Christmas Eve travel: Rail and roads disrupted by closures with underground lines suspended

Some rail and Tube lines are out of service today

If you’re travelling home for Christmas today then you might want to check for any disruptions on your journey before setting off as road, Tube and rail closures are causing delays.

With the commuter crowd thinning over the past few days and the roads and train carriages looking eerily more spacious, it has been a quiet winding-down to the year.

Those four million people heading abroad over the festive period should note that the Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect services will finish earlier today with the last outbound journey from Paddington at 16:10 and last inbound service scheduled for 16:42.

Gatwick Airport laid on a Christmas scene for travellers with music entertainment and even a polar bear, which is very unlike last year's events when flooding caused a power cut, which led to delays and cancellations for hopeful holiday-goers.

The top winter bookings for sunshine-starved British travellers are Morocco, Tunisia and the Canary Islands due to the short flight durations. Long-haul destinations Dubai, Mexico and Cuba have also proven popular for sun-seekers.

The London Overground is taking advantage of the lull in footfall to suspend their services between Kensington Olympia and Clapham Junction for redevelopment works.

Overground routes between Surrey Quays and New Cross will also be closed due to £6.5billion Network Rail Thameslink improvements that started last Saturday.

There is no service on the Hammersmith and City Line between Moorgate and Barking, from which the District line will also be suspended for the eight stops to Upminster at the end of the route. Severe delays have been reported by Transport for London for both lines.

No Thameslink or Southern rail trains have been calling into London Bridge since 20 December until 4 January due to refurbishment of the station in the same Thameslink network upgrade.

Services to Bourne End/Henley-on-Thames will not be running from Paddington station with minor delays on all inbound and outbound routes from 5pm.

No major incidents have been reported on the roads, according to the Highways Agency, however there are minor disruptions in the Midlands and the North.

An overturned car and accident involving two vehicles has caused very slow traffic in both directions and a closed lane on the M77 in East Ayrshire between J5 and J6. A landslip on the coast of south Ayrshire has closed traffic both ways on the A77 between Cairnryan junction and the B7044 junction in Ballantrae, Scotland.

Two more broken down cars have closed lanes on the M6 northbound spaghetti junction between J6 and J7 in Erdington, Birmingham, and another stranded vehicle has closed an entry slip road at J21 on the M60 in Oldham, Greater Manchester.