Tuesday 10 January 2017 10:59 am

Three-day Southern rail strike gets underway: Here’s the rest of the industrial action planned for the month

On the bright side, Transport for London (TfL) has said Tube services are back to normal today after a 24-hour strike caused numerous travel headaches for the capital's commuters.

On the not so bright side, the next batch of Southern rail strikes get underway today, as workers of the train drivers' union Aslef start a three-day walkout – spanning today, tomorrow and Friday. Southern has warned Thursday's services will also be disrupted though as an overtime ban from Aslef remains in place.

Southern is advising passengers to avoid all travel unless it's essential as no services will be running. Commuters were braced for more trouble as Southern warned: "Anyone who does travel should expect to queue, plan for longer journeys and realise the service they join will be exceptionally busy."

The industrial action is over the role of the guard. On a normal weekday Southern has 2,242 trains timetabled and around 300,000 passengers using the services.

Angie Doll, Southern's passenger service director, said: "There will also be significant disruption and hardship on the days Aslef is not on strike because of their overtime ban, especially on Thursday when trains will be out of position because of the strikes on each day either side. We are deeply sorry for the unnecessary and unwarranted disruption this dispute is causing."

Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, said: "We don’t want to inconvenience passengers, nor do our members want to lose money, because we want to help build a better railway for Britain. But we have been forced to go on strike by an intransigent management that has not been prepared to negotiate with us. Southern are bullies."

He said the union's door "is, and has always been, open" for talks.