National rail services on Boxing Day
From Saturday 23 December 2023 until Tuesday 2 January 2024, planned work, closures and service changes may affect your journey.
- On Christmas Eve, services will finish earlier than normal.
- On Christmas Day, there will be no Tube, rail, bus, tram, river or IFS Cloud Cable Car services. Taxi and private hire, Santander Cycles, e-scooters, Dial-a-Ride and some coach services will be available
- On Boxing Day, there will be no Elizabeth line services and no service on most London Overground routes and part of the Bakerloo line.
- On New Year’s Eve there will be road closures in central London from early afternoon, with buses on diversion to support the London New Year’s Eve fireworks event. Stations near to the fireworks event or in other busy areas of London may become exit or interchange only at short notice
- On New Year’s Eve some TfL services will run all night.
- TfL is not able to provide free travel on New Year’s Eve
Details
Some train operators are anticipating disruption to services in the run up to the Christmas break. This is due to a number of reasons such as a shortage of train crew, residual disruption following the recent severe weather and increased passenger volumes as people travel for Christmas.
Major engineering work will also be taking place during the holiday period. Network Rail carry out essential improvement and engineering work across the rail network during this time as fewer people usually travel by train.
Christmas Eve:
A number of train operators are expecting train crew shortages today, resulting in the possible short notice cancellation, and part-cancellation of trains. Information is available for the following train operators:
Chiltern Railways
CrossCountry
London Northwestern Railway
Northern
West Midlands Railway
In addition, services on most routes finish earlier than normal, and no trains will be running on Christmas Day. Please check your whole journey before you travel, and give yourself plenty of time to complete your journey. You may also wish to check the specific advice for the train operator you are travelling with as they may have special ticket and travel advice.
Major engineering work:
During the Christmas and New Year period major engineering work will be taking place at the following locations:
London Kings Cross journeys will be affected by major improvement work taking place on Christmas Eve, Sunday 24 December. This will significantly affect journeys on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, York, Peterborough plus many other stations.
London Paddington journeys will be affected by major improvement work taking place between Christmas Eve, Sunday 24 December, and Wednesday 27 December inclusive. This will affect journeys to and from South Wales, Bristol, the West Country and the Thames Valley. In addition, Heathrow Airport will have no direct National Rail services to or from central London between Sunday 24 December and Wednesday 27 December inclusive.
London Victoria station will have no Southeastern services between Saturday 23 December and Monday 1 January 2024 inclusive. Southeastern trains will use alternative London terminal stations.
London Liverpool Street – Norwich / Ipswich / Colchester journeys will be disrupted through the Chelmsford area between Wednesday 27 December and Monday 1 January.
Source: TfL & National Rail