Emergency measures in place following landslip

Chiltern Railways have announced that trains running between Leamington Spa and Banbury will continue to be disrupted following a landslide.

Since the landslide on Saturday 31 January, a replacement bus service has been running to allow commuters to travel despite the closure.

Customer plans for the extended period will include:

· More trains running from Birmingham to Leamington Spa and Banbury to London with a replacement bus service

· An extension of the ‘step-straight-on’ replacement bus service to include buses direct from Warwick Parkway station to Banbury at peak times

· Fast silver trains with Business Zone carriages running between Birmingham and Leamington Spa and between Banbury and London

· Car parking facilities at Banbury and Warwick Parkway

· A ‘Banbury Fare Match’, meaning passengers travelling from West Midlands stations to London will pay the Banbury fare to London

· Over 30,000 Advance tickets will be available every week between the West Midlands and London

Chiltern Railways tonight announced a series of emergency measures to help passengers caught up in the Harbury Tunnel landslip.

A fleet of sixty coaches is being hired to speed up journeys, some fares will be reduced to compensate and more commuter services from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire will run to Marylebone from Monday.

The landslip is expected to take several weeks to repair and is hitting all services from the south coast to The Midlands.

The rail line will remain closed while Network Rail specialist engineers assess the landslide – which is still slowly moving – to determine the scale of the problem.

Network Rail has confirmed that it may take several weeks to stabilise the site and remove over 350,000 tonnes of material to ensure the line is safe.