West Midlands Railway urges passengers to check before travelling on Sunday

West Midlands Railway (WMR) is urging passengers planning to travel this Sunday to check their journeys as timetables may be subject to short-notice alterations.

Fewer services are expected to run across the network due to increased numbers of train crew self-isolating coupled with ongoing delays to the company’s driver training programme caused by the pandemic. Planned engineering works are also taking place between Walsall-Rugeley and Birmingham-Worcester. Replacement buses will be in operation on some journeys.

Meanwhile, WMR’s sister company London Northwestern Railway will run a special timetable on Sunday for longer-distance journeys. The timetable will see longer trains on services into London Euston ahead of the final of Euro 2020 at Wembley. It means passengers travelling to London from Birmingham with LNR should change at Northampton.

Jonny Wiseman, WMR customer experience director, said:

“With a sharp increase in colleagues self-isolating and ongoing delays to our driver training programme due to the pandemic, we are facing a significant resourcing challenge and we thank our customers for their patience.

“One of the ways we cover for these Covid-related absences is by colleagues volunteering for overtime but the popularity of the football means numbers on Sunday may be lower.

“Some services on Sunday could be busy and social distancing may not always be possible, so we are urging passengers to think carefully about their travel plans.”

Passengers should visit wmr.uk/plan to stay up to date with which services are running or follow @WestMidRailway on Twitter for live updates. For more information please call National Rail Enquiries on 0800 022 3720.

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