Christmas train strikes and engineering works to make rail travel a nightmare

Millions of passengers face rail disruption across Britain over the festive period

Rail passengers face disruption until January as planned engineering work and strikes jeopardise journeys.

These are the worst-affected locations, and the key information you need to know: what is happening, and what will the effect be?

UK travel

As usual no trains will run anywhere in Britain on Christmas Day, and very few will operate on Boxing Day. Services either side of 25 and 26 December will be heavily affected because of a combination of pre-planned engineering projects and industrial action over the role of guards. Millions of prospective travellers will be affected throughout December and into the New Year.

Network Rail says that more than 20,000 staff will be working over Christmas and the New Year.

“The railway is up to 50 per cent quieter than usual over bank holidays, so doing work at this time of year minimises our impact on passengers,” says the infrastructure operator.

A series of strikes will add to the chaos.

Travellers to and from London Waterloo and Paddington will be hard hit, along with passengers using Cardiff and Edinburgh. But with 386 projects taking place nationwide, check before you travel.

These are the worst affected locations.

London Waterloo and South Western Railway (SWR)

What is happening?

The RMT union, which has been involved in a long-running dispute with SWR and other train operators over the role of guards, has ordered its members to walk out on every day in December apart from Sunday 1 and Thursday 12 December – the date of the General Election.

What is the likely effect?

The stoppage will lead to around half the trains in and out of the UK’s busiest railway station in December being cancelled. It will affect services to and from southwest London, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon.

On main lines, particularly London-Guildford-Portsmouth and London-Basingstoke-Winchester-Southampton, there will be regular services. Some branch lines will have all rail services cancelled, with replacement buses operating only on some routes.

London Paddington, the GWR line and the Heathrow Express

What is happening?

All GWR lines between London Paddington and Reading will be closed from Christmas Eve to Friday 27 December inclusive, because of track and overhead wiring work.

Between Saturday 28 and Tuesday 31 December a reduced service will be in operation.

What is the likely effect?

“It’s best to travel by Monday 23 December,” says GWR, which runs most services to and from the terminus.

On 24 and 27 December GWR InterCity services to Exeter, Plymouth, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea will start and end at Reading.

Although some Paddington services will start up on Saturday 28 December, only two of the four lines from the station will open due to track work between London and Reading.

Between 28 and 31 December fewer services will run, and those that do will be very crowded.

South Western Railway had been expected to run extra services between Reading and London Waterloo to compensate, but the RMT strike will result in fewer trains than usual.

Heathrow Express and TfL Rail links to Britain’s busiest airport will also be affected, with a reduced service from Saturday 28 December.

Express services will not operate between 24 and 27 December, and will run only half-hourly (rather than every 15 minutes). Oddly, the train operator blames some of the disruption on “a bus colliding with a bridge”.

After 23 December, no Night Riviera sleeper trains will run between Paddington and Penzance for the rest of the year.

“Services will resume on Wednesday 1 January,” says GWR.

South Wales

What is happening

Problems for travellers to and from South Wales will be exacerbated by the closure of the line west of the Severn Tunnel.

The main link between England and South Wales passes through the tunnel. It will close from the end of service on Christmas Eve through to Friday 3 January.

Work will take place at various locations on the mainline through South Wales, between Severn Tunnel Junction and Bridgend, west of Cardiff.

What is the likely effect?

Buses will replace trains between Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff Central and Bridgend.

Some Valley Line services will run through Cardiff Central, but CrossCountry links from Birmingham will be replaced by buses.

London King’s Cross and the East Coast main line

What is happening?

Tunnel and structure work, drainage inspection and upgrading overhead line equipment will take place in addition to the track layout work around the station that is adding new lines and simplifying operations.

What is the likely effect?

On Friday 27 December, trains will be disrupted up to lunchtime to and from the southern terminus, London King’s Cross area, closing some lines on Friday morning. LNER, Grand Central and Hull Trains services will be cancelled or run with extended journey times.

Thameslink and Great Northern services will also be affected.

It means disruption at a time when many passengers would plan to travel after a two-day shutdown.

For the first weekend of the New Year, 4-5 January 2020, no trains will run on the very busy stretch between Hitchin and Peterborough – disrupting all main line trains. A replacement bus service will run, but journey times will be extended by an hour or more.

Ashford International, Kent

What is happening?

“Switches and crossings renewal works at Ashford International to improve track quality and reduce delays caused by track faults,” says Network Rail.

What is the likely effect?

Southeastern Highspeed and Eurostar services will not stop at Ashford from close of play on Christmas Eve to Monday 30 December.

Other, slower trains to east Kent will continue from London Victoria and Charing Cross.

Eurostar services to and from Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris will continue more or less as normal.

London Liverpool Street and the Greater Anglia region

What is happening?

Line closures at Bethnal Green in east London, track work at Colchester and the line between Shenfield and Southend Victoria.

What is the likely effect?

First, some good news: the Stansted Express service will run on Boxing Day – when most UK rail services are suspended – but only between the Essex airport and Tottenham Hale, on the Victoria Line of the London Underground.

Journeys to and from Liverpool Street station will take longer between 27 and 29 December as engineering work constricts the number of tracks. New Year’s Day will be the worst affected. Track work at Colchester will sever the main line between London Liverpool Street and Norwich.

The seemingly unending work between Southend Victoria and Shenfield means that Southend airport will once again be disconnected by rail from London from 27 December to 1 January inclusive.

London Euston and the West Coast main line

What is happening?

Ahead of the December fun, the RMT has called a one-day strike on 19 November in a dispute about the dismissal of a staff member.

Over the festive season, Scottish services will be affected by the closure of Haymarket.

What is the likely effect?

On the day of the strike, Virgin Trains says it plans to run most trains.

In the last week of December, trains to Edinburgh will not run beyond Carlisle.

But some good news from Euston: London Northwestern Railway will run extra services as far as Northampton after midnight on 31 December/1 January to take New Year revellers home.

In Merseyside, members of the RMT union have threatened strikes on every Saturday for the rest of the year in a dispute over the role of guards on new trains due to enter service in 2020. But these have been suspended while talks take place.

Scotland

What is happening?

Edinburgh’s second station, Haymarket, is the location for work designed to increase capacity and reduce the bottleneck on the western approach to the capital.

What is the likely effect?

Services west and north from Edinburgh will be disrupted from the end of service on Christmas Eve to 29 December.

No trains will run from the capital to Glasgow or Carlisle, with bus replacement services for some or all of the journey.

Most cancellations will be of ScotRail trains, but some long-distance trains to Aberdeen and Inverness will start and end at Haymarket.

CrossCountry and LNER trains will not run north or west of Edinburgh.