Monday 11 Mar 2024
Top travel tips for Cheltenham Festival railway racegoers
- Region & Route:
- North West & Central
- | North West & Central: Central
Cheltenham Festival-goers travelling by train from Birmingham New Street are being given top tips to help them get off to a winning start for 2024.
With thousands of people travelling by train from Birmingham to the world famous meet this week, railway racegoers are being encouraged to:
- plan their journeys
- check before they travel, and
- allow extra time to catch their train
Steven Ireland, Network Rail’s Central route head of stations and customer relations, said: “We’re really looking forward to welcoming festival-goers to Birmingham New Street this week for this really popular event.
“I’ve got three top tips for passengers travelling to Cheltenham: firstly, plan ahead and know what train you’re planning to get before the day of the races. Secondly, make sure you check your journey before travelling, and finally allow more time than you might do usually to get on the train – there may be queuing systems in place at busy times.”
Lauren Fleming, CrossCountry’s Events & Resilience Manager, said: “We’re ready to help racegoers get to Cheltenham again this year, but there’s a few things they should remember to stop them falling at the first hurdle: they should check before travelling and leave extra time for journeys, especially on the way home, as services between Birmingham and Cheltenham will be extremely busy and queuing systems will be in place at some stations. We’d also ask those arriving at the Festival by rail to remain respectful to railway colleagues – or risk disqualification!”
Additional staff will be on hand at Birmingham New Street station to help passengers throughout the week from tomorrow (Tuesday 12 March) until Friday 15 March.
The station team has been planning for weeks to get ready for the thousands of extra passengers who use the station to get to Cheltenham Racecourse.
A queuing system may be in use during especially busy periods, but fans shouldn’t need to wait for long with regular services scheduled direct to Cheltenham Spa.
Passengers can check their journeys at www.nationalrail.co.uk for the latest travel information.
Contact information
Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41
Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries
Journalists
Network Rail press office - North West & Central Region
07740 782954
NWCmediarelations@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.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
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