and it s worth seeing. excellent. interesting week. thanks very much, mark. see you next time. enjoy your cinema going, whatever you re watching. see you next time. bye bye. good morning, welcome to breakfast with ben thompson and naga munchetty. our headlines today: the funeral of mikhail gorbachev, the last leader of the soviet union, takes place this morning. members of the public are invited, but president putin won t attend. pressure on rail firm ava nti west coast. its boss steps down as the company faces mounting criticism over its reduced timetable. serena williams battles to the end of a top flight career in tennis as she crashes out of the us open and bids an emotional farewell to the fans. to every single person that has ever said go, serena in their life, i am just so grateful because yeah you got me here.
when you compare it| to the rest of europe. the mayor of greater manchester andy burnham says he has heard of stampede as passengers climb out of trains. one reason he questions the reason for them to run the service. he also criticised issues with ticket availability. they have said that drivers who are a member of the union have been refusing to carry out over time puts pressure on services. that is something the union allows, accusing them of a lack recruitment. last night, avanti s manager said he was stepping down. a spokesman said: it is completely understandable that people are frustrated about this lack of certainty about what is going on. passengers want a reduced timetable to be reliable.
by a summer of rail strikes. the company, which operates trains between london and the north west and scotland, says the new timetable will run until further notice due to severe staff shortages. razman karmali has this report. just today after the latest industrial dispute to hit the railways, another major disruption is hitting customers who use the avanti west is hitting customers who use the ava nti west coast services, is hitting customers who use the avanti west coast services, reduce timetable will see a big drop in services. avanti west coast normally runs seven trains per hour on the west coast mainline. now it will run as few as four an hour. london, euston and manchester services are the worst affected, with trans reduced from three per hour to just one. avanti west coast blame the comfortable reduction on the current union issues. drivers have been
too much but it can cause some people some problems. both those eole people some problems. both those people travelling people some problems. both those people travelling to people some problems. both those people travelling to manchester, i people travelling to manchester, chichester and manchester and liverpool respectively. there have been several rail strikes this summer with unions calling for pay rises in line with the rising cost of living and the rail company say to find those pay rises they want to introduce changes and reforms like changing contracts and terms and conditions. the unions are not too happy. avanti west coast conditions. the unions are not too happy. ava nti west coast says because of what it calls the current industrial climate it is cut services because drivers are making themselves unavailable for overtime at short notice and they say they are unable to provide a reliable service. drivers dispute any suggestion of unofficial strike action leading to time
and manchester that are particularly affected. previously they ran three of these trains an hour, now there is just one. we of these trains an hour, now there isjust one. we have of these trains an hour, now there is just one. we have already met people here today who have said they have been affected by that change. people who are going back up north are finding they are having to change to get to manchester, so that is just one of the ways it has been affecting people today. for a bit of context, there have been several rail strikes this summer, with the union is calling for a pay rises in line with the cost of living, that rail bosses say they can only fund that by introducing changes like the introduction of changes to contracts. avanti west coast introduction of changes to contracts. ava nti west coast says wire to scale back its timetable, but they ve been announcing that over the tannoy is in london euston, that drivers have been unavailable for a voluntary overtime at short not