Virgin Trains is advising its customers not to travel on their services on Wednesday 2 January 2008 due to the continuing failure of Network Rail to complete major engineering work in the Rugby area. It is likely that the West Coast Main Line will be shut at Rugby for the whole of 2 January.

Chris Gibb, Managing Director of Virgin Trains said: "This is a major inconvenience to tens of thousands of our customers returning to work tomorrow and it is not acceptable. It is the third successive day that this project has overrun, and this makes us deeply concerned about the delivery of the project.

"Virgin Trains' staff have coped magnificently with unexpected disruption on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and our customers have shown great patience. I'm sure their patience, like ours, has now run out. We are putting pressure on Network Rail to finalise a time and date when they will reopen the railway at Rugby."

Passengers to/from London are being urged to use alternative routes for their rail journeys a summary of which follows: -

* Coventry - CrossCountry/Chiltern Railways via Leamington to Marylebone

* Birmingham - Chiltern Railways to Marylebone

* Nuneaton – CrossCountry/East Midlands Trains via Leicester to St Pancras

* Rugby - Drive to Kettering then East Midlands Trains to St Pancras

* North West England - Trans Pennine Express/East Midlands Trains via Sheffield to St Pancras

* North Wales - Virgin Trains/CrossCountry/Chiltern Railways via Birmingham to Marylebone

* Scotland – National Express East Coast to Kings Cross.

Most Virgin Trains tickets will be accepted on these routes including Open Returns/Singles, Savers and Seasons. Apart from East Midlands Trains, Value Advance tickets will NOT be valid on other companies' trains.

Passengers holding Virgin Trains tickets dated for 2 January who decide not to travel can claim a full refund from where they purchased the ticket. As an alternative they will be allowed to travel by Virgin Trains' services on Thursday 3 or Friday 4 January.

Virgin Trains will only be able to operate a very restricted service of trains compared with the normal weekday schedules. A 20-minute interval shuttle service will run from Euston to Northampton where connecting coaches will convey passengers to Birmingham International. Just three trains each hour will start from Birmingham International, one to Liverpool, one to Manchester and one to Motherwell (for Glasgow). Anyone deciding to travel via Northampton and Birmingham International should expect journey times of at least two hours longer than normal.

More information can be obtained from nationalrail.co.uk or by calling National rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.