Great Western Railway is advising customers to check their travel plans carefully before making a journey, as signal upgrade work taking place will see services which operate in the very early morning and late evening affected.

The project will see Network Rail engineers carry out improvements to signalling systems between Totnes and Plymouth. The work will see the old signalling system replaced with new state-of-the-art signalling, which will support improved reliability and safety whilst allowing a higher number of trains to operate in the area.

Work will get underway from Sunday the 24th of September and will continue with several overnight closures until the early part of 2024.

The project will see the majority of work completed through the night affecting services at the start and end of the day, including Great Western Railway‘s Night Riviera sleeper service.

• Mondays will see trains operating after 22:30 affected
• Tuesdays to Thursdays will see trains operating before 06:00 and after 22:30 affected
• Fridays will see trains operating before 06:00 affected
• Saturdays will see no changes to services
• Sundays will see trains operating before 09:00 affected

Monday morning and Friday evening service will operate as usual in order to support customer demand. The ongoing project will also stop for a two-week break from Tuesday the 31st of October through to Sunday the 12th of November, which will support further rail improvement work taking place in Cornwall.

Rail replacement buses will be operating to and from Plymouth in order to connect with other trains in the mornings and evenings, where services are impacted by the work.

Night Riviera sleeper service will not run between Mondays and Thursdays, however will operate on Friday and Sunday nights and on some select days in order to support leisure travel to Cornwall at the weekend and also those commuting to London during the week. To find out more about the impact on Night Riviera sleeper service, please click here.

Sleeper services and early morning and late night services will return to normal operation once the work allows, in early 2024.

Paul Collyer, Network Rail sponsor, said:

“This is the largest signalling investment in Devon and Cornwall for a generation and we are bringing the old signalling systems into the 21st century.”

“Unfortunately, we do need to cause some disruption to carry out this work, but once complete, passengers travelling into and around Plymouth will feel the benefits for years to come.”

Lee Goodson, GWR station manager for Plymouth, said:

“We recognise that these works will be very disruptive for our customers, and we thank them in advance for their patience and understanding.”

“This includes to our iconic sleeper service, and we look forward to being able to bring it back to a six-day-a-week service as soon as possible.”

“We will be running an extensive replacement bus service on affected days to help keep passengers moving. However, journeys will take longer than normal, so we recommend checking carefully.”

“These upgrades will help to make our services in the region more reliable and allow scope for extra services to be added in the future.”