Landslide closes main rail line

12 April 2012

The main railway line between London and South Wales has been closed after a landslide.

First Great Western said the line near Chipping Sodbury, north east of Bristol, was likely to remain shut for several days.

A spokesman said a reduced service would be run to South Wales via Bath and Bristol every hour instead of every 30 minutes.

Network Rail said engineers were at the site of the landslide to assess the situation and restore services as soon as possible.

A spokesman added that the water levels had built up in the area, causing the landslide.

It happened west of Chipping Sodbury tunnel and is causing disruption to services between Swindon and Bristol Parkway, a spokesman said.

An hourly train service will run from London Paddington to Swansea at 45 minutes past each hour. The trains will run over a different route, adding 40 minutes to journey times and will not stop at Bristol Parkway.

Instead, they will call at Patchway, with buses linking the two stations.

The London Paddington to Cardiff Central service which leaves at 15 minutes past each hour, and the Cardiff Central to London Paddington service leaving at 55 minutes past each hour will not run.

But there will be an hourly train service from Swansea to London Paddington at 29 minutes past each hour. These trains will also take an alternative route after Newport station adding up to 40 minutes to journey times after this point. These trains will also call at Patchway instead of Bristol Parkway.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in