Great Western Railway are warning passengers who are travelling over the Christmas period to check before travelling as Network Rail continues upgrade work this Christmas.

Several pieces of maintenance work will take place across the network between Christmas Eve and Wednesday 1 January.

The work will see no rail services able to operate between Reading/Slough and London Paddington from Tuesday 24 December and Friday 27, and a reduced service from Saturday 28 and Tuesday 31 December.

Replacement bus services will operate from Slough towards Hillingdon.

In South Wales the continued overhead wiring work at Cardiff Central and track renewal at Newport means that buses will replace trains between Bristol Parkway and Cardiff Central/Bridgend from Friday 27 December to Wednesday 1 January.

Further south on GWR’s North Downs route between Reading and Gatwick, work to strengthen a bridge at Guildford will affect trains.

Bridge maintenance in Salisbury will affect train services between Warminster and Southampton Central on Friday 27 December only.

What did the officials say?

GWR Managing Director Mark Hopwood said:

“It’s absolutely essential that Network Rail do this work, and Christmas is the only time that we can do it. Unfortunately, this means that we are not able to offer services between Reading and London Paddington on the 24 and 27 December.

“With industrial action on the South Western Railway network there are limited options for alternative travel on those dates and we advise customers to carefully consider this before they travel.

“A reduced service will be back running on the 28 December, with our full and improved timetable from Thursday 2 January. I am grateful to customers for their patience during these works.”

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