Normal rail services resume, new strike threatened

Rail traffic was running as normal without any major disruptions to services, announced railway infrastructure manager Infrabel on Tuesday morning. The country’s rail network was paralysed for 24 hours until 22.00 on Monday evening, following a strike by rail trade union CGSP/ACOD over shortage of staff and SNCB/NMBS’ lengthy recruitment procedures.

“No disruptions have occurred on the entire rail network this morning, except for one Thalys train which didn’t run,” said Infrabel spokesperson Arnaud Reymann at 06.30.

Some 3,000 of the network’s 3,700 trains stood still during the 24-hour strike, resulting in four out of 10 companies seeing fewer staff turn up for work and the morning and evening rush hours lasting one hour longer than normal.

CGSP/ACOD remained defiant in spite of the disruption caused. "Anyone who thinks that our staff’s concerns are now settled is wrong. We expect that the management board just quickly tapped a few buttons. Buts our concerns have not gone away. If we have no clarity on the situation by mid-September, we’ll strike again,” said the union’s national president Jean-Pierre Goossens.

The unions will enter into negotiations with rail management again on Thursday.