**UPDATE**
Following the very sad news, you may have seen that industrial action planned by trades unions for Thursday 15 September, Saturday 17 September, Monday 26 September and Tuesday 27 September has been called off.
Normal full timetables will therefore operate.
In addition to the rail strikes taking place next week, on Thursday (15 September) and Saturday (17 September). There will also be a strike by TSSA (office staff and managers) for 24 hours from midday on Monday 26th September to midday on Tuesday 27th September.
The strike on Thursday 15th September involves ASLEF (train drivers), RMT (on board and station staff, and Network Rail signallers) and Unite (depot teams) and on Saturday 17th September, RMT, Unite, & some TSSA members of Network Rail will be on strike. On both days, there will be no service on the majority of our network. There will be a a very limited service on the routes listed on the dedicated strike webpage here: www.gwr.com/strike.
Advice to customers is to check before travel and only travel if absolutely necessary. Disruption is also expected on Friday 16th September, and there will also be some changes to services on Sunday 18th September, including potentially some short-notice cancellations. Trains that do travel across the strike period will be very busy. To help with this tickets for travel from 15th-18th September will also be valid on 19th and 20th September.
Also a reminder that starting this weekend, Network Rail will commence its improvement works at Oxford station. These will continue each weekend until 1st/2nd October. Replacement bus services will be in place, and more information is available on www.gwr.com/upgrade and www.networkrail.co.uk/oxfordphase2
In terms of the strike action, on Thursday 15th, there will be a very limited service in place between Oxford and Reading. There will be no service on the North Cotswolds line between Oxford and Worcester/Hereford. On Saturday 17th, replacement buses will be in operation between Oxford and Didcot Parkway; there will again be no service on the North Cotswolds line to Worcester/Hereford.
Journey planners are being updated as soon as possible and where we can we are contacting customers directly to make them aware of the changes.
Any help you can give to share this message amongst your networks will be gratefully received, GWR want to ensure that anyone who is thinking of travelling by train next week is aware of the severe disruption.
