One of the numerous appealing things about Guildford is the town’s proximity to London. Whether you want to work in the English capital but live elsewhere or you simply want to be able to head in in order to see a show or do some shopping, the links between the two places are seen as ideal by many.
There is some bad news for Guildford residents when it comes to the upcoming Christmas period, however, on account of the fact that there will be severe disruptions when it comes to the train services to and from London Waterloo during the holiday period.
What’s Happening
It has long been the case that there are no train services between Guildford and London Waterloo on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day, so the news that there won’t be any services on either day this year won’t come as too much of a surprise. The Christmas period tends to be much quieter, which makes it the ideal time of year for the likes of engineering work to be carried out. The bad news for passengers from Guildford, however, is that these engineering works look as though they are being scheduled to carry on past those two days and into the new year.
If you are hoping to be able to make the journey from town into the travel hub in December then you would do well to check the timetable. On both Saturday the 27th of December and Sunday the 28th of December, for example, trains that would ordinarily travel from Guildford to London Waterloo will instead terminate at Clapham Junction. Things don’t ease up much in the new year, with timetable reductions being put in place between Monday the 29th of December and Monday the fourth of January, requiring rail users to look into using a different route into the capital.
It isn’t just Waterloo that will see disruption either. Queenstown Road station will not be open for travel between Saturday the 27th of December and Sunday the fourth of January. Closer to town, Vauxhall station will also close on the 27th, not opening again until Tuesday the 30th of December. Trains will call at the station on New Year’s Eve, but the station will be closed again on the first of January before opening up the following day. If you have tickets for use during this period, they will be accepted on alternative routes, which isn’t ideal but is better than nothing.
Why the Route Is Not Operating
Anyone who has attempted to use the likes of National Rail services over the holiday period will know only too well how difficult it is to do so. The organisation considered the Christmas and New Year holiday period to run from the 23rd of December until the second of January, with members of staff often taking this period off in order to spend it with their family and friends. The same is not true for those who work on the tracks and signals for the train services, however. Instead, they use this generally quieter period of time in order to carry out numerous updates and engineering work.
That is precisely what is going to be happening this Christmas, during which time a large team of engineers will be working to renew tracks, as well as keeping the switches and crossings in as good a state as possible. There will also be conductor work carried out in the area, which is a big part of the reason why Guildford residents will be unable to head into London easily for the best part of a fortnight. It is a combination of the standard closure of Network Rail routes for Christmas Day, as well as the restriction of routes on Boxing Day, alongside these works that are causing the issues.
What Guildford Residents Can Do
The good news for people who want to travel between Guildford and London Waterloo is that the overall nature of the rail network is such that you will not be without any options whatsoever. If you wanted to travel on the 28th of December, for example, then you would be able to do just that, only the train won’t be direct. Instead, you have a number of options of travel available to you. You could, for example, travel from Guildford to Clapham Junction, then from Clapham Junction to London Victoria. If it is specifically London Waterloo you want to travel to, you can then get there on the London Underground.
Depending on what time you’re looking to travel, you can also head from Guildford to Woking, getting a train from there to Clapham Junction before repeating the earlier journey. It will take around an hour and a half to carry out the journey, which is obviously significantly longer than the half an hour journey that you can take when such works aren’t being carried out on the tracks. Although this is hugely inconvenient, it does at least mean that Guildford residents aren’t being stranded without any recourse or ability to get into Central London on occasions when it’s necessary to do so.
Mark Goodall, who spoke for Network Rail and South Western Railway, spoke on the issue, stating:
We are giving passengers early notice that there will be changes to train services for those travelling to and from central London over the festive period. We are advising passengers to plan ahead and use alternative routes into the capital.
We are sorry for the disruption this closure between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction will cause however these works will provide a more reliable journey for everyone who travels on one of the country’s busiest railways.