Yeah, they can fuck off with trying to blame their problems on drivers refusing to work overtime, as if being on a reasonable-but-not-exceptional wage is somehow the root cause. Drivers need to be sharp - they’re responsible for a lot of people’s safety! - and I’d prefer they did no overtime at all thank you. Perhaps twenty years of underinvestment following privitisation might be more the problem here, eh?

Train strikes have caused me a bit of disruption over the summer, but that is exactly the point of them going on strike. Keep laying into the bastards and make sure that we’ve got the safe service that we need. 100% behind you all the way.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Train operator Avanti West Coast will be cancelling nearly 20 services every Saturday between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly until the end of the year.

First reported by the Sunday Times newspaper, Avanti blamed a shortage of train crew and industrial disputes.

A spokesperson added: "Despite progress since last year, Avanti still needs to further improve and we continue to hold it to account for matters within its control.

"Traincrew shortages, linked to train drivers on average £60,000 salaries refusing to work overtime, highlight the need for modernisation across the wider railway that is being resisted by unions.

“The temporary timetable changes were necessary to minimise short-notice cancellations due to traincrew shortages and to accommodate engineering works that will maintain and improve the resilience of the network.”

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: "We have been seeing some short-notice cancellations on our network and would like to apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused.

The original article contains 444 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!