Revellers heading to see Britney Spears perform in Blackpool on Saturday are being warned they face disruption due to a train strike.

Members of the RMT union will be staging a walkout for the second Saturday in a row, affecting Northern rail services in Lancashire, Cheshire and parts of Yorkshire.

The operator said “very few” trains would be running before 9am and after 6pm, and warned those travelling to the Britney concert and other events over the weekend to plan ahead.

Spears will be performing during the opening weekend of this year’s Blackpool Illuminations, and is expected to draw huge crowds.

Those travelling to Bingley Music Live festival near Bradford, Hull Freedom Festival, Chester Races Ladies’ Day and Beverley Races will also be affected.

A spokesman for Northern said: “Unfortunately, on some routes, we aren’t able to run services, while others have a limited service. On those routes where we are able to operate trains, we expect all services to be extremely busy. We also have replacement bus services available on some routes where trains aren’t running.”

The strike is the second of six 24-hour strikes planned for consecutive weekends until September 29.

RMT said it had been “forced to press ahead” with the action in a dispute over driver-only operated trains.

General secretary Mick Cash said: “RMT has made every effort to get serious and meaningful talks going with Northern but instead of making progress towards a settlement that matches the best practice in the rail industry as negotiated elsewhere, the company have opted instead to play fast and loose making a mockery of the exercise.

“German-owned Northern Rail want to run nearly half a million trains a year without a safety critical guard on board in a move that would wreck both safety and access ‎to services and they should listen to their front-line staff and pull back from that plan immediately.”

Richard Allan, deputy managing director at Northern, said the strikes were “incredibly frustrating and disappointing”.

“This will be a further blow for our customers,” he said. “We’re trying to fix this dispute. Since the RMT agreed to reconvene the joint steering committee meetings and Acas mediated talks, we are in the midst of arranging dates to meet.”