Christmas Eve journeys have been hit by problems on rail and roads, with signalling problems, flooding on lines and a broken-down train causing particular delays for frustrated travellers.
The east coast mainline, which connects London and Edinburgh, experienced lengthy delays for most of the day, while additional problems in south-east England meant that more than one in 10 journeys were delayed.
And, despite a commitment to open up roadworks where possible to help people get to see family and friends for Christmas, many projects still had to go ahead on what was expected to be the busiest day of the festive period on the roads.
A broken-down train between Grantham, Lincolnshire, and Newark, Nottinghamshire, meant that people travelling between London and cities in the east of the UK, including Hull, Newcastle and Edinburgh, were delayed by about two hours.
Signalling problems at Gillingham, Kent, left services disrupted from central London on busy Southeastern commuter lines, while similar problems at London Paddington caused minor delays. Flooding caused all trains between Folkestone Central and Dover Priory to be cancelled for the rest of the day.
Network Rail said 13% of all train journeys across the country were delayed and, on Southeastern trains, the proportion delayed or cancelled was more than a quarter.
The spokesman said: “Subsidence to track ballast on the rail track near Dover harbour following flooding means we are unable to run trains between Folkestone Central and Dover Priory for the rest of the day.
“Network Rail are on site checking damage to the sea wall by the track. We are running bus replacement services between Folkestone Central and Dover Priory to make sure people that live between these two stations are able to get home but we would advise passengers to please check before travelling and leave extra time for their journeys.”
Southern Rail contacted travellers with news of disruption on their service because of a “temporary shortage of available train crew” that was causing delays and the cancellation of some services throughout Thursday. Lines through East Croydon were temporarily closed after an “emergency incident” and Southern said delays of up to 60 minutes were expected while services returned to normal.
On the roads, widespread engineering plans set to go ahead over the Christmas period were likely to cause disruption, despite the scheme to remove roadworks. While nearly 400 miles of works had been removed by Wednesday morning, before the travel rush, a total of 184 schemes will remain in operation.
The RAC said earlier that it expected more than 4m journeys on Christmas Eve – almost half of all car journeys expected to be made over the weekend.
Rod Dennis, an RAC spokesman, said: “Around 11m separate Christmas-related car journeys will take place between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, and this is consistent with previous years.”
Network Rail said 20,000 of its workers would carry out almost 500 improvement projects across Britain over the festive season, which will sever train links to both Gatwick and Heathrow airports.
From 10pm on Christmas Eve, there will be no Gatwick Express or Southern services between South Croydon and Redhill until Monday 4 January. At Heathrow, the normal one-day closure on Christmas Day will be extended by three days due to Crossrail works.
Some train services will finish earlier on Christmas Eve to make way for works, with all Southeastern services at London’s Charing Cross, Cannon Street, London Bridge and Waterloo East stations finishing at 8pm. Work to replace a major railway junction at Purley, in south London, will also cut off direct services from Brighton to the capital.
The west coast mainline will be closed between Crewe, in Cheshire, and Stafford from Friday until Tuesday, while lines are also shut from London Liverpool Street east to Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich.
Earlier, the Network Rail chief executive, Mark Carne, said he was “acutely conscious” that people wanted to use the railway over Christmas to see their friends and families and thanked passengers for their understanding.
There was severe disruption last year when engineering work on the lines from London’s King’s Cross and Paddington stations overran, delaying travellers on the first Saturday after Christmas.
