Rail travel on mainline services in London will be disrupted this Christmas, as several lines will be closed for the execution of essential maintenance work, London 24 has reported.
While several trains will not run over the festive period, bus replacement services will operate on some routes. The interruption will include the axing of all Gatwick Express services between London Victoria and the West Sussex airport from December 25 to the end of New Year’s Day.
First Capital Connect (FCC) services between the airport and East Croydon will also not be running from December 27 to January 1. The maintenance work will also affect services operated by First Great Western (FGW), Southern train companies and other services run by FCC.
The repair work organised between Paddington station in London and Slough in Berkshire from December 27 to January 3, will disrupt some FGW services, while certain Heathrow Express services will be affected from December 30 to January 1.
Buses will replace trains on parts of London Overground between December 23 and 27, due to engineering work between Surrey Quays and New Cross Gate/New Cross. Also, from December 27 to 29, platforms 1 to 9 will be closed at Waterloo station in London, with disruptions to services by South West Trains.
On the Victoria, Gatwick and Surrey disruptions, Network Rail Sussex route managing director, Tim Robinson, said: ‘These are three significant infrastructure upgrades which have been carefully planned to take place at the same time to keep disruption to a minimum.’
All the same, passengers will be benefited as the Chiltern train company will be running some services on Boxing Day, a first ever. Its trains will operate for around 12 hours.
Over the year-end, track replacement work will also be carried out on the Tube at Earl’s Court in west London. This will lead to part closures on the District and Jubilee lines between December 27 and 30; while a section of the Northern line will be shut on December 28 and 29, the report said.
