London commuters endure transport misery as rail staff strike

LONDON - Millions of Londoners struggled to work on Monday at the start of a week of travel chaos which sees rail networks brought to a standstill by a series of strikes.

A woman stands next to the closed entrance to the Underground station at Waterloo during a strike by members of two unions in protest at ticket office closures and reduced staffing levels, in London, Britain January 9, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

Commuters used cars, boats, bicycles and heaving buses to cope with a 24-hour walkout by underground station staff that left the majority of "Tube" stops in central London closed and no services operating from mainline stations such as Victoria, Kings Cross and Waterloo.

Huge queues began building up outside stations while many major roads in the city were gridlocked.

"I'm giving up on even trying," said software developer Rajiv Perseedoss, 30, who was trying to get to work in central London from Canary Wharf in the east of the city.

"I'm not a Tube worker, I don't know about their conditions, but whatever it is, they can't take it out on everybody."

Monday's walkout on the Tube, which carries up to 4.8 million passengers a day, begins a week of industrial action which will hit rail and air passengers, and there are warnings the problems could spread across the country.

Train drivers on Southern Rail are striking on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, bringing all rail services used by hundreds of thousands of passengers from the south coast and Gatwick Airport to London to a halt.

Southern commuters have already suffered months of delays, cancellations and walkouts in Britain's worse rail disruption in decades, due to a row over whose role it should be to open and close doors on the trains.

The Sunday Times newspaper said the dispute could spread to services in central and northern England as other operators look to bring in driver-only trains.

British Airways staff will also begin a strike for two days over pay on Tuesday, although the impact of the walkout is likely to be limited.