20 November 2023
Will you be travelling by public transport over the festive period? Then we strongly recommend you plan your journey well in advance as there are a number of disruptive engineering programmes taking place over Christmas and the New Year.
London Victoria
There will be no Southeastern services to or from London Victoria from Saturday 23 December to Monday 1 January. This is part of a major bank of work to maintain the signalling infrastructure that passenger trains rely on. Southeastern train services will be diverted to start/terminate at London Bridge, Blackfriars, Charing Cross and Cannon Street stations.
Kings Cross
There will be no long-distance services to or from London King’s Cross on Christmas Eve (Sunday 24 December). LNER trains will start/terminate at Peterborough or St Neots. No Grand Central services will run. Hull Trains will start/terminate at London St Pancras. Lumo trains will only run between Newcastle and Edinburgh. Thameslink services will start/terminate at Finsbury Park. Great Northern services will run between King’s Cross and Potters Bar.
London Paddington
There will be no services on Christmas Eve or Wednesday 27 December at Paddington railway station. No Transport for London (TfL) Elizabeth line trains will run between Paddington and Ealing Broadway either. A reduced service will operate between Ealing Broadway and Heathrow Airport / Reading. On the Heathrow Express no service will run between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport. On Great Western Railway (GWR) there will be hourly services from Reading to the West Country and Wales.
Other National Rail and TfL alterations
On Boxing Day (Tuesday 26 December) Stansted Express services will start and terminate at Tottenham Hale station, NOT Liverpool Street. On 27 December there will be no Greater Anglia services between Barking and Barking Riverside. On TfL London Overground services a reduced timetable will run on Thursday 28 to Friday 29 December. c2c will start/terminate services at Upminster until 14:25 on Monday 1 January 2024.
As part of the construction of Beaulieu Park station, buses will be in place between Witham and Chelmsford / Ingatestone from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day. Trains will run between London Liverpool Street and Chelmsford during this time. From 25 to 28 December buses will run between Camden Road and Stratford stations due to a bridge demolition job that Network Rail will undertake.
On the TfL London Overground, there will be no service from 23 December to 1 January from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction. There will be no DLR trains between Bank / Tower Gateway and Poplar / Canary Wharf from Wednesday 27 and Saturday 30 December.
More details can be found on TfL’s website.
Winter Wonderland
For people travelling to Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, TfL is recommending passengers plan ahead and leave plenty of time as services will be busy.
Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Green Park and Knightsbridge are the closest stations to Winter Wonderland but they may be closed or exit-only at busy times. For a quieter journey, TfL recommends Bond Street station which is within a 15 minute walk of Hyde Park, or Victoria and Paddington stations which are both within a 20-minute walk of Hyde Park. For those people who require step-free access or those travelling with buggies are advised to use Green Park, Victoria or Bond Street for lifts.
New Year’s Eve
The New Year’s Eve firework event in central London will be huge, with over 100,000 tickets sold. There will be road closures on the day in central London with buses on diversion on some routes. TfL says that stations may become exit or interchange only at certain times. TfL advises that travel is not free on their services on New Year’s Eve and to avoid travelling to event areas unless you have a ticket.
Remember to plan your journey ahead of the festive period and check before you leave home on the day you travel too as there may be some short notice changes to timetables.
