Commuter cuts: London’s suburbs out in the cold amid reduced rail services
London’s commuters are in for a colder winter, as cuts to rail services curb the New Year march back to work.
The latest wave of Covid-19 has pushed a spike in staff absences – with one in 15 people testing positive with the virus last week, the Office for National Statistics found – a landslide that has squeezed the brakes on trains across the UK.
The government yesterday scrapped follow-up PCR tests for Brits who have tested positive for the virus with a lateral flow, in a bid to remedy growing shortage of workers.
Although the new testing rules could help to reduce the impact of Covid-19 on travel, a Rail Delivery Group spokesperson told City PM that “staff absences are at such a high level that we need to do more”.
The Group assured commuters that “where possible”, it will add extra carriages on to busier services, as fears of packed trains mount.
Victoria commuters will be knocked, as Southern admitted it will ‘probably’ not re-introduce all services via the station, as it waits to bring a more ‘complete’ service in phases.
South Eastern is set to cut its train numbers by seven per cent from next Monday, while Thameslink has retired a ‘couple hundred’ of trains, after an 81 per cent drop in transactions this week in comparison with the same week in 2020, according to data by banking app Snoop, shared exclusively with City PM.
However, Thameslink spokesperson confirmed it will be running a Southern service through Victoria again soon.
South Western Railways will also be hauling in a slimmer timetable on January 17 – but in the meantime, commuters have been told to expect cancellations with little notice.