Over the Easter weekend, engineering work will cause disruption to services on the West Coast Main Line and to CrossCountry Trains, whilst a bridge closure near Oxford will also affect Chiltern Railways services.
If possible, anyone intending to travel this weekend should try to either travel today, Thursday, 6th April or wait until Tuesday, 11th April.
West Coast Main Line
- Between Good Friday and Easter Monday, no trains will run to or from London Euston, with all services starting and finishing at Milton Keynes. Passengers who do need to travel on those days will have longer journeys, there will be fewer seats available, and they may need to use rail-replacement buses.
- At Weaver Junction in Cheshire, there will be no direct services from Crewe to Liverpool because switches and crossings are being upgraded.
- Services through Crewe will take longer due to signalling improvements.
- Closure of the line between Lancaster and Carlisle from 8th to 11th April for multiple track upgrades, which will also result in the use of rail-replacement buses on the Lakes line between Windermere and Oxenholme.
- Journeys on the West Coast main line in Scotland will be affected because of continuing work to upgrade Carstairs Junction.
To find out why Euston station is closed this Easter click here.
Other essential works taking place over the bank holiday includes:
- Replacing a bridge in Sutton Coldfield, which will close the Cross City line between Birmingham New Street and Lichfield Trent Valley from 7th to 10th April.
- Improvements to the Hope Valley line between Sheffield and Manchester will continue.
Chiltern Railways
Because of an emergency closure of a railway viaduct over the River Thames at Oxford, the line between Didcot Parkway and Oxford will remain closed and alternative rail routes will be extremely busy.
Please only travel if essential, and check your journey before you travel at https://www.chilternrailways.co.uk
CrossCountry Trains
As with Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry services through the Midlands are not running south of Oxford because of emergency viaduct repairs
CrossCountry passengers heading for the south coast should change at Birmingham New Street for services to Milton Keynes, then transfer onto a rail replacement shuttle bus service to Bedford for onward train travel into London St Pancras to onward travel to their final destinations.
Click here for further information and temporary timetables for the unexpected disruption.
Anyone who has a pre-booked tickets should recheck their journeys as soon as possible, and passengers who have booked assisted travel should contact their train operator to find out how their journey has been affected by the Oxford to Didcot railway closure.
Dave Penney, Network Rail passenger director for the North West and Central region, said: “We're reminding people that the best time to travel on the West Coast main line and Chiltern main line this Easter is on Thursday 6 and Tuesday 11 April – before and after we must close parts of the railway to carry out multi-million pound improvement work.
“This advice becomes even more pertinent with the urgent closure of a railway viaduct south of Oxford used by CrossCountry services, as the knock-on impact over the Easter weekend will make alternative routes very busy. Please check with your train operator directly if you think you could be impacted by that – especially if you have booked assisted travel.”
