FANS travelling to the Six Nations rugby fixture tomorrow, Saturday, February 25, will see extra services to help them make their journeys.
Great Western Railway is providing 77 more trains, around 40,000 seats’ worth, on its services during the day when England go toe to toe with Wales.
The operator will increase the use of its electric-only trains out of London and create shuttle services between Cardiff Central and Newport.
A total of 52 trains to Cardiff Central will be in service ahead of the kick-off at 4.45pm on Saturday, February 25, and a further 25 trains taking fans home afterwards.
Services are expected to be busy, meaning that queue systems may be in place to help control passenger flow and keep crowds moving.
GWR’s customer service and operations director, Richard Rowland, said: “We’re pleased to be extending the use of our more sustainable Class 387 electric trains for this fixture.
“A shuttle service to Newport proved very effective following the Ireland match and this time we’ll also be operating a couple of shuttle services before kick-off.
“They are a great way of freeing up more space on our London and Bristol services and we’re really pleased to operate these electric-only trains in the way we always intended.
“Although we’re able to provide these additional services, we’d like to remind supporters that trains will be extremely busy leading up to kick-off and immediately following the match.
“We would encourage customers to check journey times and allow sufficient time to queue to board trains safely.”
Transport for Wales’ chief operations officer, Jan Chaudry-Van der Velde, said: “Our teams worked incredibly hard to move more than 30,000 passengers safely through Cardiff Central for the opening Six Nations fixture three weeks ago and we’re expecting another very busy weekend.
“In addition to the extra capacity provided by Great Western Railway, we’ll be running our full TfW rail timetable and every available carriage will be in use to provide as much capacity as possible.
“Supporters are advised to allow plenty of time for their journey, make use of earlier and later trains and check for the latest travel information via the TfW website and app.
“We’re also running a number of return coaches to Cardiff from across south and west Wales to complement our rail services and add extra capacity.
“Visit tfw.wales for details.”
