Two major stations in Britain to close over Christmas period — The Guardian
Passengers in the United Kingdom have been warned of significant disruptions to train services over the Christmas and New Year period due to engineering work on several busy rail routes. The work will affect London Paddington station and Birmingham New Street, The Guardian reports.
Restrictions in London and Birmingham
The largest-scale work is planned on the tracks leading to Paddington, including the replacement of a rail junction near the town of Slough. Most Great Western services to Wales and western England will start and end at Reading from December 27 to January 4. Some trains will be diverted via Oxford to London Euston station.
Elizabeth line services west of Paddington and Heathrow Express services will not resume after Christmas until January 31. Birmingham New Street station will be closed from the start of Christmas Eve until December 29 for the replacement of its power supply system. Trains will neither stop at nor pass through the station, while replacement buses will run to Birmingham city centre.
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Changes on other routes
On Christmas Eve, services on the East Coast Main Line between London, northeast England and Scotland will be partially restricted. Due to work in Doncaster, passengers on LNER and other operators' services will have to travel part of the route between Newark and York by replacement bus, adding around two hours to the journey.
From Christmas, the Great Eastern line running from London's Liverpool Street station will close for 10 days for track replacement in east London. This means there will be no direct trains between Norwich and London, and Greater Anglia and Elizabeth line services through this section will be suspended. TransPennine train services between Leeds and Manchester will also be slowed for six weeks from Christmas due to the closure of Huddersfield station.
About £152 million is planned to be spent on the work to improve the network's reliability and capacity. Network Rail said that most routes would remain open and that the days between Christmas and New Year are the least busy period for carrying out major projects.
