South Western Railway (SWR) has planned a number of essential engineering works to take advantage of the Christmas and New Year shut down.

As in previous years, services on Christmas Eve will finish early, there will be no services on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and from 20 December to 3 January, a Saturday or Sunday timetable will operate.

The engineering work will affect journeys through Woking, Vauxhall, Earlsfield, Southampton, Guildford, and Ascot. On routes where the line is closed, rail-replacement buses will be in operation, whilst on other routes, there may be a reduced train frequency.

SWR has launched a dedicated webpage that covers key information for anyone using the train services over the festive period. This can be found at: http://www.southwesternrailway.com/christmas

The Omicron variant is also leading to increasing numbers of staff having to isolate, which may require short notice changes to services. Customers should check for late notice changes at http://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey

Claire Mann, Managing Director at South Western Railway, said:

“After a difficult 18 months, we know our customers are looking forward to Christmas and the huge range of attractions and events available on our network.

“While the majority of our network will be running as normal over Christmas and New Year, there will be some changes to our timetable. We’d ask our customers planning to travel over the festive period to check the webpage before they head to the station.”

Network Rail Wessex route director Mark Killick said:

“Christmas is a busy time of year for us, as with fewer people travelling by train we have the opportunity to make improvements to the railway we can’t tackle during normal working weeks.

“I know it’s still a pain for people who are travelling and I’d like to say thank you to them for their patience and urge them to check before they travel. We need to maintain and upgrade the railway to keep it running reliably and we work closely with operators to find the least disruptive time to do that work.”