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Wednesday 28 Nov 2018

Passengers on the Great Western Railway urged to plan ahead this Christmas and New Year

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Western

| Wales & Western

• Engineers to work around the clock this holiday season to modernise the network

Rail passengers travelling across the Great Western Railway network are being urged to check before they travel, and to travel early as Network Rail delivers its Christmas upgrade works.

This Christmas and New Year, Network Rail engineers are carrying out £29 million of improvements on the Great Western network, helping to pave the way for GWR to deliver more seats, more frequent trains, and quicker, more reliable services.

How are journeys affected?

Sunday 23 December to Wednesday 26 and on Sunday 30

• Track renewal work near Southall means that long distance services will start and terminate at Reading, not London Paddington, with stopping commuter services terminating at Slough.

Sunday 23 December to Thursday 3 January

• Work to upgrade the track near Westbury means Cardiff to Portsmouth services will not travel through Westbury. Buses will replace trains between Trowbridge – Westbury – Warminster

Monday 24 December to Monday 1 January

• On the South Wales Main Line, buses will replace trains between Newport and Bristol Parkway and Newport and Gloucester while Network Rail carries out essential improvements.

Tuesday 25 December to Tuesday 1 January

• Electrification work through Severn Tunnel Junction means a replacement bus service will operate between Newport and Bristol Parkway.

Thursday 27 to Monday 31 December

• A limited service will be operating from Guildford station from 27 December until 31 December as bridge strengthening work takes place. This means passengers travelling from the west to Gatwick will need to complete their journeys via London.

 

Network Rail is also upgrading stations between Maidenhead and Paddington in preparation for Elizabeth Line Services.

At Acton Main Line, Ealing Broadway and West Ealing, cranes will be lifting in staircases and lift shafts that will form part of the new accessible footbridges connecting the new Crossrail ticket halls to the platforms. Between West Drayton and Maidenhead engineers will begin work on hundreds of metres of platform extensions to allow the introduction of longer GWR and Elizabeth line trains next year.

There are no Heathrow Express or Transport for London (TfL) Rail trains to Heathrow Airport on 23, 24, 25, 26 or 30 December.

Heathrow Express and TfL Rail services will run every 30 minutes on 27, 28, 29 and 31 December. TfL Rail services won’t call at Acton Main Line, West Ealing or Hanwell.

The upgrades are part of Network Rail's railway upgrade plan – a multi-billion-pound investment in the rail network which will improve passenger journeys in the months and years ahead.

Mark Langman, route managing director for Network Rail’s Western route, said:

"With around 50% less people travelling over the Christmas and the New Year holiday period, we have an opportunity to carry out extensive improvement work with less disruption for the majority of passengers. We have dozens of projects which will be completed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day with no impact on train services - although some others will affect other days during the period as well. When complete, these projects will enable us to keep operating a safe, reliable railway for passengers, the communities and economies that we support.

"In all cases, we work closely with the train companies to make sure passengers have accurate information to allow them to plan ahead and we thank them for their patience. I encourage all passengers intending to travel over the Christmas and New Year holiday periods to check the National Rail Enquiries or their train operating company websites"

GWR operations manager Rob Mullen said:

“We advise customers to plan their journey in advance at GWR.com, and with work at London Paddington and London Waterloo, to travel on or before 22 December if possible.

“While we recognise the disruption this work will cause, and thank passengers in advance for their understanding, it is vital to enable us to run more of our brand new Intercity Express Trains.

These new trains are already delivering more seats, and will after timetable improvements agreed by Network Rail, deliver more frequent and quicker services on more modern and reliable infrastructure.”

A breakdown of how journeys will be affected can be found by visiting nationalrail.co.uk/Christmas and at gwr.com/christmas and following #XmasRailWorks on Twitter.