REMINDER: Check before travelling ahead of August bank holiday

On Saturday 26 August, RMT's strike action in support of better pay and against job cuts will mean that services in England and some cross-border journeys into Scotland and Wales will be disrupted.

Timetables are now live at the National Rail website and with train operators, enabling passengers to check the status of their journey

Engineering workers are no longer part of the industrial action, having reached a settlement with Network Rail earlier this year, so they will be working on upgrades over the weekend.

Network Rail is spending £71m on around five hundred projects, and workers will be installing more than seven-and-a-half thousand metres of new rail and 2,400 sleepers, and laying almost fifteen thousand tonnes of ballast.

Disruption will include:

• Track renewals and signalling upgrades mean a limited service will operate to and from London Euston from 8pm on Saturday 26 until Tuesday 29 August.
• Installation of new equipment and technology to prepare for digital signalling between Welwyn Garden City and Hitchin, and upgrade work in the Peterborough area, will mean that buses and coaches will replace trains between late evening Saturday 26 August and early morning Monday 28 August between Grantham, Royston and Potters Bar/Hertford North; there will be no train services at Peterborough and buses also replace trains on services between Grantham/Leicester and Ely.
• Signal and crossings renewals and maintenance work at New Cross means that trains will not run out of London Charing Cross, London Cannon Street and Waterloo East on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 August. Services will be diverted to start and terminate from London Victoria or London Bridge.
• Network Rail will be carrying out work towards completion of the £116m re-signalling scheme on the lines between London Waterloo and Windsor at the end of August. The existing system is obsolete and unreliable, and is being replaced by newly-installed signals. While engineers switch these new signals on, buses will replace trains between Staines and Windsor and Eton Riverside on Saturday 26 August, and between Barnes and Virginia Water, Twickenham and Virginia Water and Twickenham and Windsor & Eton Riverside from Sunday 27 August until Friday 1 September.
• Work preparing for HS2 will mean that CrossCountry services between Birmingham New Street and Derby will be disrupted from Saturday 26 until Monday 28 August. Trains to and from Scotland and the North East will run on an alternative route, extending journey times by up to an hour. On Sunday 27, not all services to and from Scotland and the North East will call at Tamworth.

Jake Kelly, Network Rail's director of System Operator, said: “We've carefully planned our bank holiday engineering work to minimise the impact on our passengers and freight customers, and the vast majority of the network will be open so people can enjoy the long weekend.

“However, it's vital that passengers check the status of their journeys before travelling, particularly on Saturday 26th, when journeys in England, along with some cross-border services into Wales and Scotland, will be disrupted owing to industrial action.”