Electrification work between Newbury and Reading starts on Monday 12 March.  This impacts West of England services as the line is closed from Monday to Thursday and they will need to divert trains through Swindon.  This will add between 20 to 50 minutes to journeys and will mean some trains are retimed.

They are asking everyone to double check their journey before they set out.

This is a major piece of work by Network Rail which will mean they will be able to run their new Intercity Express trains on electric power as far as Newbury on their journeys to the South West.  This will enable them to operate a new faster timetable from January 2019.

The work will take over 1200 hours to complete, and there will be several weekday line closures between March and November, including a three week closure in July.    Dates are on their dedicated webpage:-

www.gwr.com/travel-updates/planned-engineering/newbury2018