The First National Rail strike for 15 years was in disarray last night after what were described as the "wrong type of pickets" lead to the delays and cancellations of planned protests across the UK's rail infrastructure.
The confusion was apparently caused by the parallel strike by the National Union of Teachers, whose own members were unable to get to their picket lines outside schools because of the rail strike and therefore mounted their demonstrations at the nearest railway station to the school they were trying to reach.
Police described 'chaotic' scenes outside some of the countries larger rail depots. At King Cross scuffles broke out after a number of RMT activists turned up with placards bearing the slogan "fare pay fare play" leading to ugly confrontations with King George Girls School English Teachers upset at what they called 'an unforgivably poor grammatical mess'.
Bob Crow, head of RMT defended his union claiming "a 70% service" in terms of strike activity by his members, however this was disputed by NUT General Secretary Gerald Wagstaff.
Amidst the shambles trains were seen to be regularly leaving and arriving from the majority of stations. Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis commented later that “today's train service has been the at a level that I and other MP's always insist on - First Class"