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Thursday 19 Dec 2024

Passengers in the west urged to check before travelling this Christmas and New Year as Network Rail carries out festive upgrades

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Western

| Wales & Western

Rail passengers are being reminded to plan ahead and check before they travel this festive period as Network Rail completes its vital railway upgrades.

Services to London Paddington 

Network Rail will be carrying out a vast range of improvement and enhancement works, including new signalling, drainage, and track equipment; upgraded track and overhead power cables; as well as other maintenance activities and preparatory work that will improve the reliability of all train services that use London Paddington station. This means that no services will call at London Paddington between Friday 27 and Sunday 29 December inclusive.

Much of this programme of work is needed to bring trains in the future to HS2’s Old Oak Common station in west London, which will be the UK’s largest new station built in the past 100 years and will provide unrivalled connectivity for passengers, forming an interchange between GWR, the Elizabeth line, Heathrow Express and high-speed services to the West Midlands and beyond.

While this work is ongoing, some long-distance services will instead be diverted to/from London Euston, with the majority of trains starting/stopping at Reading and Ealing Broadway. Passengers for central London can change at Ealing Broadway and take a London Underground service into the city, using either the District or Central lines. 

Services through Westbury 

From Friday 27 December to Thursday 23 January inclusive, the railway through Westbury, as well as between Westbury and Salisbury, Wiltshire, will be closed to enable track upgrades close to Westbury station and maintenance of the Sherrington viaduct. Trains will be diverted or replaced by buses. 

Marcus Jones, Network Rail’s Western route director, said: “Our festive upgrades are crucial to ensuring the railway continues to run reliably and safely, and forms a key part of plan to improve the performance of all train services.

“This Christmas, we’ll be carrying out upgrades necessary for HS2 to run to a new station at Old Oak Common in the future, including drainage work and the installation of new signalling equipment. We’re also upgrading Westbury South junction - a vital piece of infrastructure that allows passenger and freight services to switch between lines. Replacing it is a huge job but doing so now will safeguard train operations in this area for years to come.

“Continued investment into upgrading and improving the railway is evidence of our commitment to providing a railway fit for the 21^st Century. We appreciate there is never a good time to disrupt journeys but whenever possible we do this at times when fewer people are travelling, such as at Christmas, on bank holidays or at weekends.   

 “We thank passengers in advance for their patience and urge them to please check before they travel.”   

GWR operations director Richard Rowland said: “This is a really complex operation, and we have worked hard to make sure people get to where they want to.  

"We will run an hourly service from the south-west of England – Cornwall, Devon – and an hourly service from South Wales which will go into Euston. We will then have several trains which will terminate at Reading, and people can connect there, and we will also have trains to Ealing Broadway for those making more local journeys. They will be able to connect there on to the London Underground and into London that way.  

"It is really important to us that we can keep customers moving and get them to where they need to go this Christmas. One of the reasons we chose Euston was that its most convenient for many of our customers who are making journeys beyond West London.

"We’ve worked carefully with the team at Network Rail who manage that station to make sure we've got extra staff and managers to help customers. We will be transporting a little bit of Great Western Railway to Euston to keep people moving."  

Passengers are advised to check their journeys with their train operator or National Rail Enquiries before travelling and to plan well in advance. More information can be found at www.GWR.com/Christmas 

HS2 is Britain’s new high speed, net zero carbon railway, with work well advanced on the new line from London to the West Midlands. For more information, visit the HS2 website.