UK bank holiday: Train disruption and heavy traffic to delay journeys in England and Wales

The last bank holiday weekend until Christmas is seeing wide-ranging travel chaos disruption. Many travellers will find their journeys made more challenging by bad weather, planned engineering work on the railways and the sheer volume of traffic on the roads.

As Storm Lilian swept in on Friday, fallen trees blocked several rail lines in Wales, western England, the West Midlands and northwest England– including on the key West Coast main line between Stafford and Crewe and between Macclesfield and Stockport. Many trains between Manchester city centre and the airport are cancelled or delayed. The intercity link between Birmingham and Bristol is also blocked by a fallen tree.

Commuters in the London area face long delays due to a broken-down train on the Thameslink north-south line through the city centre.

Over the weekend three key intercity lines to and from London will be hit by closures and diversions due to Network Rail projects. Engineers will be working on both the East and West Coast main lines, as well as the Great Western route through the Severn Tunnel.

In addition, the RAC predicts heavier bank holiday traffic than at any time since it started recording data in 2015. Delays are expected on roads serving coastal resorts and on routes for the Leeds and Reading music festivals.

Friday 23 August is expected to be the busiest day of the year so far for UK departures.

Once the bank holiday weekend is over, strikes will resume. Train drivers belonging to the Aslef union and working for LNER will walk out on Saturday 31 August and on every weekend day until 10 November in a dispute over management behaviour.

At London Heathrow, 650 officers working for UK Border Force will stop work from 31 August to 3 September in a dispute over rosters.

These are the key bank holiday travel challenges.

Rail

Journeys on routes linking London with Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland will be slower and more complicated from Saturday evening, 24 August, to Monday morning, 26 August. Many people heading south from the Edinburgh Festival will be affected.

Work on the East Coast main line to enhance digital signalling will close the tracks between the capital and Peterborough. The last northbound intercity train from London King’s Cross station on Saturday will be the 9pm to Newcastle. The terminus will then close for 35 hours to long-distance passengers until 8am on bank holiday Monday.

On Sunday a reduced service will run south as far as St Neots in Cambridgeshire, from where rail-replacement buses will operate to and from Bedford. Thameslink trains from here run frequently to London St Pancras, adjacent to King’s Cross.

The main operator on the line, LNER, says: “We have sourced frequent rail-replacement coaches to provide a comfortable journey during the bank holiday.”

Lumo, Hull Trains and Grand Central services will also be disrupted.

Long-distance passengers hoping to switch to the West Coast main line instead will encounter longer journeys and some cancellations due to other Network Rail projects.

Fewer trains will run from Manchester and Birmingham to London Euston because of work at various points on the line – notably just outside the terminus in the capital, where work on the now-paused HS2 project will disrupt services.

Network Rail is also working on the route through Stoke-on-Trent. The Manchester-London service will be cut from three to two per hour, with journeys extended by 10 minutes or more.

Avanti West Coast says: “There will be a reduced timetable on some of our routes throughout the whole bank holiday weekend.

“This, combined with the many great events happening across the network [such as the Notting Hill Carnival in London and Manchester Pride], may mean that our trains are busier than usual this bank holiday weekend.”

Journeys on the Great Western route between South Wales and London will take much longer than usual due to the closure of the line between Bristol Parkway and Severn Tunnel Junction on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August. Trains will be diverted via Gloucester.

The usual two-per-hour service from Cardiff to London Paddington, taking as little as 1h50m, will be cut to once hourly, and the journey extended by almost an hour.

Network Rail says: “We plan works for certain times so they cause the least disruption to passengers, such as on bank holidays, Sundays and overnight, when the network is less busy.”

Passengers on Northern Trains in northwest England are warned of fewer trains due to staff shortage. The state-run train firm said: “Short notice cancellations are expected in the northwest on Sunday 25 August 2024 – please check before travelling.

“We encourage everyone to plan ahead and check journeys before travelling, particularly last trains of the day which may be earlier than usual and may be cancelled at short notice. If you do travel, please leave yourself plenty of time to do so and don’t rely on last services.”

Normally services nationwide are restored in early September, but on the link between Manchester and Rochdale there will be no trains from 6 to 24 September inclusive as a rail bridge over the M62 motorway is rebuilt.

Northern Trains is telling passengers: “Network Rail is investing more than £20m in rebuilding a major railway bridge that takes trains over the M62 at Castleton, near Rochdale.” The weekends within this spell will see more widespread disruption.

Road

An estimated 19.2 million leisure trips by car are expected to be made between Friday and Monday, says the RAC. This is the highest figure since the company began recording data in 2015.

Transport analytics specialists Inrix expect delays to last all day on both Friday and Saturday, with the worst times to travel between 10am and 6pm on Friday and 10am and 1pm on Saturday.

Research by the RAC found an overwhelming majority of journeys will be day trips, with five out of six respondents saying they will be using their car for days out. Just one in 10 drivers say they will be setting off on holiday in the UK or abroad, while 6 per cent will be returning home from a holiday.

RAC spokesperson Alice Simpson said: “With the end of the school holidays fast approaching, it seems day trips will be the main cause of traffic this weekend.

“Whether you’re off to a festival, the coast or a theme park, or meeting up with friends and family elsewhere, the usual trusted advice applies: leave as early as you can to avoid the jams or be prepared to sit in some lengthy queues.”

Traffic to Leeds Festival will be especially bad along the A1, A1(M), M1, M62 and A64 from Thursday 22 August. Journeys are set to double in length on Friday at lunchtime, along the A1 southbound between the Kirk Deighton and Bramham interchanges.

West of London, anyone not attending the Reading Festival is being advised to avoid junction 11 of the M4 eastbound to Reading, M3 junction 6 at the Black Dam interchange and the Wendlebury interchange at junction 9 of the M40. Festival attendees are advised not to drive to Reading, as the railway station is close to the festival site.

The RAC also believes that a huge number of motorists are still undecided about when they will be heading out over the long weekend, which could add an additional 6.2 million trips into the mix.

Rival motoring organisation the AA revealed that one in 10 summer breakdowns happened over this weekend last year, saying: “The AA attended nearly 41,500 callouts – that’s around 10 per cent of our summer total.

“The top three breakdowns were caused by tyres, the 12 volt battery and engine problems. Clutch issues are also in the top five – caused by stop-start traffic and vehicles being overloaded.”

Ferry

The Port of Dover expects more than 20,000 cars over the bank holiday period – with its chief executive, Doug Bannister, stressing that travellers should not arrive “any earlier than the two hours requested”.

The port is urging drivers to stick to the A2 and A20 approach roads, saying: “To get your holiday off to the best start, travel to the Port of Dover via main routes only. This avoids causing traffic delays for you and our local residents.”

Air

According to aviation analyst Cirium, Friday 23 August will prove the busiest day of the year so far for flights from UK airports, with 3,243 departures scheduled.

Over the four days of the long weekend, a total of 12,302 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to over 2.2 million seats. The top destinations are Dublin, Amsterdam, Palma, Alicante and Malaga.

Airline passengers are hoping to see a repeat of the chaos on August bank holiday Monday 2023, when the Nats air-traffic control computer system – and its back-up – shut down in response to an unusual flight plan. The air navigation service says its systems have been improved and are more resilient.