Train services from London Paddington station will be affected by strike action this weekend and into early next week. The strike action is at Network Rail’s Thames Valley Signalling Centre, which means it will affect trains along the railway west of London, including both GWR and Elizabeth line services.
Paddington Station (c) ianVisits
The strikes take place on Saturday 19th November and Monday 21st November, but Network Rail says that it expects that the strike action will result in a four-day period of disruption on its Western route.
On strike days a limited service will operate across many parts of the Western route between 7:30am and 6:30pm, with the last trains leaving much earlier. Disruption should also be expected in the morning of the day after each strike day – Sunday 20th and Tuesday 22nd November – as the railway recovers from the previous day’s strikes.
The Thames Valley Signalling Centre (TVSC) at Didcot Parkway plays a critical role in the running of trains between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads, Westbury, South Wales and Cheltenham and Gloucester, meaning this strike action will particularly affect passengers in the South West, West of England, Oxfordshire, Thames Valley and the Cotswolds.
Differently from previous strike action, the whole of the Western route will remain open on the two strike days, albeit with a limited service. Services in Devon and Cornwall including branch lines will continue to operate to a near normal frequency. A normal CrossCountry service will be available for most of the day but will not be able to operate at Bristol or Reading after 6:30pm.
GWR is also advising people travelling to the England vs New Zealand test match at Twickenham (5:30pm kick off) are told not to travel by train as there will be no services travelling West to Reading and onwards to the South West after the match. South Western Railway (SWR) is similarly advising passengers not to travel to the match by train from Reading, Earley, Winnersh or Winnersh Triangle stations. Services to the match from other stations on the SWR network will be unaffected.
GWR has set up a strike action help page here, and SWR has a page here.
The Elizabeth line will operate between London Paddington and Reading between 7:30am and 6:30pm only, although the core tunnels through London from Paddington won’t be affected by the strike.
There won’t be a service to Heathrow Airport all weekend for either the Elizabeth line or Heathrow Express due to unrelated engineering work. The Piccadilly line will be running normally to provide a connection to the airport.
Thanks for sharing thus unwelcome news. I’m planning to travel this way on Saturday and will now reconsider.
Train strikes have always been a regular occurance in this country my entire 54 years of life. It’s awful how the unions use them as a regular negotiation/blackmail tactic with no care to how they destroy peoples lives.
I understand striking by exploited workers but the rail unions take the piss and destroy the notion for others.
Someone should tell the truth this is a health and safety matter when a union rep brings up something on Health and Safety he should not be sacked this matter is serious something you would not do at home.