Shropshire passengers facing bank holiday rail chaos

All Arriva Trains Wales services between Shrewsbury and Birmingham New Street will be replaced by buses on May 3 and Bank Holiday Monday, while Virgin Trains will not run any services to or from Shrewsbury over the entire weekend.

Trains between Shrewsbury and Manchester Piccadilly will also be diverted via Chester and Warrington Bank Quay on the Sunday due to improvement work being carried out by Network Rail in the Crewe area. These services will not stop at Crewe, Wilmslow or Stockport.

It is part of a national engineering programme being run by Network Rail which will see a team of 14,000 workers out on the railways across Britain over the bank holiday weekend.

But Network Rail has insisted 95 per cent of the trains network would be unaffected. It added that the work has been timed to minimise disruption to passengers, as over a bank holiday weekend passenger numbers can drop by 20 per cent to 30 per cent.

Elsewhere in the country, London's Liverpool Street station will be particularly badly hit, while Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Waterloo East and London Bridge high level platforms 1-3 will be closed at various points over the weekend. There will also be diversions into Victoria/Blackfriars or trains terminating at New Cross in south London.

Two of the four lines between Slough and London Paddington will be closed over the weekend while there will be an amended timetable for trains using Waterloo.

Mark Carne, Network Rail's chief executive, said: "Our improvement programme this bank holiday, delivered by a 14,000-strong army of rail workers, is focused on delivering a better service for passengers.

"We'd like to apologise to any passengers whose plans are affected by our improvement work, but I hope they will understand that this is a quieter time on the railway and we want to minimise the overall impact of these vital projects on passengers."

Mansel Williams, of the Chester-Shrewsbury Rail Partnership, said: "They (Network Rail) do tend to choose these times that are not always convenient to the public.

"Unfortunately we have to accept the decision they take. Having said that, it does cause real inconvenience to the travellers and I will, as we always do, suggest other times but they always have a pretty good cause to say they have to do it at certain times and days. It is really difficult."

Network Rail was severely criticised for engineering work overruns last Christmas that led to chaotic scenes at Finsbury Park station in north London.

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