First Great Western today promised to provide a near normal service for most of its passengers from Monday onwards.

It says delays and disruptions caused by flooding and Railtrack engineering work in recent weeks should be over for customers travelling between London Paddington and Bristol and South Wales.

"We have worked closely with Railtrack throughout these difficulties and we believe the worst is now over for many of our customers," said First Great Western's managing director Mike Carroll.

"We appreciate that this has been a trying time for everyone but First Great Western is now almost back to normal."

Although services between London-Paddington, Bristol and South Wales will be running to normal, journey routes will mean some slightly longer journey times.

Daily commuter services between London-Paddington and Hereford have also been resumed, although they are arriving around ten minutes later than normal because of speed restrictions on the route.

First Great Western has produced an emergency timetable to reflect any continuing changes and ensure all customers are kept fully informed of any amendments. These will be available on trains and at all First Great Western stations.

Rail services on another Swindon line will remain suspended for up to four weeks because of the collapse of the Sapperton Tunnel.

First Great Western says it will continue to provide a bus service between Swindon and Gloucester until the repair work has been carried out.