Tomorrow is the last day passengers from Suffolk and Essex will be able to reach Liverpool Street station by train until the new year.
At the end of services tonight lines will be closed between London to Ingatestone – allowing Network Rail engineers to continue their work replacing overhead wires and rebuilding some of the stations between London and Shenfield.
The tracks will not reopen until January 2, the first day back at work for many commuters after the Christmas and New Year break.
During most of this time there will be a bus replacement service from Ingatestone to Newbury Park tube station on the Central Line – but passengers heading to London should allow an extra hour for their journey.
There will be no trains at all on Christmas Day and Boxing Day – except for a limited service between London and Stansted Airport on December 26.
Trains will stop running earlier than normal on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve – for exact timings of the last services passengers should check with Greater Anglia before travelling.
Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director said: “We’d like to wish all of our customers a very happy Christmas. If you are travelling with us, please do check before you travel as some journeys make take longer than normal or arrive or depart at different times than usual.
“If there is engineering works on your journey, we will make sure you still get to your destination, even if part of your travel is by bus.”
The engineering works between London and Shenfield continue into next year – there are no weekend through trains between the region and London most weekends between the end of January and the end of March and there are expected to be line closures over the Easter Bank Holiday.
But Network Rail says this disruption should be the final disruption faced by passengers on the lines near London which have seen major engineering work since Christmas 2015.
Meliha Duymaz, Network Rail’s route managing director for Anglia, said: “We are making a huge investment into Anglia’s rail network to carry out major improvements to rail travel in the region as part of our Railway Upgrade Plan.
“This means there will be changes to train services over the Christmas period. I’d like to thank passengers for their patience while we carry out this work and advise them to check before they travel.”
Where will the disruption hit?
There are bus replacements on all services from tomorrow until January 1 – lines are due to reopen on January 2.
Rail replacement bus services will run at weekends in 2019 as follows:
Sunday 13 January: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Sunday 27 January: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 2/3 February: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 9/10 February: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 16/17 February: Colchester to Ipswich
Saturday 23 February: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Sunday 24 February: Witham to Newbury Park
Saturday 2 March: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Sunday 3 March: Witham to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 9/10 March: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 16/17 March: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 23/24 March: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
Saturday/Sunday 30/31 March: Ingatestone to Newbury Park
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