Carshalton commuters are fearful that 2017 will be a year of transport chaos on an unprecedented scale.
The strike affecting trains run by Southern has given of thousands of rail travellers, into and out of London, the worst possible start to their working year.
There are three days of strikes planned for the second week back to work after the Christmas break. Then there is due to be another three days’ disruption in the final week of January.
Workers for the company are protesting about plans to introduce driver-only trains, axing on-board guards. They fear this could be dangerous.
The Conservative Government says driver-only trains are already running in other areas of London and the country, however, and there has been no increase in danger.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, wants to wave goodbye to Southern, though, and take control of the trains in and out of the capital himself.
The strikes have caused stress and upset among the Carshalton community. Thameslink trains, an alternative way to get into London but owned by the same company as Southern, Govia, are overcrowded and unreliable anyhow, but the extra people on them has caused travellers to say they feel like cattle on trucks.
Facebook and other social-media sites have been inundated with angry commuters ranting about their upset. They have complained about the inconvenience of their travel to work and back; they fear the stress is causing people to take days off work through sickness, and, even in some extreme cases, lose their jobs.
Lorraine of Carshalton says: “Roads will be clogged up and the traffic will be awful if this train strike carries on.”
Huw, another member of the Carshalton commuter community, says he and others like him are paying £387 to travel to work each month: “This is too much to pay for an appalling service! In Paris and Rome it costs £61 to get into the capital, a huge difference.”
By Grace Turbervill
