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London Underground Faces Bakerloo Line Strike This Month

London Underground Faces February Bakerloo Line Strike Action

(Bloomberg) -- London’s Bakerloo Underground Line will be disrupted in February by strike action called by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union.

The British trade union has instructed train drivers not to book on for any duty spread across 48 hours over Feb. 21 and 22, and 23 and 24.

The RMT said in an emailed statement that it had called for industrial action on the line running between suburban north-west and south London, in a dispute over the impact on train drivers from timetable changes. The timetable comes into force on the Bakerloo Line in March.

Mick Cash, the RMT’s general secretary, said that talks had been underway with Transport for London but the union had decided “that the progress had been too little and too slow.”

A TfL spokesman said the announcement was “disappointing, especially as we have taken several steps to improve our drivers’ experience on the current timetable while also bringing forward work to introduce a new timetable next month.”

TfL is due to meet with the RMT over the issue next week, as a strike by drivers would disrupt the Bakerloo line in its entirety. It was the eighth busiest of the London Underground lines in 2018/19, with about 113.5 million people using the Tube service, according to TfL.

The prospective industrial action marks the latest headache for London’s transport agency, as it grapples with repeated delays and climbing costs on its Crossrail project.

The boost in fare income from the cross-city rail line was viewed as a key way to boost TfL’s revenues at a time when it is seeking to overturn an operational deficit and deal with the loss of a government grant.

The line is now forecast to open in the summer of 2021, a year on from the previously scheduled opening time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Smith in London at rsmith599@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Kesur at skesur@bloomberg.net, Colin Keatinge

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