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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Ross Lydall

Paddington station to shut for four days over Christmas due to HS2 engineering work

Paddington railway station will be closed for four days from Christmas Eve due to HS2 engineering work taking place over the festive period.

Victoria station will also be closed to some passengers – those using Southeastern services – from December 23 until January 2 while maintenance and re-signalling is carried out.

King’s Cross will be closed on Christmas Eve to allow work to be done on the East Coast main line.

The closure of Paddington – now the second busiest station in the country, after Liverpool Street - also means that there will be no Elizabeth line services between the station and Ealing Broadway on Christmas Eve.

As usual, there will be no Tube or bus services on Christmas day. The Elizabeth line, London Overground and DLR will also be closed.

The Elizabeth line will be closed on Boxing Day.

December 26 will also see widespread closures on the London Overground, including between Watford Junction and Euston, and Liverpool Street and Chingford.

There is no free Tube travel on New Year’s Eve. Previously the Underground had been free to use, to help revellers get home safely.

Network Rail said it was carrying out less work between Christmas and New Year than normal and it would be “business as usual” on 96 per cent of the national rail network. It is carrying out £127m of repairs and upgrades.

The disruption at Paddington is due to HS2 work at Old Oak Common and the laying of new track at West Drayton. It means there will be no services from Paddington between Sunday 24 and Wednesday 27 December.

Long distance services will terminate at Reading with onward travel to either Ealing Broadway or Waterloo.

The Piccadilly Line will run to and from Heathrow Airport but there will be no Heathrow Express services between December 24-27 inclusive.

At Victoria, work outside the station including maintenance and resignalling work to improve reliability with will mean that Southeastern trains are diverted to Blackfriars, Charing Cross or Cannon Street from December 23 until January 2.

Work to introduce digital signalling on the East Coast Main Line will take place between Welwyn Garden City and Hitchin, resulting in no long-distance services to or from King’s Cross on Sunday December 24.

LNER, Hull Trains, Lumo, Thameslink and Great Northern services will be affected, and no Grand Central services will operate.

Lawrence Bowman, network strategy director for Network Rail, said: “We understand how important this time of year is for our passengers for reconnecting with family and friends.

“With more than 96 per cent of the network open for business as usual, we have tried as far as possible to design our investment projects around our passengers and keep disruption to a minimum.

“We are carrying out some significant projects, not as many as past years, but still some £127m of investment ranging from laying new track, installing new bridges and making improvements to stations so that passengers can benefit from better and more reliable services and facilities.

“We plan our Christmas engineering programmes months- and in some cases years- in advance and target the quietest times – overnight, weekends and Christmas Day and Boxing Day to ensure we keep what disruption there is to an absolute minimum and will always looks to use diversions rather than put people on buses.

“But some routes will see disruption as we upgrade the railway, so it’s important that passengers check their journeys before travelling.”

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