Gloucester to Worcester Parkway Closed this Weekend - As Is the M5 Passing Gloucester!

[Envoy]

The M5 section east of Gloucester is closed this weekend (17 & 18 October 2026) meaning traffic is diverting to other routes. At the same time, Network Rail Engineering work means that the railway between Gloucester & Worcestershire Parkway is also closed with buses being used to transport train passengers. Looks like TFW are using old 2 coach 153 sprinters on the route between Gloucester & Cardiff and no Cross Country trains on the line via Chepstow.

You really could not make it up: National Highways England and Network Rail not talking with each other.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The M5 section east of Gloucester is closed this weekend (17 & 18 October 2026) meaning traffic is diverting to other routes. At the same time, Network Rail Engineering work means that the railway between Gloucester & Worcestershire Parkway is also closed with buses being used to transport train passengers. Looks like TFW are using old 2 coach 153 sprinters on the route between Gloucester & Cardiff and no Cross Country trains on the line via Chepstow.
You really could not make it up: National Highways England and Network Rail not talking with each other.

I remember a time under BR when a closure at Gloucester had Bristol-Birmingham trains diverted via the Severn Tunnel, Hereford and Great Malvern to Worcester (including the then mail/sleeper Plymouth-Scotland).

 

[Harpo]

I remember a time under BR when a closure at Gloucester had Bristol-Birmingham trains diverted via the Severn Tunnel, Hereford and Great Malvern to Worcester (including the then mail/sleeper Plymouth-Scotland).

In later years Oxford/Banbury was the diversion for the Cheltenham route and in the mid 80s that even extended to Oxford - Bletchley.

 

[popeter45]

travelling to Cheltenham today, weirdly seems they are not running any of the Pad-chelt trains to Gloucester (for people to take the 94 bus to Cheltenham), making the least changes route via Worcester annoyingly

 

[mikeb42]

You really could not make it up: National Highways England and Network Rail not talking with each other.

They have form for it in this locale.

Just a year or so back there was a full weekend closure of the M4 in both directions between Bristol and Bath which caused absolute gridlock. NR had scheduled a simultaneous full weekend closure of at least the line Between Bristol Parkway and Swindon and, as I recall it, Bristol Parkway itself and all routes through it.

It would be nice to be able to sincerely say it is beyond belief, but bitter experience dictates otherwise.

These large operations must be planned months or years in advance. How it's possible that major public bodies in receipt of enormous amounts of public money don't see fit to coordinate such things in the interests of their paymasters (i.e. us) it's hard to know.

Given the cavalier way that the Highways Agency externalises costs onto us (again) for its own convenience via the increasingly ridiculous way it carries out works on the trunk road network, my money is on them being even more likely than NR to be the culprit in both cases.

 

[ValleyLines142]

travelling to Cheltenham today, weirdly seems they are not running any of the Pad-chelt trains to Gloucester (for people to take the 94 bus to Cheltenham), making the least changes route via Worcester annoyingly

Paddington to Cheltenham direct services do not operate on a Sunday with the exception of the 1733 Paddington to Cheltenham, at all other hours on a Sunday its a shuttle service to/from Swindon only.

 

[The Planner]

They have form for it in this locale.

Just a year or so back there was a full weekend closure of the M4 in both directions between Bristol and Bath which caused absolute gridlock. NR had scheduled a simultaneous full weekend closure of at least the line Between Bristol Parkway and Swindon and, as I recall it, Bristol Parkway itself and all routes through it.

It would be nice to be able to sincerely say it is beyond belief, but bitter experience dictates otherwise.

These large operations must be planned months or years in advance. How it's possible that major public bodies in receipt of enormous amounts of public money don't see fit to coordinate such things in the interests of their paymasters (i.e. us) it's hard to know.

Given the cavalier way that the Highways Agency externalises costs onto us (again) for its own convenience via the increasingly ridiculous way it carries out works on the trunk road network, my money is on them being even more likely than NR to be the culprit in both cases.

Depends how far out National Highways plan. NR are already well into 2028 planning.