TRAIN travellers in East Lancashire are facing misery over the next 24 hours as the latest series of strikes get underway.

Strikes take place today and until midnight tomorrow , and from 12.01am on Sunday, February 2, 2003, until midnight on Monday, February 3.

And railway workers are determined to continue their long-running dispute with train company Arriva Trains Northern, a union leader has said, as hundreds of conductors began the latest in a series of 24-hour walkouts today.

Hundreds of conductors walked out at midnight, causing disruption to services across northern England.

The stoppage is the third in a wave of strikes held over the festive season in a dispute over pay. It is the latest in a series of what has become more than two dozen stoppages over the past 11 months.