Christmas 2024: Essential upgrades across Wales & Borders to take place while the railway is closed

Friday 13 Dec 2024

Christmas 2024: Essential upgrades across Wales & Borders to take place while the railway is closed

Region & Route:: Wales & Western; | Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

Network Rail engineers will be busy carrying out a range of projects across the Wales & Borders route over Christmas – but the good news for passengers is that the work is scheduled to take place when the railway is closed.

The railway will remain open for passengers until Christmas Eve (Tuesday 24 December) before closing on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Rail services are then scheduled to resume on the morning of Friday 27 December.

But while many people across Wales and the Borders are enjoying the festive season, Network Rail teams will be carrying out essential work at several sites across the route to improve the railway.

The work includes but is not limited to:

Track renewal and vegetation management east of Newport on the South Wales Main Line
Maintenance work on the track at Shrewsbury station
Resignalling work between Swansea and Carmarthen, and at Cardiff to facilitate the South Wales Metro
Under-track crossing work between Morlais Junction and Llandeilo Junction in Carmarthenshire
Footbridge structure installation at Llanharan

Nick Millington, route director for Network Rail Wales & Borders, said: “The railway is open right the way through until the close of business on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, the railway will be closed as planned.

“This Christmas, fortunately we can carry out the essential work we need to do at a time when there is no disruption to passengers.

“Our dedicated teams will be working over the Christmas period to make a number of improvements to the railway in Wales and the Borders, but passenger services will resume on Friday 27 December.

“Anyone planning to travel over the festive period is encouraged to check before they travel at nationalrail.co.uk.”

Passengers are also reminded that there will be a new timetable for passenger services in place from Sunday 15 December.

Among the benefits to the new timetable include more frequent trains on the South Wales Main Line, more consistent departures with more trains leaving at the same time past each hour, and later trains at night from Swansea and to Maesteg.

There will also be a new direct train service from Cardiff Central to Edinburgh.

Further information is available via National Rail Enquiries.

Notes to Editors

For further information on the December 2024 timetable change, you can read an update from Transport for Wales here
For further information on the new direct Cardiff-Edinburgh service, you can read more from CrossCountry here

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Steve Cotton
Media Relations Manager
steve.cotton2@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

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