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Passengers are being reminded to prepare for a four-week period of railway upgrade work in and around Westbury station, that will improve performance of train services and ensure the continued safe and reliable running of the railway for years to come.

For the next two weekends (23-25 November, 30 November-2 December), engineering work will be taking place as part Network Rail’s performance improvement plan – known as Project Brunel – which will mean a reduced train service is operating between London Paddington, Heathrow Airport and Reading. This work includes vital drainage upgrades for areas of the line that frequently flood, as well as replacing track and sleepers (which support the rails) that have come to the end of their useable life.

• New figures released by Network Rail show that a bridge in Twerton, a suburb of Bath, was the tenth most-struck bridge in the UK over the past year.
• The bridge was struck 10 times, resulting in over 12 hours of disruption caused by the collisions.  Bridge strikes at the location were up by over 300% on the previous year, when vehicles struck the bridge a total of three times.
• Network Rail urges lorry drivers to ‘Wise Up, Size Up’ by knowing the height of their vehicles and choosing suitable routes before they head out on journeys.

Passengers are advised to check their journeys between Newquay and Par ahead of major engineering work to help create Mid Cornwall Metro (MCM), which affects trains from Monday 18 November.

Passengers advised to travel the day before or day after.

The bridge deck and temporary staircases for Network Rail’s new accessible footbridge at St Erth have been successfully installed. The previous listed footbridge was carefully dismantled last weekend and will be taken to East Somerset heritage railway.

Passengers travelling between Bristol and Bath, and on towards Westbury are reminded to check before they travel during the autumn half term break.

This World Mental Health Day (10 October 2024), Network Rail has announced a new milestone with its Rail Suicide Prevention Programme as almost 1,500 interventions have been made across Network Rail’s Wales and Western region.