Scots face festive rail disruption on West Coast line

Thursday 1 November 2012

Christmas travellers will have to contend with disrupted services on a key Scotland to London rail route on December 23 and 24.

And there will also be disruption to services on the West Coast main line in the run-up to Hogmanay.

Part of a £125 million Bletchley resignalling project, the engineering work is part of planned works over the festive period.

The work means:There will be no direct services between Glasgow Central and Euston station in London on December 23 and 24;Hourly services will run from Euston via an alternative route (Chilterns) to Nuneaton where passengers will be able to change for services heading to Glasgow;Direct services resume on Thursday December 27, but with some lines closed up to and including New Year's Eve. This means fewer (but direct) services to the usual destinations.Network Rail (NR) network operations managing director Robin Gisby said today: "Services on the West Coast on December 23 and 24 will be severely affected by a major project to increase line-speeds and capacity in the Milton Keynes area."We understand and regret the impact this will have on passengers and freight services, but believe it is unfortunately necessary to achieve the long-term benefits this work will deliver for many years to come."NR and the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) said that although there would be engineering work on the railways, the vast majority of people expected to travel over the Christmas and new year period should experience no disruption.They added that the number of replacement bus services needed will be almost half that of the festive period last year.Atoc chief executive Michael Roberts said: "A great deal of effort and planning goes into making sure that work to improve stations and make journeys faster and more reliable goes on while minimising disruption for our passengers."This year, we have again been able to reduce the number of people who will have to get on to a replacement bus. Once again train companies have been working closely with NR to make sure that we keep people on trains wherever we can."

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Scots face festive rail disruption on West Coast line

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