London to Scotland rail passengers face disruption as great summer getaway begins

Rail passengers on the East and West Coast main lines face summer disruption

Crewe cut: Virgin Trains between London and Glasgow will be diverted because of work on the line in Cheshire (Simon Calder)

As the peak summer season begins, travellers between London and Glasgow face extended journeys and disruption. A 16-day engineering project starts on Saturday 20 July, closing the West Coast main line between Crewe and Warrington.

The Network Rail upgrade project at Acton Grange junction is designed to make it more reliable. But the work will disrupt Virgin Trains’ Anglo-Scottish services between Saturday 20 July and Sunday 4 August.

Through trains between London Euston and Glasgow Central will still run, but they will be diverted via Manchester. The usual journey time of under four-and-a-half hours will be extended by around an hour.

In addition, rail replacement buses will run nonstop between Crewe and Preston.

Virgin Trains services to Blackpool will be cancelled throughout the project.

Links from Chester to Manchester will also be disrupted. Caledonian Sleeper services will be diverted via Manchester.

Virgin Trains is expecting a very busy day on Friday 19 July, partly as a result of the planned work, and another peak on Monday 5 August when the work ends.

Friday 23 August, the day before the bank holiday weekend, will also be extremely busy. Over the August bank holiday itself, work at Milton Keynes will disrupt the West Coast main line, while the East Coast main line hub of London King’s Cross will be closed.

The East Coast main line operator LNER says it expects the busiest summer days on its key routes from London King’s Cross to Leeds and Edinburgh to be Friday 26 July, as well as Thursday 22 and Friday 23 August.

On the Great Western line from London Paddington to South Wales, Bristol, Devon and Cornwall, the peak days will also be around the bank holiday.

A GWR spokesperson said: “Unlike Christmas and Easter, we tend to see demand spread across a much wider period during the summer; with a pick in numbers travelling at the end of the summer holidays, and spikes tying in with key events.

“For example the August bank holiday weekend, with the Monday return being the busiest, sees bank holiday travellers alongside those going to and coming home from the Reading Festival.”

GWR now has all its new IET trains, with an extra 100 seats compared with the old High Speed Trains.

“The fleet change allowed us to provide almost 40 per cent more seats to the Glastonbury Festival this year than previously; we carried 27,000 home over the Sunday and Monday,” said the GWR spokesperson.

Eurostar forecasts that Friday 19 July will be its peak day for departures from London St Pancras, with over 21,000 passengers heading for Paris and Brussels.

The busiest inbound days are all in August: 1, 2, 26 and 27.

Overall, Eurostar expects Monday 29 July and Friday 23 August to be busiest, with around 39,000 passengers.