Christmas rail passengers face 10 days of disruption

By the Editorial Team · Saturday, October 31, 2026

Network Rail will carry out extensive engineering works during the Christmas period, causing closures and service disruptions at major stations including London Paddington, Birmingham New Street, and Huddersfield, as well as on key lines like the East Coast Main Line and Great Eastern Main Line. These upgrades, costing around £152 million, aim to improve the network's reliability and capacity but require passengers to use alternative routes and replacement services over the holiday season.

Passengers planning to travel by rail during the Christmas period in the United Kingdom should prepare for significant service disruptions due to extensive engineering works scheduled across multiple key routes. Network Rail has announced a series of closures and partial shutdowns affecting some of the busiest railway lines and stations from late December into early January.

London’s Paddington station will be closed to mainline services from December 25 through December 30. This closure will impact intercity trains traveling to destinations in the west of England and Wales. As a result, most services typically departing from Paddington will instead operate from Reading between December 27 and January 4. In addition, the closure will delay the resumption of Elizabeth line services west of Paddington and Heathrow Express operations until January 31.

Birmingham New Street station, the busiest station outside London, will close completely from December 24 to December 29. The closure is required to facilitate the replacement of overhead power supplies. During this period, no trains will stop at or pass through Birmingham New Street; rail replacement buses will provide alternative transportation within the city center.

Commuters on the East Coast Main Line, which serves routes between London, north-east England, and Scotland, face partial disruptions on Christmas Eve due to engineering work near Doncaster. Trains will be replaced by buses on the section between Newark and York. The same work will also affect direct services from London to Suffolk and Norfolk, with the Great Eastern Main Line out of London Liverpool Street closed for 10 days from December 25 for track replacement in East London. Consequently, no Greater Anglia or Elizabeth line trains will operate through this area during the closure, preventing direct travel from Norwich to London.

Additional work will affect TransPennine services between Leeds and Manchester, with Huddersfield station closing from Christmas Day for six weeks, leading to slower journeys on this route.

Network Rail emphasized that the Christmas period, when passenger numbers are generally lower and services do not run on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, remains the optimal time to carry out these essential upgrades. The planned works, valued at approximately £152 million, aim to enhance reliability and capacity across the railway network. The most significant of these include the replacement of a junction near Slough on the lines leading into London Paddington.

Anit Chandarana, a member of Network Rail’s executive team, acknowledged the inconvenience but highlighted efforts to minimize disruption on key travel days. She noted that most of the railway network would remain operational to help passengers reach their destinations during the holiday period, with alternative options arranged where necessary.

This article was reported by synthesizing coverage from multiple independent news outlets to present a balanced, unbiased account. Read about our editorial standards. Spotted an error? Let us know.