GREAT Western Railway is set to give rail users an early Christmas present with extra trains for Worcester, Malvern and Pershore.

The rail operation announced the additional trains when it revealed its new timetable, set to start this month.

From Sunday, December 12, there will be additional Sunday services between Malvern and Worcester, travelling further afield to London.

Earlier, later and additional Sunday trains between Worcester and Bristol feature in the new timetable. There will be a new service from Worcester Shrub Hill at 09.57am and a two hourly service in both directions throughout the day - with most trains operating to and from Foregate Street.

The Sunday morning services, on the North Cotswold Line, sees the introduction of a new 9am Oxford to Worcester and Great Malvern service with an additional through service from Great Malvern to London Paddington at 10.50am. This will plug an existing two hour gap in the timetable further upgrading services to and from Worcester to hourly throughout the day.

And the last train will leave from Worcester at 21.57pm - an hour later than the current last service.

Meanwhile extra weekday trains for Pershore and Honeybourne Stations also feature.

The existing 13.18pm Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington and the 11.50am London Paddington to Hereford trains will now stop at Pershore.

This will plug a previous two hour lunchtime gap, giving rail users an hourly service in both directions virtually throughout the day.

This is on top of the existing additional peak afternoon services.

The improvements follow campaigning by the Cotswold Line Promotion Group.

The group has also been working with train operators Great Western Railway and West Midlands Trains to improve early morning connections at Worcester’s Shrub Hill Station for services between the Cotswold, Hereford and Birmingham routes.

The announcements also follow additional services that were added by another operator earlier this year.

In March, West Midlands Railway added six extra trains on the Birmingham Snow Hill lines which include Worcester.

These extra trains run on the route each weekday afternoon since then to allow more students to use the railway to travel home from lessons.