The likely affect of this if it goes ahead is:

Definately no services at all on the Valley Lines suburban network including Vale of Glamorgan line.

Probably

no services on Maesteg and Ebbw Vale lines.

very few ATW services between Cardiff and Swansea but First Great Western running as normal (regular FGW passengers can make their own punch line to that!). FGW will only serve their normal main stations. Connections west of Swansea mostly running.

no ATW service Cardiff -Cheltenham via Gloucester but Arriva Cross Country services to Birmingham via these places as normal and may even make extra stops at Chepstow and Caldicot.

about 40% of Cardiff-Shrewsbury and beyond cancelled but not in an even pattern so there could be 2 or 3 hour gaps then 3 hours normal. Late services to Shrewsbury should run but would have been amended due to the rugby so times may be different. The midnight service to Hereford cancelled.

FGW services to England as normal subject to rugby alterations.

Strike is OFF after RMT took legal advice (or possibly lessons in counting to 28).

ATW will be running a full service, certain trains after 21:00 are retimed slightly and I notice in the nationalrail JourneyPlanner they are showing some extra trains to the north. So good news for passengers - well not quite, ATW have banned the use to Cardiff of discounted Club 55 and Groupsave tickets (as have FGW in the latter case).

Anyway, if you are going check this before you go. http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/uploadedFiles/Arriva_Trains_Wales/Content/Millennium_Stadium/Queuing%20Plan%20January%202010%281%29.pdf After the game you'll only be allowed onto Central station via a special queueing system. I've seen this used for the big football matches (when Wembley was shut) and it worked well - but those were in daylight and this time it will be dark.

We've used this queueing system in Cardiff before Steve, and it has worked smoothly and efficiently.

Round two!

A new strike has been called by ASLEF for Monday 28th Feb which will shut down the whole ATW system IF IT GOES AHEAD. That avoids the main rugby day but anyone stopping for a long weekend had better be prepared. Services run by FGW and Arriva CrossCountry in the south and Virgin in the north are not affected. As usual, talks planned next week and no doubt lawyers examining ballot results.

I heard this on the news earlier. thank goodness I settled on this weekend for my London trip as I was contemplating next weekend at one point.

Thank goodness we booked National Express for our travel to Heathrow on Feb 28th, we were
thinking of booking the train for a change.
annx

As I said, the FGW services will not be affected so travel from anywhere as far as Swansea to Heathrow would be OK (but maybe a little crowded). I've just be reading a piece about the strike and it mentions that noncontractual overtime on the Sunday before will also be stopped. It was written by someone who was clearly out of his depth so might be wrong but if true that's all their Sunday services.