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With the BA cabin crew union Unite threatening strikes in the seven days leading up to Easter, air travel plans for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers have been thrown into disarray. At the same time, maintenance crew and signal staff are also expected to walk off the job creating further turmoil for the public, many of whom have been eagerly planning ahead for an Easter vacation after spending 2009 at home as the recession impacted across the board.

So critical to the country is the air travel industry that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gone public in his condemnation of the union action, an almost unheard of intervention by a government leader in a British industrial dispute. Elsewhere, the expected Network Rail staff strike would significantly impact upon services and safety across the country, despite pledges from Network Rail that it would be drafting in supervisors and managers of striking maintenance and signal crews to cover the staffing shortfall.

Both striking groups are protesting against changes to work practices by their bosses. with BA cabin crew still mired in a dispute which has been ongoing since last November, when the airline announced a reduction of staffing numbers on most of its aircraft. The airline also announced wage and job cuts to help it keep afloat in the face of the economic crisis, much as has Network Rail. The train operator is at odds with its union over similar job and wage cuts, but also changes to working conditions that the union claims would result in severe breaches of customer and staff safety. The union has been highly critical of the standard of Network Rail trains, many of which feature mechanics dating back almost to the steam age the group claims.

The BA cabin crew strike could see up to 12,000 staff walk off the job, while up to 10,000 maintenance and signal crew are believed to be considering the strike by Netwrok Rail. With car hire prices skyrocketing in the wake of huge demand and low fleet numbers, the last thing the travel industry or the British public needs are further disruptions to their much-anticipated holidays. This week looms as a landmark one for UK travel and one which will have lasting ramifications.

It been reported to have been the worst winter weather in 30 years, bringing more transport disruption all over London.

British Airways revealed it had cancelled a number of flights departing from Heathrow airport as other travellers were told to expect delays.

It’s recommended for passengers to contact their carrier to confirm that their flight is still operating as planned prior to heading to the airport.

In terms of train transportation, Eurostar, the Channel Tunnel high-speed rail firm is reported to have been servicing London with limited service.

Engineers are said to still be struggling with a mechanical problem which caused a train to be stopped in the tunnel for 2 hours on Thursday.

In a statement, Eurostar claimed that the problem this time around differed from the one experienced days before Christmas, which caused thousands of travellers to be stranded in trains stuck in the tunnel and followed by near complete chaos on both sides of the Channel for three days.

Domestic train routes were said to be operating to revised schedules with a reduction in service between Leeds and the British capital with the East Coast Main Line.

Cancellations ere seen in some morning and evening rush-hour service by the Southern train company, as further cancellations were seen at South West Trains, which included the service linking London to Dorking and Guildford to Ascot.

Some bus service disruptions were experienced through some diversions abd delays although no problems were expected in the Tube.

The service, normally high-speed and banded as a European engineering masterpiece, was suddenly halted on Friday night because accumulating ice and snow underneath the rolling stock was causing failure of the trains’ electrical systems.

The Paris Gare du Nord, Brussels Midi and London St Pancras stations saw thousands of expectant ticket-holders as the first trains finally pulled away, each packed full with the maximum 750 passengers who had been waiting during the entire weekend for this moment.

A Eurostar representative in Brussels said that the rail company had no time-table, recommending travellers to simply show up. It would appear that the company is running at its maximum capacity.

Officials have said via a statement that they will give priority to passengers who were originally supposed to travel on either Saturday or Sunday, adding that travellers booked for a Monday or Tuesday departure will leave on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, transport minister Sadiq Khan was said to be angry at the way Eurostar passengers were handled by the company. Mr Khan said that travelers had been left in the dark.

Eurostar representatives have apologised to its customers and did announce at the time that it was planning to resume service on Tuesday, which they did.

Richard Brown, the chief executive at Eurostar, said he was “very, very sorry” about the mishaps. He admitted that the company would need to carry out a lot of work in order to convince its clientele the firm was worth trusting again.

But it’s been revealed that the route taken by the new line has been the target of a deadly bomb attack only a month ago.

The red and grey high speed train, named The Sapsan (meaning peregrine falcon in Russian), cost the Russian government several hundreds of millions Euros.

Its maiden run had it departing the Leningrad station in Moscow at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) for it three hours and 45 minute journey towards Saint Petersburg, the country’s second largest city.

The Sapsan has a capacity of about 600 passengers and will cover the distance separating the two metropolises much quicker than the four-and-a-half hours it took to complete the 650 kilometre journey before.

Constructed by German conglomerate Siemens, Russia’s first high speed train can run at speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour (155 mph).

Vladimir Yakunin, Chief of the country’s state-owned train company RZD, said of the new service that it wasn’t only a train but rather a new life, a new technology and a new form of transportation for Russia.

But it launch was marred by the fact that the country’s elite Nevsky Express rail service had been the target of a bombing. The Nevsky also linked Russia’s two largest cities and ran on the same tracks as the high-speed service.

The November 27 explosion derailed the express train and killed 27 passengers while injuring some 100 more. The attack had been claimed by an Islamist faction umbrella group called the “Caucasus Emirate”.

Morning passengers using the 9:00 am commuter train starting off from the Tel Aviv suburb of Modiin can put away their morning tabloids and listen to a lecture by Professor Hanoch Gutfreund on ‘Einstein’s love letters’.

The Einstein lecture was the initial ‘class’ by the university through a programme nick-named ‘scientists on the rails’. The school aims to bring academia to regular people and enhance the appeal of higher education.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem spokeswoman Orit Sulitzeanu said the importance of higher education must be understood by the general public. She said that higher education is currently undergoing a crisis, one which is slowly eroding its status and that there is urgency for people of all walks of life to see it as a strategic asset for the nation.

Train lecturer Professor Gutfreund, who himself is a former university president, delighted commuters with anecdotes about the love letters of Albert Einstein had written to his two wives, demonstrating also how intricate details could reveal an aspect of one of the greatest scientists in history at a time when he re-invented the way we perceived the universe.

Explaining the school’s choice of subject, Sulitzeanu said the university had wanted to do a scientific topic, but one which could have an immediate appeal for the wider population.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is also where the Albert Einstein Archives are located, a home for all his personal papers.

Gutfreund claimed never to have given a lecturer where half the attendees had had their backs turned to him, adding he had been warmly greeted by the commuters even if he had been occasionally interrupted by the conductor calling the stations.

Regular commuter Isabelle Tovi called the lecture ‘wonderful’. She said she’d love to attend university classes, but says her schedule doesn’t allow it. But she added that she’s planning to change the time of her morning train ride to match with the lectures.

So far, the commuter classes have been organised to be offered for after morning rush-hour and to avoid antagonising people, they are only given in one carriage on the train.

Lord Adonis was addressing the subject during a conference organised by the transport consultancy Steer Davies Gleave, as some regional cities set up a lobbying group to call for direct connection to future high-speed rail lines. Many of the places have expressed concerns over plans of an initial line offering service only from London to Birmingham and Manchester. The other cities, namely Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh are afraid to be left out.

A key factor in the planning for a new UK line is that trains must be able to use both a high-speed line and the existing ordinary rail network, Lord Adonis explained at the transport conference.

Lord Adonis’s idea would make the new UK high-speed system similar to the French system, where an excess of 50% of the distance travelled every year by TGV high-speed trains is on the regular rail track network.

This differs from Japan’s Shinkansen high-speed train system which runs only on specially built, segregated tracks.

Lord Adonis told the Financial Times that trains able to use both the conventional and high-speed networks would be needed so that there’s a journey-time saving between London and Scotland from the outset, even if a proportion of the route was on the existing track.

Research by Network Rail, proprietor of the UK’s rail network, suggests the first route will possibly be a single spine to link London, Birmingham and Manchester, prior to enlarging the system to cover Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Many of the concerned cities forming the HSRUK lobby group are among those most interested by such a route.

Or maybe a First Class trip with fabulous fares on offer, like Newcastle to Edinburgh for just £16.00 or Newcastle to London for £31.50 – all one-way First Class fares.

Travellers can also take advantage of many other great National Express East Coast destinations.

In order to qualify for these special fares, you must collect six Evening Chronicle tokens per person travelling. One token will be printed daily from August 24 until September 5, 2009.

The Reader Offer special fares are available for travel between September 14 and November 13, 2009, and only for off-peak services with limited availability for service on Friday and Sunday afternoons. At such deals, we are anticipating a huge response with the largest demand for travel at weekends. If you can travel during mid-week, you will have more options. The October 23 to November 1 period is excluded from the promotion.

To give travellers greater choice and flexibility, all Advance tickets are available only as single fares, giving the buyer a choice for the lowest available fares for every stage of the journey. This means people may select the Reader Offer fare on the outbound trip and, if the return train required is unavailable, the traveller can select the best fare shown. This option will give travellers even better opportunities to journey at a great price.

Obviously, seats are always subject to availability and Reader Offer fare reservations must be made 3 weeks prior to travelling. It is strongly suggested to book as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

We would like to thank www.chroniclelive.co.uk for information used in this article.