How to avoid travel chaos on road and rail this Christmas and New Year

Amber warnings for traffic gridlock, threatened strikes and the traditional rail engineering work interrupting major train links: it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The festive season this winter will be busier than ever, with record numbers of travellers predicted at London Heathrow and many other airports, as well as on Britain’s motorways.

These are the key pinch points and potential problems – to help you plan to swerve the disruption, or at least to be prepared for crowds and chaos.

Road

The RAC is calling 21 December “snarl-up Saturday,” and says the heaviest traffic will be between 1 and 6pm.

The AA also warns Saturday 21 and Monday 23 December will be extremely busy, with 22.7 million on each day. It has issued amber warnings for 21 and 23 December, “due to the volume of congestion predicted”.

Motorways near big shopping venues will be busy, especially the M25 around Bluewater in Kent, the M1 in the vicinity of Meadowhall near Sheffield in South Yorkshire and the M60 around the Trafford Centre west of Manchester.

By “messy Monday,” 23 December, additional congestion is expected on:

The RAC predicts the busiest single getaway day for motorists will be Christmas Eve, with peak time 10am-4pm. That evening, multiple closures of rail lines for engineering work begin – meaning more road traffic that there would otherwise be, as travellers have little choice but to drive.

Rail

While millions of passengers will travel successfully by train over the festive season, the scale of Network Rail engineering works spells tricky journeys for many.

The Independent has created an Advent calendar of rail disruption for the remainder of the year.

Friday 20 December

While no disruption is currently expected on the UK rail network, a combination of normal commuting traffic plus the start of the great getaway could make this the busiest day of the winter for train travel.

Saturday 21 December

No trains will run on the Midland Main Line north from London St Pancras International to Luton (including the airport), Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield from 21 to 29 December inclusive due to the replacement of the Agar Grove railway bridge in Camden, north London.

St Pancras is the eighth-busiest station in the UK, with over 90,000 passengers a day. Eurostar links to Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, as well as Southeastern trains to Kent, are unaffected by the closure.

Hourly East Midlands trains will run from Sheffield, Corby and Nottingham as far south as Bedford, for rail-replacement buses to Milton Keynes Central – connecting to the West Coast main line, and therefore London Euston.

Thameslink trains, which normally connect Gatwick and Luton airports via central London, will be severely affected, with shuttles running south and north of London St Pancras.

Sunday 22 December

Many train cancellations are likely on Great Western Railway and Northern (in northwest England particularly) due to staff shortage

Not all train crew working for these firms are required to work on Sundays, and it is likely that many of them will prefer to spend time with their families rather than doing overtime.

Monday 23 December

The single longest Christmas closure of a crucial rail line begins – and continues until the start of services on Monday 6 January.

The South Western Railway main line, linking London Waterloo with Winchester, Southampton and Bournemouth, will be closed between Woking and Basingstoke. The main work-around is to run one train an hour from London to Weymouth via Guildford and Havant, severely reducing capacity and adding 40 minutes to journey times.

Nonstop rail replacement buses will run between Woking and Basingstoke, where passengers can connect with trains to/from Salisbury and Exeter.

Christmas Eve

Trains will start to go home to their depots for Christmas from late afternoon onwards, with services on most routes shutting down early. Last direct trains on key intercity routes on 24 December are as follows:

All Caledonian Sleeper services are cancelled until 27 December.

Christmas Day

No passenger trains will run on any UK rail line.

Boxing Day

Scotland’s central belt will have many trains running, centred on Edinburgh and Glasgow. The biggest 26 December operation for decades will see links between the two cities and extending north to Perth, Dundee and Arbroath, as well as busy network in Strathclyde.

In England and Wales trains will be extremely rare. Those that will run include:

Eurostar will run a full service from London St Pancras International to Paris (15 trains each way) and Brussels (eight trains each way).

Friday 27 December

While most UK rail lines will reopen, there will be key closures of really important routes for Network Rail engineering work.

London Liverpool Street station, the busiest in the UK, will stay closed for the rest of the year, reopening only on Thursday 2 January 2025. Stansted Express trains will start and end at Tottenham Hale.

London Paddington, the hub for South Wales and the West of England, will remain closed until Monday 30 December. Passengers from Cornwall, Devon and Cardiff will have hourly trains to and from London Euston.

Crewe, one of the UK’s most important junctions, will be closed all day. Avanti West Coast trains will be diverted via Stoke and Manchester.

Cambridge is the target for widespread engineering work up to Sunday 5 January 2025.

Sunday 29 December

Cancellations due to staff shortage on Great Western Railway and Northern are likely.

31 December

The first of five months of intermittent strikes by train managers on Avanti West Coast begins. The walk-out is over payments for rest-day working. In an online referendum, 57 per cent of RMT union members voted to strike in pursuit of a better deal.

The rail firm connects London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, North Wales and southern Scotland,

In common with other train operators, Avanti West Coast relies on staff working overtime to run its full schedule. Since train drivers belonging to the Aslef union were awarded a flat £600 for working on a rest day, other Avanti employees have been seeking higher payments.

Train managers will continue to strike on Thursday 2 January, Sunday 5 January and every Sunday – including Easter – up to and including 25 May 2025.

An RMT spokesperson said: “Sustained strike action is now the only way to focus management’s minds on reaching a negotiated settlement with the union.”

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “This strike action will cause significant disruption to our customers making journeys on the West Coast main line over an extended period. “

It is likely that a skeleton service will operate from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow on strike days.

Meanwhile, on London’s Elizabeth Line, RMT members working in the control room will stage a 24-hour strike on the main east-west route through the capital, beginning at 9pm on New Year’s Eve.

The RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, said: “Our members play a vital role in running the Elizabeth Line and their demands for fair treatment on working hours and leave remain unmet.

“The current offer falls short, and our members are determined to secure a fair deal.”

A TfL spokesperson said: “If this action goes ahead we expect the Elizabeth line to operate normally, but would ask customers to check before they travel.”

Bus/Coach

National Express, Megabus and FlixBus will operate many hundreds of coach journeys between them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, including to and from airports.

National Express has added departures between central London and Luton and Stansted airports, as well as extra coaches from Bristol, Norwich, Manchester and Livepool to London. Additional services will also connect Liverpool with Manchester (city and airport) and Leeds. More coaches will run from South Wales and Bristol to Heathrow and Gatwick airports.

Advance booking is strongly recommended, especially for airport links. National Express is offering a 10 per cent discount for online bookings in December using the promo code DEC10.

Some local bus services will run on 25 December. Southern Vectis runs a near-normal schedule on the Isle of Wight on Christmas Day; Gatwick airport will have regular buses from Crawley; and some other local operators have a skeleton service, particularly linking hospitals.

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Sea/Shuttle

Tens of thousands of Christmas travellers hoping to cross the Irish Sea by ferry face disruption due to Storm Darragh damage.

The port of Holyhead – which provides the main ferry connection between Great Britain and Ireland – will remain closed until 15 January.

Normally Stena Line and Irish Ferries each operate eight daily ferries between the Anglesey and the Irish capital. Hundreds of motorists and foot passengers use the link each day, with “Rail & Sail” fares offered from stations in Wales, England and Scotland to Dublin.

Holyhead-Dublin is also the main freight connection between Great Britain and the Republic.

The port was damaged during “two separate berthing incidents” during Storm Darragh – the wild weather that swept across Wales on 6 and 7 December. No injuries were reported.

Stena Line and Irish Ferries have cancelled all sailings between Dublin and Holyhead until Friday 20 December at the earliest.

Sailings from Birkenhead to Dublin continue, as do the southern routes between Pembroke and Fishguard in southwest Wales and the Irish port of Rosslare. A new link has been added by Stena LIne from Fishguard to Dublin, but this takes twice as long as the ferry from Holyhead.

Across on the North Sea, the last sailing from Harwich to Hook of Holland is 11pm on 23 December, with the next at 11pm on Boxing Day. Similar timing apply on P&O Ferries between Hull and Rotterdam.

From Dover on DFDS Ferries to Calais, the final sailing before Christmas Day is at 2.25pm on 24 December; to Dunkirk, it is 2pm. Routes restart at 10am (from Dunkirk) and 11.20am (from Calais) on Boxing Day.

Eurotunnel’s LeShuttle from Folkestone to Calais, however, keeps going 365 days a year.

The UK’s only hovercraft link, from Southsea in Hampshire to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, closes from 6.30pm on Christmas Eve to 6.30am on Friday 27 December.

Air

The UK’s biggest airports are expecting record-breaking passenger numbers over the festive season 2024-25. The Independent predicts these will be the busiest days:

Christmas Day will be busier than ever at major UK airports. Manchester Airport expects a record number of passengers on 25 December, handling 25,000 passengers. The most popular destinations are:

EasyJet has flights from London Gatwick, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow on Christmas Day, mainly to sunshine destinations. The airline’s routes from Gatwick to Amsterdam and Paris will each have two flights.

From London Heathrow, British Airways will run a comprehensive long-haul schedule on Christmas Day. Flying on an overnight flight on 24 December (meaning you will be in the air for much of Christmas Day) or departing on 25 December is likely to save a fortune.

On a London-Singapore one-way flight, for example, the lowest BA fare on the evening of Christmas Eve is just £790 for either of the overnight flights – compared with the cheapest ticket on Friday 20 December of £1,837, representing a saving of 57 per cent.

Edinburgh Airport’s new BrewDog pub has opened just in time for the festive season.

Wherever you are flying, be aware of airport security rules (the 100ml liquids limit is firmly in place) and go easy on drinks before and during your flight.

In the unlikely event that your flight is cancelled, your rights are clear. The airline must find you a replacement as soon as possible – including on a rival carrier if necessary – and provide meals and, if necessary, accommodation, while you wait. This entitlement does not apply, though, for flights to the UK on a non-UK or European airline.