Driving Home for Christmas, might be the most reliable of options this year as First Great Western are urging its customers to check before you travel or travel early.
Over the Christmas and New Year period, Network Rail engineers will be carrying out £25 million worth of improvements on the Great Western network.
These improvements will help pave the way to GWR delivering more seats, more frequent trains and more reliable services.
GWR Operations Manager, Rob Mullen said:
“We advise customers to plan their journey in advance at GWR.com, and with the 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.”Rail
Routes Affected
Sunday 23rd December to Wednesday 26th December and Sunday 30th December
Track renewal work near Sothall: Long distance services will start and terminate at Reading, not London Paddington with stopping commuter services terminating at Slough
Sunday 23rd December to Thursday 3rd January 2019
Track renewals near Westbury: Cardiff to Portsmouth services will not travel through Westbury. Instead passengers will need to use rail replacement services between Trowbridge – Westbury – Warminster
Tuesday 25th December to Tuesday 1st January 2019
Electrification work through the Severn Tunnel Junction: A replacement bus service will operate between Newport and Bristol Parkway.
Tuesday 25th December to Sunday 30th December 2019
Bridge strengthening at Guildford: Trains will terminate at Ash, change at North Camp for connecting replacement bus services for Guildford, Redhill and Gatwick Airport.
Further details about all Network Rail improvements over the festive period can be found here.
