Rail passengers face Easter disruption on west coast mainline

Train passengers face disruption on Britain’s biggest intercity line over the next four days, with a later Easter bringing a busy bank holiday getaway by road, rail and air.

Engineering works will top and tail the west coast main line over the long weekend, with services cut from London Euston to Milton Keynes and replacement buses taking passengers north of Carlisle to Glasgow.

Limited services will run on Good Friday and Easter Monday from London to Birmingham and Manchester, with no direct fast trains on Saturday and Sunday.

Network Rail said most of the railway would stay open despite more than 300 engineering projects taking place. Works will also partly close London Victoria station, diverting Southeastern services and affecting lines around Southampton.

Motoring organisations have forecast a more crowded Easter on the roads, which they partly ascribed to the bank holidays falling later in April than last year.

A survey by the AA of its members indicated that up to 15% more cars would be on UK roads this Good Friday than last – more than 19m. The RAC said that just over 19m leisure trips would be made by car over the next four days. Both groups gave the caveat that unsettled weather could significantly alter the numbers on the road.

About a third of that number were planning to travel but were undecided on dates, according to the RAC, which suggested that sunny weather could lure millions more out on to congested roads.

Drivers are at least less likely to be affected by roadworks, according to the Department for Transport, which said National Highways would be clearing the cones from 1,127 miles (1,814km) of motorways and A-roads in England for the weekend.

Traffic is nonetheless expected to be intense, peaking between 11am and 1pm on Friday. Hotspots will include retail parks and hotel routes to the south-west, including the south and western section of the M25 between the M23 and M40, the M5 at Bristol and the A303 in Wiltshire.

According to the tourism authority VisitEngland, about 10.6 million British adults are planning to take a holiday in the UK over the bank holiday period.

Approximately 2.2 million Britons are expected to head abroad for the Easter weekend, according to the travel organisation Abta; the number will peak on Good Friday.

The Port of Dover expects to process about 5,500 cars on to cross-Channel ferries on Friday morning. Highway authorities have put the Operation Brock traffic management system in place until the end of the holiday to avert tailbacks.

More flights will leave the UK this Easter than last: 11,282 are scheduled over the long weekend, the aviation analytics company Cirium said, a 6% rise on 2024, although still slightly down from the highs of Easter 2019. However, some airlines are flying larger and fuller planes, and the Civil Aviation Authority said passenger numbers this weekend could match pre-pandemic levels.

The international destinations attracting the most UK passengers are Dublin, Amsterdam, Málaga, Alicante and Mallorca. Abta said its members were also reporting a large number of bookings for Thailand.