The travails of traveling by train during a rail strike.

The railways in England are striking this weekend. This means that many routes will be disrupted, though there’s no easy way to know exactly which ones and what kind of disruption. Will our train be running? Will it be delayed? Will it be full? Will it decide at the last minute to take an extended coffee break? The bottom line is we’re not sure where we’ll be sleeping Saturday night. I’ve scoured the rail sites and come up with a list of possibilities.

Our original plan was to travel straight to Newquay, where we’re hiking on Sunday. Normally this trip would be 5-6 hours. This Saturday though, the only train is a whopping 20 hours. So that’s out. A bus would take 8 hours, a seriously unappealing alternative.

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Possibility #1: Spend the night in London and get a Sunday morning train to Newquay, praying that it's not strike-affected. There’s no way to know in advance. If we take the chance and stay in London for the night, the train leaves at 8:13 and takes 6 hours.

Possibility #2: Get part way to Newquay on Saturday, spend the night there, then travel to Newquay early Sunday. Plymouth is a possibility. We've never been there, it has good restaurants and shops, and it's where the pilgrims departed on their big adventure to the New World. History places are always cool.

Possibility #3: Once we arrive at Paddington, we see what trains are running that are A.) heading west, and (B.) available. Probably we'll do this first.

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Now that I'm a British citizen, I feel I can actually have, and voice, my opinion on rail strikes, or any strikes in the UK for that matter. The striking union is ASLEF, Britain's trade union for 21,000+ train drivers. I'm on the union side. According to Mick Whelan, Aslef's general secretary, drivers have not received a pay increase since 2019. Whelan states, 'Our executive committee met this morning and rejected a risible proposal we received from the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). The proposal, of just 4%, was clearly not designed to be accepted as inflation is still running north of 10%...The RDG, in turn, rejected our proposals to modernise Britain's railways and help them run more efficiently, for passengers and for businesses, in the 21st century."

So, we'll see. They were striking last fall when we in in England, and I'm hoping it gets resolved soon. By this Saturday would be nice.