result of ‘short notice examiner unavailability due to a combination of Covid cases and travel disruption’. They had already made arrangements for travel and accommodation for the exams at Southampton General Hospital, the Telegraph reported….
