Avanti West Coast (the rail operator which plies services from London Euston) is making massive cuts temporarily to its timetable.
The train company is putting the revised timetable in between 7 January and 25 February, due to staff shortages that they are experiencing.
In summary, the train company plans to operate the following:
- Hourly Service between London and Birmingham, with onward service to Edinburgh and Blackpool – calling at Watford Junction, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Sandwell and Dudley, Wolverhampton, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, and Preston. Edinburgh trains run once every two hours, as do Blackpool services.
- Hourly Service between London and Manchester (Milton Keynes, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield and Stockport, with an additional service calling at Crewe)
- Hourly Service between London and Liverpool, calling at Stafford, Crewe and Runcorn
- Hourly Service between London and Glasgow, calling at Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith and Carlisle.
- A single service per day between London and Holyhead. A shuttle service will operate between Crewe and Holyhead.
If you are planning to travel on these dates, you should check National Rail Enquiries in the first instance to see if your train is running.
Those who have been impacted should have been notified already. Although it never hurts to be proactive and find out what to do next.
If your train has been cancelled, you can use your ticket on the train before or after your original booked service. Advanced tickets are amendable and cancelable if you decide not to travel. Avanti has a full information page here
Avanti West Coast has also published its planned changes at avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/plan-your-journey/timetables. PDF timetables are also on this page should you need to refer to what’s going on.
Planning is going to be hard
With a railway route that was used to 3 trains an hour to some destinations going down to an hourly service, it is going to be a fun time for travellers with fewer frequencies to utilise, as well as fuller trains (although reports abound that the trains have mainly been carrying fresh air).
For those planning leisure trips, or even though how to have to go to conduct business, rail travel is going be a lot harder.
Sadly – it’s not just Avanti who are hit, with Southern making major cuts (so much to close services to one of its London terminals), C2C, East Midlands Railway, CrossCountry, Greater Anglia, Great Northern, LNER, London North Western Railway, Merseyrail, Northern, Scotrail, South Western Railway, Thameslink, Transpennine Express, Transport for Wales and West Midland Railways all implementing changed timetables.
The full list is at https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/indicator.aspx.
If rail travel is in your future, allow a lot of extra time for your journey.
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