Christmas Eve travel: Rail chaos on day before all UK trains shut down

Best public transport in the UK on Christmas Day is on the Isle of Wight

The final day before all UK trains stop running for Christmas has begun badly for thousands of travellers.

In addition to planned shutdowns for engineering work – notably between London Paddington and Reading – hundreds of trains have been cancelled, mainly because of staff shortage.

TransPennine Express (TPE) has cancelled at least 26 trains connecting Manchester – and its airport – and Liverpool with Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Many other TPE services will be curtailed, with the early train from Manchester to Glasgow going no further north than Preston.

Northern has also cancelled or curtailed dozens of services, such as from Scarborough to Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent to Blackpool.

Transport for Wales has cancelled 37 trains so far, mainly local services in the Cardiff area. Some longer-distance trains are curtailed, with the Holyhead-Birmingham International service going no further than Chester. “Resource availability” is blamed.

In East Anglia, 20 trains have been cancelled by Greater Anglia so far, mainly connecting Norwich with Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, and Ipswich with Peterborough. The main cause is said to be train faults.

Rail travellers in other parts of Britain are facing a range of other challenges. Day 23 of a strike by members of the RMT union working for South Western Railway has begun with the now-usual pattern of around half the normal number of trains.

The first Grand Central train of the day from Bradford to London ended its journey at Doncaster “due to short notice staff sickness”.

The line between Taunton and Exeter is disrupted because of “an obstruction”. And no trains can run between Redhill in Surrey and Tonbridge in Kent after severe flood damage to the tracks.

As the Christmas shutdown approaches, last trains will generally run much earlier than usual. The last London train on the East Coast main line leaves Edinburgh at 3.30pm, while from London Euston the final departures to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow are at 8.51pm, 8pm and 4.57pm respectively.

According to Real Time Trains, the last passenger service will be the 11.59pm from Stansted airport to London Liverpool Street.

The entire railway closes for 25 December, but long-distance coach operators will continue to provide services – especially to the leading airports.

Megabus is running a network covering 3,500 miles, from Edinburgh and Glasgow in the north to Bristol and London in the south.

National Express has a busy network, with three Christmas Day departures between Victoria Coach Station in London via Heathrow airport to Bristol and Exeter, and regular services connecting Manchester with Leeds and Birmingham.

Local public transport is much thinner on the ground. No Transport for London buses, trams or Tube trains will run. Taxis in the capital will charge an extra £4 per journey. The congestion charge in the centre of London has been lifted on Christmas Day.

On the Isle of Wight, the Southern Vectis company will be running its customary network of buses on 25 December, with hourly services on key routes from 8am to midnight. Normal fares apply.

The Port of Dover will close mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve. In a tweet it said: "The port's last sailing is at 2.25pm. Arrive in plenty of time to avoid disappointment. The port will re-open at 7am on 26 December."

Eurotunnel is running right through Christmas Day between Folkestone and Calais, with vehicle shuttles every one to three hours. Day trip £30 returns for a car plus passengers are widely available.​ But no Eurostar passenger trains will run through the Channel Tunnel on 25 December.

Flights are operating smoothly to and from the UK’s busiest airports. On Christmas Day, most short-haul flights are cancelled, but Air France, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, SAS and Swiss will be connecting Heathrow with Europe.

From Gatwick, Norwegian and Tui Airways are operating a large number of short-haul flights. They are mainly to destinations in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands, but there is also a 5.45am departure on Norwegian to Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle in Finland – reported home of Santa Claus.

Other possible destinations include Guernsey, Lisbon, Minsk and Riga.

From Manchester, KLM is flying to and from Amsterdam, while the usual long-haul flights to the Gulf on Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways will continue.

The two Christmas Day departures from Heathrow to Manchester on British Airways are both priced at £329 one-way, or £515 in business class.