Greater Anglia have been in touch about the impact on its services which will cause by strike action this week and next weekend with the following information:
"The next strike, by ASLEF members, is scheduled for Saturday 13 August, followed by action called for members of the RMT union on Thursday 18 August and Saturday 20 August. All of these dates will see action affecting multiple train operators (and in the case of the RMT ones, their members who work for Network Rail as well).
Work continues to try to reach an agreement with the trades unions and to avert strike action. However, we strongly advise anyone planning journeys on the dates involved to plan on the assumption that the strikes will go ahead.
Although the final details are still to be confirmed, the position for Saturday 13 August is expected to be as follows :
We will only be able to run around 10 per cent of our services, so our advice is to avoid travelling with Greater Anglia. There will be no services between Cambridge/Bishops Stortford and London Liverpool Street or on any regional or branch lines and, because of engineering work, there will be no direct trains to Stansted Airport either (so we advise customers to use alternative ways of getting to/from the airport).
The only routes with direct services, and these will be much reduced in frequency and for limited hours, will be Norwich to London intercity services, Colchester to London stopping services and Southend Victoria to London services.
Full timetable details will be available on our website in the first half of next week.
There will be no rail replacement bus service operating instead of any of the trains which are not running because of the strike. Customers are advised to look at alternative options for journeys for that day. Other train operators are not affected by strike action and should be operating as normal, while details of bus services, which may be an alternative for some shorter trips, can be found at www.traveline.info. Passengers can use tickets bought for a strike day either the day before or the two days after the strike day, or they can change their ticket to a different date or get a refund.
Please also note that trains will start later than normal on Sunday 14 August and will probably take a couple of hours to fully settle into their normal schedules.
Future strike dates (18, 20 August)
We’re still working on the plans for these strike days and we will provide updates as soon as the details are available. It’s likely that service levels will be similar to previous strike days, with most services not running at all and a severely reduced service for limited hours on those few routes where some services are able to run. We will confirm the position as quickly as we can, but our advice will again be to avoid travelling with Greater Anglia.
We are very sorry for the disruption strikes are causing for customers and communities across our network. We will continue to update you with information on any further developments."