Revised GTR services and update on COVID-19 response

20 March 2020

Please note: this news article is in our archive. Articles were correct at time of publication, but should not be relied on for accuracy after the passage of time.

There will be a gradual reduction in train services from the 23 March to culminate in a fully amended timetable from Monday 30 March.

To manage and protect train services for key workers, the UK rail industry is introducing a revised train timetable that is expected to be sustainable in this scenario. Our staff will keep people moving.

This timetable will be introduced gradually from Monday 23 March 2020 and will culminate in a revised timetable from Monday 30 March 2020. The timetable will remain in effect until further notice.

Information for customers to plan their journeys will be available on the homepage of any of our websites:

To provide a sense of what to anticipate, the fully revised timetable from the 30 March onwards will be an adaption of the existing Sunday timetable, with earlier start and later finish times to provide extra services for key workers.

This timetable provides existing customer familiarity and enables GTR to introduce a timetable with known driver planning, routes, train timings and interactions at sections of constrained infrastructure such as the Thameslink core between St Pancras International and London Blackfriars. It also means that interactions and connections with other non-GTR operated train services are known, robust, understood and stress-tested plans exist.

Tickets and refunds

Information on tickets and refunds is available on our websites, such as this link on the Southern webpage: https://www.southernrailway.com/travel-information/plan-your-journey/coronavirus-information

GTR are working closely with the Department for Transport to deliver our approach and have agreed the following changes:

Day tickets such as Anytime, Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak fares can be refunded in full without any administration charges if purchased directly from GTR (e.g. at a ticket office, via our websites etc). Third-party retailers such as trainline.com may have different policies.

Advance fares such as Southern £5 advance fares (purchased for specific dates and times) can be exchanged for an alternative journey free of charge.

Under current policy, the customer relations team is ensuring that annual season ticket holders that expect to travel more than forty weeks per calendar year in future are making as informed a choice as possible in the circumstances before opting for a refund.

This is because annual season tickets are priced on the value of forty weeks of weekly season tickets, with twelve weeks free. This means that for a refund, our customer services team will work out how much it would have cost a customer to travel up to the point when they stopped using their season ticket using weekly season tickets. We will then refund the difference between that amount and how much a customer paid for their season ticket. Employer season ticket loan schemes are usually paid in ten, rather than twelve instalments to account for how the system works.