FirstGroup’s four rail franchises - Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway, South Western Railway and TransPennine Express - are introducing new timetables, alongside the rest of the industry, to ensure they can continue to provide a reliable, sustainable service for key workers and the communities they serve.
The new timetables will be effective from Monday 23 March. This follows some limited, local variations to service made by our companies in response to availability of employees.
As a result, approximately half of services will be running, though this will vary, route by route. There will be a focus to support early, late and peak time services, to ensure key workers can get to their workplaces.
Similarly, Hull Trains, our open access operation, has already introduced a reduced timetable to provide a resilient service.
Steve Montgomery, Managing Director, First Rail said:
”FirstGroup’s train operators, along with the rest of the rail sector, play a vital role in keeping key workers moving, allowing them to do the essential jobs they do.
“The impact of latest Government advice to deal with Coronavirus on our own staff, and on passenger levels, means that we are proactively moving to new reduced timetables, to ensure that we can continue to run a sustainable service for as long as we need to.
“We are waiving fees on refunds or rearranging tickets; normal rules for refunding unused portions of season tickets apply.
“I appreciate the flexibility of our colleagues, trade unions and all our industry partners to allow us to move at speed to make these responsible and proportionate changes, and keep key routes operating over the coming weeks and months.”
Details of the new timetables will be available from midday on Sunday 22 March. Passengers should visit our train companies’ websites, or National Rail Enquiries, for full details:
Avanti West Coast: www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk
GWR: www.gwr.com
Hull Trains: www.hulltrains.co.uk
SWR: www.southwesternrailway.com
TPE: www.tpexpress.co.uk
National Rail Enquiries: www.nationalrail.co.uk