Emergency c2c timetable for RMT strike on Friday 12 October

As peace talks instigated by rail company c2c's management team fail to halt two more days of strikes on the Essex route into London, the company is today putting out an emergency timetable.

The strike action on Friday 12 October is being called by the RMT guards' union, in a dispute over the role of the guard and the planned introduction of the Driver Only Operation (DOO) of trains on the route.

The union has also announced a further 24-hour strike for next week on Thursday October 18, coinciding with separate RMT strikes on the London Underground on those two days.

c2c Route Director David Taylor said: "Despite our ongoing efforts to both get the RMT to honour an agreement they signed with us in December 1999 for the introduction of DOO and call off their unjustified campaign of industrial action, the union is intent on causing more inconvenience to our customers.

"That is why they have announced strikes for this Friday and next Thursday, on the same days as the RMT is striking on the London Underground. It's clearly aimed at maximising the level of disruption to the travelling public.

"To counter these measures and deliver the best service possible to our customers, we will be running an emergency timetable on c2c this Friday. With the resources at our disposal we will be able to provide services on all our routes in the morning and evening peaks, whereas on some of the previous strike days we had no services at all on our single branch line serving Ockendon and Chafford Hundred.

"We are targeting the bulk of the available resources at the high peak times when most of our customers want to travel, services arriving in London between 8am and 9am and leaving London between 5pm and 6pm.

"We have additional guards in training who should enter service next week, so we hope to offer an improved strike service on Thursday 18 October. The timetable leaflet we have produced for this Friday's strike is being given out to customers at stations. There are some additional late night trains we are in the process of resourcing, so once full details of those are available, a fuller timetable for this Friday will be put up in poster form at stations.

"In the meantime all our customers can rest assured that the c2c negotiating team will continue to work flat out in our peace talks with the RMT to bring this dispute to an end as quickly as possible."

As well as the special strike service on the route, c2c customers can use their tickets to travel on Great Eastern services if they join stations between Southend Victoria and Billericay to travel into Liverpool Street.

As well as being available at c2c stations, details of the strike service are also posted on this website and are available by phoning 08457 48 49 50.