South Western Rail festive period delays to start this weekend

The South Western Main Line closes all day on Sunday.

Then from 23 December to 5 January, there will be no direct trains to London on the West of England line through Salisbury.

And all trains from Weymouth, Bournemouth and Southampton to London will be diverted up the Portsmouth line. That will take 45 minutes longer than normal.

Meanwhile stations including Winchester and Micheldever will not have direct services at all.

There will be buses instead of trains between Basingstoke and Woking, and from all stations in between.

SWR’s Lymington branch line in Hampshire will also close for two weeks from 22 December.

On Great Western Railway, trains will be disrupted by work to create a new station for HS2 at Old Oak Common in west London.

From 27 to 30 December, most GWR services will terminate and start from Reading.

Passengers will need to use Elizabeth Line trains to Ealing and then transfer to the Underground.

Longer distance GWR trains will not stop at Reading. Instead, a few trains will take a lengthy diversion to London Euston.

Travel on these trains will be reservation-only and it will not be possible to turn up and buy a ticket.

For passengers on GWR, it is just the beginning of several years of intermittent disruption.

It will take until 2028 to complete the platforms at Old Oak Common. And no decision has yet been taken about whether some, or any, Great Western trains will actually stop there.