South Western Railway (SWR) has warned passengers to expect disruption over Christmas as planned engineering work is carried out.

The train line has asked customers to plan ahead over the festive period as scheduled engineering work this carried out across the SWR network.

The engineering work will affect journeys through Woking, Vauxhall, Earlsfield, Southampton, Guildford and Ascot over Christmas and the New Year.

SWR has arranged for rail replacement buses to operate on these routes while the line is closed. 

It also warns customers that other routes may also be affected by reduced train services too.

The train line maintains that the works "will make a big difference to the customer experience and will mean greater punctuality and resilience for years to come."

Will South Western Railway trains be running over Christmas?

SWR has said that its services will close early on Christmas Eve as it has done in previous years.

There will also be no trains running on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

It will be operating its Saturday or Sunday timetable from December 20 to January 3. 

You can keep up to date on all the key information about travelling with SWR over the festive period via the South Western Railway website.

See the summary of the Christmas and New Year South Western Railway timetable here.

Services may also be changed or disrupted due to the spread of the Omicron variant which is leading to increasing numbers of staff having to isolate.

SWR has apologised for the impact that this may have and encourages customers to stay up to date on any changes via the Plan My Journey notices.

“After a difficult 18 months, we know our customers are looking forward to Christmas and the huge range of attractions and events available on our network," Claire Mann, Managing Director at South Western Railway, says.

“While the majority of our network will be running as normal over Christmas and New Year, there will be some changes to our timetable.

"We’d ask our customers planning to travel over the festive period to check the webpage before they head to the station.”

While Network Rail Wessex route director Mark Killick said: “Christmas is a busy time of year for us, as with fewer people travelling by train we have the opportunity to make improvements to the railway we can’t tackle during normal working weeks.

“I know it’s still a pain for people who are travelling and I’d like to say thank you to them for their patience and urge them to check before they travel.

"We need to maintain and upgrade the railway to keep it running reliably and we work closely with operators to find the least disruptive time to do that work."