Easter travel misery on the trains as works hit lines

 
Fare hikes: the cost of season tickets is set to rise nearly six times more than wages FILE PICTURE
11 April 2014

Train passengers face misery this Easter after rail bosses announced line diversions, closures and bus replacement services over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Network Rail said it would be carrying out engineering works affecting services out of London Paddington, King’s Cross, London Bridge and other stations around the country.

First Great Western services out of London Paddington will be disrupted between Good Friday and Easter Monday because of engineering works in West London. Heathrow Express trains will also be disrupted by rail works.

East Coast, First Capital Connect, First Hull Trains and Grand Central services out of King’s Cross will be hit by works in north London.

First Capital Connect and Southern services will not stop at London Bridge from Good Friday to Easter Monday.

Southeastern services to and from Charing Cross will start and finish at Cannon Street, while buses will replace c2c trains between Basildon, Stanford-le-Hope and Benfleet in Essex, and trains between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea/Walton-on-the-Naze.

Lines linking Bristol Parkway and Swindon will be closed, leading to the suspension of some trains between London and Swansea, and 45-minute delays on other routes.

Motoring organisations predicted that the getaway would start today due to the late Easter weekend, which falls at the end of the school holidays.

Trafficmaster expects roads to the South Coast, the South-West and the national parks to be among the busiest.

Some 1.5 million passengers will use Gatwick over the two-week Easter school holidays.

Last Sunday was the busiest for departures — with 62,000 — and Easter Monday will be busiest for arrivals, with 61,000.

At Heathrow, 1.6 million passengers will depart over the Easter period between April 11 and 27.

Commenting on Easter improvement works, a spokesperson for the Rail Delivery Group which speaks on behalf of the rail industry said: “Britain has the fastest growing, safest major railway in Europe. Work is planned carefully to deliver faster, more reliable journeys while ensuring that the vast majority of passengers will not be disrupted as we improve the railway.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in