Until the early hours of Friday, 19th July, the Severn Tunnel will be closed for essential engineering works and there will be no train services between Bristol and South Wales.
The closure will affect:
- Great Western Railway services between London and South Wales will be diverted through Gloucester and will not stop at Bristol Parkway.
- Services between Bristol Parkway and London Paddington, although there will be a few services on this route, but only at morning and evening peak times.
- Great Western Railway services between Cardiff Central, Portsmouth, and southwest England will start and terminate at Bristol Parkway.
During the closure, only a very-limited rail-replacement bus service will be provided between Bristol Parkway and Severn Tunnel Junction.
Instead, customers wishing to travel between South Wales and Bristol should travel on trains to Gloucester, and change there for services to Bristol and South Wales.
Tickets for travel between southwest England, Bristol, and South Wales will be valid for travel via Gloucester, but journeys will take around 30 minutes longer.
Train services to/from South Wales via Gloucester or Cheltenham Spa by Transport for Wales and CrossCountry will be largely unaffected by the closure.
However, because of the extra number of trains using the line between Gloucester and Chepstow, customers should check their journeys before travelling.
Because the diversion via Gloucester will result in longer to journey times, and only a limited rail replacement service running, passengers should check before they travel with Network Rail at https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ or Great Western Rail at https://www.gwr.com/
The work is required as the tunnel is a corrosive environment with saltwater ingress inside the tunnel. Track that would normally last 25 years in a normal environment needs to be replaced every 10 years. The work will include:
- Removing 21,000 tonnes of spoil.
- Replacing 7,040 metres of track inside the Severn Tunnel .
- Installing 66 216-metres-long rails, equivalent to a 14 km span in total
- Installing 10,800 sleepers
- Installing over 22,000 tonnes of ballast.
Access to the work sites will be from Garthalan Drive at Caldicot in South Wales and Green Lane at Severn Beach in England.
Because of the closure of the tunnel, trains including freight trains that normally use the tunnel will use the route between Chepstow and Gloucester. There are a number of level crossings along this line and all level crossing users should be particularly vigilant during this period.
In 2022, Network Rail replaced track, sleepers, and ballast in the tunnel and last summer, Network Rail replaced 3.2 km of track in the tunnel
The Severn Tunnel will be closed again for further work over the weekend of Saturday, 27 and Sunday, 28 July and Saturday, 24 and Sunday, 25 August.
