Train strikes and EU entry-exit delays spark fears of bank holiday travel chaos

On the eve of the second long weekend in May, and the half-term holiday, millions of travellers face disruption.

A strike by members of the TSSA union will cut the vast majority of West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway services on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May.

Over the bank holiday weekend, 23-25 May, key intercity lines will be closed for Network Rail engineering work, while links to three London airports will be disrupted.

Jason Parrish, Network Rail’s head of planning, said: “While there is never a good time to close the railway, scheduling the work over the bank holidays allows us to minimise disruption and deliver best value.”

On the roads, the AA warns that routes to seaside locations will be congested – with extra pressure on the roads on Sunday as the final round of Premier League fixtures take place across England.

For families heading abroad, the shaky roll-out of the EU entry-exit system could cause problems in multiple locations – from the Port of Dover to European airports. Friday 22 May is projected to be the busiest day for departures during the weekend, with 3,236 flights taking off from UK airports.

Rail

West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway

Members of the TSSA union are walking out on Friday 22 May and Saturday 23 May in a dispute over rest-day working payments.

Most trains are cancelled, with only a skeleton route network in place. No trains will run after 7pm on Friday nor before 7am on Saturday.

East Coast Main Line

From Saturday 23 May to Monday 25 May, a key stretch of the East Coast Main Line will be closed in North Yorkshire. The East Coast Main Line connects London King's Cross with Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland.

Network Rail is rebuilding a junction at Tollerton on the East Coast Main Line in North Yorkshire, where three sets of points are regarded as “life-expired assets”. The work is taking place just 10 miles northwest of York. But with no diversionary route, available a long stretch of line is affected.

Intercity passengers will need to switch to rail replacement buses for the 44-mile section between York and Darlington. As a result, a journey from Newcastle to London King's Cross that normally takes under three hours will be extended by nearly two hours.

London to Edinburgh will take around six hours on LNER. Slightly faster direct trains are available on Avanti West Coast from London Euston. Lumo services will run only north of Newcastle, to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Trans-Pennine links

The main route from Leeds to Manchester passes through Huddersfield. But upgrade work means trains between the two key northern cities will be diverted via the Calder Valley – with some journeys requiring a change of trains. The usual fastest Leeds-Manchester trip taking 48 minutes will be extended by half-an-hour.

FlixBus and National Express coach services using the M62 are likely to be just as fast and significantly cheaper.

Local rail trips on the affected line in West Yorkshire will involve rail replacement buses.

England-South Wales

The main Great Western Railway (GWR) link through the Severn Tunnel, carrying trains from London and Bristol to Cardiff and Swansea, will be closed for 17 days from 23 May to 8 June for a power supply upgrade and track renewal work.

Buses will replace GWR trains between Bristol Parkway and Newport. One London-Cardiff train an hour will run direct, reversing at Gloucester and taking about an hour longer than usual.

Airport rail links around London

Through the bank holiday weekend from 23 to 25 May, the core Thameslink north-south link through central London from London St Pancras International to London Blackfriars and London Bridge will be closed. This will affect access to Gatwick airport, south of London, and Luton airport to the north.

The Stansted Express from London Liverpool Street to the Essex airport will be slower than usual because trains are running on a diversionary route.

Road

The AA warns of congestion on “roads serving popular seaside towns, national parks, ports and airports” over the bank holiday weekend. Traffic on the A303, M5 and A38, from London and the Midlands towards the South West and Cornwall, will be heavy. In addition, the M4 west from London towards Wales will be busy. Motorists heading for Blackpool and the Lake District on the M6 are likely to encounter congestion. Trips to east coast resorts such as Skegness in Lincolnshire could also take longer than usual.

Sundays in the middle of bank holiday weekends is normally quiet – but 24 May is the final day of the Premier League. “With matches scheduled for 4pm, football traffic could build from late morning and early afternoon, before combining with daytrip and short-break traffic later in the day,” the AA says.

Ferry

The boss of the Port of Dover is predicting its busiest May half-term for years – partly because travellers are switching from air to ferry. The Port of Dover, along with the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone and Eurostar at London St Pancras International, has “juxtaposed” border controls. French Police aux Frontieres process departing passengers while they are still on British soil.

Doug Bannister, chief executive of the UK’s main departure point, told The Independent: “We are looking at about 8,000 cars on the Saturday, so that is going to be the busiest of the three days. Our busy time for cars tends to be from about 5am till about 1pm. If you’re arriving for a sailing during that period of time, we ask people to not turn up more than two hours before you’re sailing so that we can keep everybody flowing through.”

A key challenge for the port is the EU entry-exit system (EES). Since 10 April, the European Union has been, in theory, applying the EES in full: collecting biometrics from every British passport holder crossing a Schengen area frontier. Dover has invested tens of millions of pounds in new facilities for motorists and passengers to register in the system, but issues with French IT connectivity means they remain unused. Passport details are instead being collected at the normal border check.

Air

The aviation analytics firm Cirium says 12,366 flights are scheduled to depart UK airport during the bank holiday weekend, representing more than two million seats. But the figure is still 4.5 per cent down on the corresponding weekend in 2019.

Friday 22 May is projected to be the busiest day for UK departures during the weekend, with 3,236 flights taking off from UK airports.

The most popular international destinations for UK departures are:

The busiest airports are London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester and London Stansted.

Listen to Simon Calder’s travel podcast about bank holiday travel

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