WE’RE open for business.

That is the message from Southern Rail which insists it will be running a near normal service on most routes during the RMT’s strike on Wednesday and Thursday.

More than 90 per cent of trains will be running but some peak hour services between Ashford International, Rye and Hastings have been cancelled.

So too have five services to and from Littlehampton and one at Eastbourne.

Gatwick Express will operate its current service between London Victoria and Gatwick/Brighton.

Thameslink will run a full service between London Blackfriars/London Bridge and Brighton.

Passenger services director Angie Doll said: “It’s business as usual on most of our routes during the RMT strikes.

“Nobody has lost their job over the changes that we made almost a year ago.

“We’ve made four good offers to resolve this dispute yet the RMT has rejected them all without even putting our proposals to their members for a vote.

“In terms of our customers there will be very few restrictions.

“We are definitely open for business.”

Ms Doll urged customers to check online which trains will not be running.

Full details of service changes can be found at www.southernrailway.com/dispute and passengers are advised to check before they travel for updates on the day.

This will be the RMT’s 37th and 38th strike days on Southern.

The RMT’s general secretary Mick Cash has told Prime Minister Theresa May he is “increasingly alarmed” she is “sabotaging deals with the RMT on Southern, Northern and Anglia Trains, and also South Western Railway”.

He claimed: “I do not say this lightly as a number of train-operating companies are privately indicating to me it is the Government that is preventing the deals that in normal circumstances they would be able to make with the RMT.”

Cash said there had been “a co-ordinated blockade of the normal talks process with the rail companies in England since Theresa May became Prime Minister.”