Great Western Railway has made its biggest timetable change on the network in over 40 years.

The new December weekday train timetable for Gloucester and the South Cotswolds has launched, providing faster journey times, more seats and more frequent services to key locations.

Regular travellers have been asked to check their new journey times for the biggest timetable change on the network since 1976.

The changes will mean typical journeys between Cheltenham Spa to London will be shortened by 10 minutes to 2 hours, with the fastest journeys coming in at 1 hour 57 minutes. 

These services will go via Swindon, which with new Intercity Express Trains replacing 40-year-old high-speed trains means an increase of 5,000 extra seats every weekday for the Wiltshire town.

Connectivity will improve too, with the number of through trains from London to both Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa doubling at off-peak times.

This matches the peak-time frequency improvements delivered by GWR earlier this year and creates an hourly service throughout the day.   

GWR managing director Mark Hopwood said: “This timetable has been a number of years in the making, enabling us to deliver the benefits of new intercity express trains, and modernised infrastructure, for our customers.

"With the changes we realise that investment in trains and infrastructure, and deliver on the promise we made to customers for more services, more seats and faster journeys.

“More than 350 extra on-board staff have been taken on, more than 1,200 drivers trained, and we will have extra staff at stations throughout our network to help as we embark on this new journey.

“We have worked hard to help people understand how the changes will affect them. We have spoken with our customers as often as possible, possibly annoyingly so, to help ensure a smooth transition, but we all recognise there will be some issues to iron out as everyone gets used to the changes.” 

The first train to Cheltenham from London today departed earlier at 5.33am compared to 7.33am previously, and the last departure will be at 9.33pm, rather than 7.48pm.