Railway staff have begun a two-day walkout causing significant disruption to Scotland’s rail network, with services in Aberdeenshire, Moray and the Highlands among the most affected.
While snow and ice blanket the north and north-east, it would usually cause major disruption to train services, but no services are running at all today due to strike action.
Members of the RMT are engaged in a pay dispute with Network Rail, which employs staff for signalling stations and maintenance on many northern lines.
These include Aberdeen to Inverness, the Far North Line, the East Coast Line and the Highland Inverness to Perth line.
Good morning, ^DB on the early shift today with ^Paul joining me a little later on. Please be careful if you're out and about today as some platforms and paths may be slippery.
We are running a limited service today, and to see what's running please refer to our app or website. pic.twitter.com/YuJHjKFGlK
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) December 13, 2022
While ScotRail staff are not striking, they have been forced to reduce train services in Scotland to a minimum due to signal workers taking part in the industrial action.
Only a handful of services will run from Edinburgh and Glasgow on December 13 and December 14, but other than that no other services will run.
Trains between the two major northern cities Inverness and Aberdeen have been cancelled for 48 hours as well as services down to the Central Belt.
Services will again be limited on Thursday, December 15 – a non-strike day – before two more days of strike begin on Friday, December 16.
Four days of strikes this week
A similar arrangement to not run services in the north was in place earlier this year when RMT went on strike over pay in the autumn.
It means festive travel chaos for commuters who rely on trains to go between towns and cities in the rural Highlands.
This is just one of several strikes in the run-up to Christmas, with another strike from December 24-27 planned by the RMT.
The strikes are a result of members rejecting the “best and final” pay offer from Network Rail of 5% this year and a 4% rise in 2023.
RMT union boss Mike Lynch, described the offer as “substandard” as members voted convincingly to reject the deal on December 12.
Network Rail said the ongoing strike action will cause “further misery” for both the rail industry and the RMT’s members, who will lose pay.
The operator’s chief executive Andrew Haines told BBC’s Good Morning Scotland he was “deeply worried” that prolonged strikes could turn away passengers.
He said: “We’ve been doing a valiant job of trying to welcome people back but we all know that people’s travel patterns have changed so we’ve got to welcome new people to the railway.
“That means we’ve got to be attractive, reliable and safe and we will not be doing that if we’ve got four weeks of needless disruption.”
If the pay dispute is not resolved, the RMT will continue strike action into the new year, with four days within the first week of January.