Christmas engineering works to close Paddington and Birmingham New Street
Railway engineering work will disrupt some of Britain’s busiest routes over the Christmas period, with London Paddington and Birmingham New Street both closing for five days. The works aim to improve reliability and capacity, while most routes are expected to remain open; passengers will need to plan around diversions, partial closures and replacement buses.
Network Rail plans about £152m of work. Paddington services to Wales and western England will generally start or finish at Reading from 27 December to 4 January, while Elizabeth line services west of Paddington and Heathrow Express will not resume until 31 January. New Street will close from Christmas Eve until 29 December, and East Coast Main Line journeys via Doncaster may take two hours longer; the Great Eastern mainline will also close for 10 days from Christmas Day.
In short
- Christmas engineering work will disrupt major rail routes.
- Paddington and Birmingham New Street will close for five days.
- Network Rail plans about £152m of upgrades.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Concentrating major engineering work during the Christmas period can let Network Rail carry out upgrades with fewer weekday services affected, improving reliability and capacity for years to come. The closures may be justified if completing the work efficiently now avoids more frequent or prolonged disruption later.
The case against
Christmas is a particularly difficult time for people travelling to see family, working over the holidays or relying on accessible public transport, and replacement buses or long diversions may not be practical for everyone. Given the scale of the closures, passengers could reasonably question whether the work could be phased differently or scheduled to reduce the disruption.
Business Culture Travel UK World
Read the full article at the source →
Originally published by The Guardian as “Railway engineering work over Christmas will cause 10 days of disruption”.