Heads up, Londoners. Liverpool Street station, the busiest train station in the UK (and so, logically, also the busiest station in London), is set to close for a lengthy period over this coming Christmas and New Year.
Network Rail is closing ’Pool Street’s mainline station from December 25 to January 2 (the entirety of ‘Crimbo limbo’, in other words) to carry out major engineering works. The closure will combine with disrupted services at Paddington station, which is due to work on the new HS2 stop at Old Oak Common. Find out more about the Paddington festive season closures here.
Liverpool Street’s closure over Christmas and New Year will see Greater Anglia services – including the Stansted Express – diverted via Stratford. London Overground services, meanwhile, will terminate or start from London Fields.
Helen Hamlin, Network Rail’s director of system operations, commented on the closures: ‘The festive period is a unique opportunity, when fewer people are travelling, to do big pieces of work to make services better, more punctual and more reliable.
‘The major projects we’re undertaking would otherwise take many weekends to complete and cause much more disruption. Whilst roads are busier during the holidays, it’s actually one of the quietest times on the railway, meaning we can improve things whilst causing less disruption to passengers and freight flows.’
All of which isn’t great news for any of us planning on using Liverpool Street or Paddington to get around or out of London this festive season. At least we’ve been given plenty of warning, eh?
Here’s the full list of London tube closures this weekend (September 27-29) to know.
In more train news on Time Out
The train strikes may be over, but that’s far from the end of big news on the capital’s railways. This week alone, nine of the UK’s busiest rail services were revealed to be in London, Paddington got a brand-new step-free entrance and an MP petitioned Eurostar to start serving east London.
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