Network Rail has published details of engineering work which is scheduled to take place over Christmas and New Year, disrupting services on some lines.

Major projects include replacing a junction at Hanslope on the West Coast Main Line, which will mean no trains between Milton Keynes Central and Rugby between Christmas Day and 5 January. A bridge over the M6 motorway will be replaced, so there can be no trains between Preston and Carlisle from 31 December until.15 January.

Still in the north west of England, new signalling will be installed north of Carlisle at Kingmoor, and trains will not run between Carlisle and Lockerbie from New Year’s Day to 7 January.

Work is continuing on the Transpennine Route Upgrade, and this will mean no trains between Leeds and York between Christmas Day and 2 January, while north of the border work on a new railway bridge at Bowling in West Dunbartonshire means no trains between Dalmuir and Balloch or Helensburgh Central, or between Glasgow Queen Street and Crianlarich, from 24 December to 2 January.

Work in East Anglia will include commissioning and testing new signalling, and services will be suspended between Cambridge North, Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Stansted Airport from Christmas Day until 5 January, while there will be no National Rail trains between London Liverpool Street and Stratford from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day because of engineering work in Bishopsgate Tunnel.

There will also be disruption at London Waterloo, where there will be no National Rail trains between 25 and 28 December, and only a ‘very limited’ timetable from then until 4 January, while track and points are replaced at Queenstown Road.

Network Rail’s chief network operator Helen Hamlin said: ‘The period between Christmas and New Year is the quietest on the railway and it’s the best time for us to do the major projects that will take longer than a night or a weekend to complete.

‘We work with train operators to organise diversions and rail replacement buses for passengers who are travelling but it’s still so important to plan ahead. That’s especially the case this year as we have some very big plans for improving the railway that will mean people may have to travel home on different routes after Christmas than the way they travelled out.’

Journey planners on the National Rail website will be updated on 13 October.

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