Tube strikes end after 24 hours

Tube strikes in London have ended after 24 hours of action affecting almost every line. Several stations were closed and millions of Londoners faced severe disruption on their journeys to and from work.

Staff left their posts in two waves on Monday night as the unions fights 800 job cuts proposed by London Underground. The strikes ended at 21:00 yesterday. A full service is expected to resume as of this morning.

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) unions who organised the strikes said support was “rock solid”. There was, however a full service on the Northern Line and the Waterloo and City Line for most of Tuesday.

Marshalled taxi ranks were brought in the try and ease the transport woes and an extra 100 buses were put on by Transport for London (TfL). There were also an additional 10,000 passengers journeys provided on the Thames riveboat service and 2,000 extra journeys on the cycle hire scheme.

Managing director of London Underground (LU) Mike Brown said the unions had failed in the aim to paralyse the system, claiming that the network was running a 40 percent service. RMT general secretary Bob Crow, however, slammed the claims, saying there was only a “skeleton” service.

Three further strikes are planned by the unions on October 3, November 2 and November 28. Mr Brown said he is determined to run more services next time until the issues are dealt with. The unions believe station security could be compromised under LU plans to scrap 800 ticket office jobs.