Bank Holiday travel: Northern Rail strikes and engineering works could wreck train journey plans

Even football is disrupting normal travel, with trains redeployed to take fans to the play-off finals at Wembley

Strikes could affect weekend plans (AFP/Getty Images)

Record high temperatures for the bank holiday weekend could trigger record numbers of people on the move. But after a dismal start to the week for rail and air passengers, travel disruption is set to intensify.

Train travel

Re-signalling work by Network Rail will disrupt the busiest station outside London, Birmingham New Street. Services will be severely reduced all day on Saturday.

All through the weekend, the main line between Birmingham and Coventry will be closed. Trains between Birmingham and London will be routed via Stafford – a diversion that will add an hour to journeys.

Further north, engineering work will close the west coast main line on Saturday and Sunday between Oxenholme and Carlisle, and between Motherwell and Glasgow.

Caledonian Sleeper services from Friday onwards will be diverted via Newcastle.

Swindon, the station at the centre of the Great Western line between London Paddington and Bristol, will be closed from Saturday to Monday.

Trains are being diverted on lines south of Swindon via Newbury and Westbury, adding 45 minutes to journeys to and from South Wales.

Football is also disrupting normal travel. The play-off finals for the Championship, League One and League Two will reduce capacity between London Marylebone and Aylesbury as Chiltern trains are re-deployed to serve Wembley Stadium.

Radical new rail timetables introduced this week in southeast and northwest England quickly unravelled, largely due to a shortage of trained drivers.

Dozens of cancellations are continuing on routes such as Brighton to Cambridge and Blackpool to Manchester, and are likely to disrupt weekend travel.

As well as the botched introduction of new timetables, passengers on Northern face more problems on Thursday and Saturday due to a strike by members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) over the role of guards.

The train operator is asking prospective passengers to “consider whether travel is necessary”.

Northern runs trains from Nottingham to Northumberland and Lincolnshire to Cumbria. It serves key destinations including Blackpool, Southport, Cleethorpes and Scarborough.

The train operator says: “On Thursday, the majority of available trains will operate between 7am and 7pm as we focus on running as many trains as we can to get you into work and home again.

“On Saturday, most trains will run between 7am and 5pm as we work to get you to and from leisure destinations across the region.

“As the overall number of trains running will be reduced, we expect trains and any replacement buses we operate to be extremely busy.”

The RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, said: “German-owned Northern Rail want to run half a million trains a year without a safety critical guard on board in a move that would wreck both safety and access to services and they should listen to their front-line staff and pull back from that plan immediately.”

Richard Allan, Northern’s deputy manager director, said: “It is disappointing that RMT has chosen to target its strike action during the week of the Bank Holiday weekend.

“We urge RMT to move away from its nationally coordinated strikes and allow its local representatives to engage in meaningful discussions with us on how we better serve customers on board our new and refurbished trains.”

Travel to France

Abroad, French rail workers are striking on Thursday, Monday and Tuesday as part of a long series of stoppages in protest against modernisation plans.

Eurostar, which has some trains driven by French rail staff, has cancelled four trains connecting London with Paris on Thursday; five on Bank Holiday Monday; and a further four on Tuesday.

Passengers can switch to alternative Eurostar trains or claim a full refund.

Air travel

Threatened strikes by baggage handlers, firefighters and security staff at Luton Airport over the weekend have been called off. But French air-traffic controllers in the Marseille Area Control Centre will strike for 48 hours from 6.30am local time on Saturday 26 May. The centre covers a large area of southeast France and a tranche of the Mediterranean as far south as the southern tip of Sardinia.

A national strike on Tuesday grounded around 500 flights, many of them links connecting the UK with Spain and Italy.

Road travel

On the roads, Friday is expected to be the busiest day in the UK, particularly during the late afternoon and early evening, with congestion expected on the M25 around London.

Saturday is the first day of half-term for many schools. Key routes to southwest England, including the M4, M5 and A303, will be very busy. Heavy traffic is anticipated on routes from northern England to North Wales, on the M6 and A590 around the Lake District and on the M55 to Blackpool.

The traffic specialist INRIX is warning of “significant delays”. Graham Cookson, the chief economist, said: “Popular bank holiday destinations such as Brighton could take almost double the time to travel to, leaving your time enjoying the beach significantly reduced”.