Transport User Voice December 2025 – Putting passengers first this festive season

12 December 2025

Communication is key

Every year, thousands rely on trains to get home or away for the holidays. However, for the rail industry, this is a critical time to deliver maintenance and improvements for passengers.  

This leads to the challenge of keeping passengers moving during this time whilst engineering work is delivered.  

Our research shows that some passengers still get caught out by festive timetable changes. Engineering works, limited services and altered timetables can all mean the risk of confusion grows. Communication from operators is critical to get right. Any timetable changes need to be clear and provide real-time updates if things go wrong.  

If you’re travelling over Christmas 2025 and New Year 2026, there are some key rail service changes to be aware of: 

• London King’s Cross and Euston: major engineering works mean there will be reduced services out of both stations on 24 and 27 December.  

• West Coast Main Line: Between the 27th and the 4th January there will be no services running between Rugby-Milton Keynes, and Northampton – Milton Keynes, there will be frequent Rail Replacement operating between Northampton and Milton Keynes available for customers to connect to travel into and out of Euston. 

• CrossCountry services: Limited trains on 27 December with some routes replaced by buses.  

• Scotland: ScotRail will operate a reduced timetable from 24 December through 2 January, with no trains on Christmas Day.  

• Great Western Railway: engineering work near Reading will affect journeys to and from the West Country between 24–29 December.  

• The Transpennine route upgrade will mean a closure of the route between Christmas Day and 2 January, with trains diverting via Castleford for a further three weeks after that.

Alongside more familiar engineering works, from 14 December passengers on the East Coast Main Line will also see the biggest timetable change in more than a decade. This is set to provide more trains, thousands of extra seats and quicker journeys, as part of a wider set of timetable changes across the network.  

We will be monitoring how the new timetable is performing in practice to understand any emerging performance issues that may affect passengers.  

More information can be found at www.nationalrail.com and individual operator’s websites. 

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