Engineering work will hit airport rail routes over Christmas holidays

London rail passengers face major disruption over Christmas and the New Year with large sections of the network shut for engineering work.

Among those worst affected will be travellers using Victoria and Liverpool Street stations. Work being carried out at Victoria will mean the Gatwick Express will only run early-morning services on Monday, December 27 and Tuesday, December 28.

Instead, travellers to and from the airport are advised to use Southern Railways which is running a half-hour service between Victoria, East Croydon and Gatwick on the two bank holidays.

Trains will not run anywhere in Britain on Christmas Day and the Gatwick Express and Heathrow Express trains, from Paddington to and from Heathrow, will be replaced by buses. Some services to and from Liverpool Street street on National Express East Anglia routes are also being replaced with buses. This is for work being carried out at Stratford for the 2012 Olympics.

At Reading, a massive new bridge is being wheeled and jacked into place ready for more tracks and platforms to be added. This will affect Great Western services, with buses replacing trains on several routes.

NR operations and customer services director Robin Gisby said: "Thousands more trains are running this Christmas time [than during last year's festive period] and many thousand fewer replacement buses."