Tourists arriving at Dover and looking forward to sampling the delights of the UK were forced to hire taxis for their onward journey after discovering the country’s railways were strikebound.
They were among thousands of travellers left struggling to get to weekend destinations when hundreds of train drivers walked out on Saturday over pay in the latest dispute to bring the network to a halt.
Rail services across the country were severely disrupted as members of the drivers’ union Aslef at seven train operators took strike action over what they said was the cost-of-living crisis.
As a result, Monica and Sam Moghbelli, from Cleveland, Ohio, arrived at Dover Priory station with their children – twins aged 10 and a younger child aged 7 – to discover the train they booked "weeks ago" would not be running.
They had just disembarked from the Disney cruise that arrived from Barcelona, and Mrs Moghbelli was almost in tears when she realised they would now have to pay for a taxi to London.
"Strikers?," she said, "you mean lazy, selfish people who don’t care about travellers? We booked our tickets weeks ago, as did so many others who just got off that cruise, and they don’t care about that."
