Rail passengers have been warned of more than a fortnight of disruption over the Christmas period due to the annual engineering shutdown.
There will be no Greater Anglia trains between Liverpool Street and Stratford from Christmas Day until January 2, though the Elizabeth line – which uses platforms underneath Liverpool Street station – will continue as normal.
There will be no trains in or out of Waterloo station on Saturday December 27 and Sunday December 28, with trains terminating at Clapham Junction – and only a limited service until the New Year.
And passengers looking to travel between London and Scotland are being advised to use LNER or Lumo services on the East Coast Main Line as Avanti West Coast’s trains in and out of Euston will be disrupted by the part-closure of the West Coast Main Line from Christmas Eve and during the first two weeks of January.
In total, the West Coast Main Line will be part-closed for 22 days, with the upgrades aiming to make sure it stays “fit for the future”.
The work at Liverpool Street station will involve engineering work within Bishopsgate tunnel and work to refurbish the station roof.
The disruption to Waterloo trains will last from December 27 until Sunday January 4 due to track upgrades near Queenstown Road.
The platforms at Queenstown Road station, which will be shut from December 27 until January 4, will be altered.
The programme will strengthen the railway’s foundations with new ballast and sleepers and improve electric power delivery to trains.
Vauxhall train station will be closed from December 27-30 and on New Year’s Day.
The West Coast Main Line will be closed from January 1 to 14 between Preston and Carlisle to enable Network Rail to undertake the £60m replacement of the Clifton Bridge, which takes the railway over the M6 motorway near Penrith in Cumbria.
The M6 will be closed between Junctions 39 and 40 for the first two weekend in January while the work is done.
Avanti West Coast will operate a shuttle service every two hours between Preston and Carlisle on the historic Settle to Carlisle route.
But this will be of little use to its passengers travelling between London and Scotland as the first week in January will also see the closure of the West Coast Main Line between Carlisle and Lockerbie.
Avanti has published detailed information for passengers here.
In addition, there will be no trains between Milton Keynes and Rugby between Christmas Day and January 5 while Network Rail replaces a junction at Hanslope on the West Coast Main Line.
There will be no trains between Cambridge North, Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Stansted Airport from Christmas Day until January 5.
Network Rail said more than 95 per cent of the UK rail network would remain open but advised passengers to plan ahead.
Network Rail’s chief network operator Helen Hamlin said: “The period between Christmas and New Year is the quietest on the railway and it’s the best time for us to do the major projects that will take longer than a night or a weekend to complete.
"We work with train operators to organise diversions and rail replacement buses for passengers who are travelling but it’s still so important to plan ahead.
“That’s especially the case this year as we have some very big plans for improving the railway that will mean people may have to travel home on different routes after Christmas than the way they travelled out.”
Separately, Lumo has launched the first tickets for the extension of its London to Edinburgh route to Glasgow via Falkirk.
Advance tickets between Glasgow and London start from just £33.90 and just £10.90 between Glasgow and Newcastle.
Lumo trains will run in and out of Glasgow Queen Street – rather than the city’s main station, Glasgow Central, which is used by Avanti West Coast – from December.
