Christmas & New Year travel

Christmas & New Year travel (updated) 

The Rail Maritime Transport union (RMT) are on strike from Christmas Eve through to Tuesday 27th December.  Trains are not running on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, this means that trains will finish much earlier than usual on Christmas Eve.  Customers are being asked to complete their journeys by lunchtime, and services will start up again after midday on Tuesday 27 December.

A reduced level of service will then operate through to 2nd January with further strikes on Tuesday 3rd, Wednesday 4th, Thursday 5th, Friday 6th and Saturday 7th January.  Services on Sunday the 8th of January will be impacted with later starts to services than usual.

The RMT are also taking industrial action, short of a strike throughout this week (Monday 19 December to Friday 23 December). They are expecting to run a full timetable, however, given this continuing action services could be subject to short-notice alterations and cancellations.  Customers should therefore check again before they travel using www.gwr.com/check

All the latest on industrial action including a journey checker for looking at specific journeys and advice on refunds is on their webpage www.gwr.com/strike

There will also be another strike that is impacting services, Servest, who clean the trains and stations, have advised that their staff are also on strike on Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd and Saturday 31st December. Whilst staff and volunteers will do their best,  there will be a knock-on effect on the cleanliness of the trains and stations during this period.

For anyone who is looking for some light reading over the festive period, they have just published their Customer & Stakeholder Report Mid Year Report, which can be downloaded as a PDF from their webpage here: https://www.gwr.com/about-gwr/our-business/partners-and-stakeholders