Passengers brace for Platinum Jubilee travel chaos as rail operators warn of engineering works
Passengers coming to London will need to brace for travel chaos as rail operators warn of engineering works planned during the Bank Holiday weekend.
Travellers were warned to check before they travelled into the capital for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee as services on several routes are expected to experience cancellations and disruption.
Southern services between Reigate, London Victoria and London Bridge as well as between East Croydon, Clapham Junction and Watford Junction will not run on 4 June while Northwestern Railway will cancel early morning routes between Milton Keynes and London Euston, the Telegraph reported.
While Network Rail said “the vast majority of Britain’s railways will be open as usual,” people took it to Twitter to express their frustration.
“For crying out loud stop doing work on bank holidays! Nobody cares if you trash a workday, you deliberately target people who travel less frequently, travel with children, etc..” said one user.
Great Western Railway said it would carry out late-night works on four routes on 2 June, while LNER services from King’s Cross to Leeds will stop at Doncaster because of works at Wakefield.
Advocacy group Campaign for Better Transport called on Network Rail to “move in with the times” and be more mindful of people’s travels.
“Many more people now travel at weekends and Network Rail has to move with the times and reassess when it carries out planned engineering works, not just to avoid disrupting millions of rail passengers’ journeys but also to prevent yet another summer of gridlock on the roads,” said the group’s chief executive Paul Tuohy.