The rail, road and flight disruption to expect over New Year

The year is ending with tens of thousands of travellers out of position after the temporary closure of the Channel Tunnel on 30 December. More widely, what are the prospects for travellers with or without a car? These are the key concerns.

Rail

Eurostar

Tens of thousands of passengers who were expecting to travel on Eurostar yesterday are waking up on New Year’s Eve where they did not expect to be. Thirty trains linking London with Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam were cancelled on Tuesday 30 December. Passengers have been told to rebook, but it appears that many have simply abandoned their New Year journeys.

Problems began in the early hours of Tuesday morning with a power failure in one of the tunnel bores between Folkestone and Calais. There is a well-rehearsed response to this, which is single line working: a sequence of services, comprising LeShuttle car-carrying trains, freight trains and Eurostar passenger services, travels in one direction. When they are all through, trains travel in the opposite direction. It slows everything up, but people and goods get through eventually.

But then a LeShuttle train broke down, and everything seized up. Initially Eurostar dispatched trains towards the Channel Tunnel hoping the blockage would be removed. But by late morning the train company was sending them back to where they started, and urged passengers not to try to travel. Trains resumed around 4pm, but by that time many people had given up.

Passengers who caught the final train of the night from London to Paris at 7.01am arrived a full 12 hours late in the French capital. Eurostar has not commented on the journey, but Eurotunnel said it was not responsible for what it called an “overnight incident on the British network”.

On New Year’s Eve, Eurostar passengers at London St Pancras International are being told: “Due to a problem in the Eurotunnel, our trains are likely to be subject to severe delays. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

In a bid to clear the backlog of an estimated 25,000 passengers whose Eurostar trains were cancelled on Tuesday, the Channel Tunnel passenger rail firm has added an extra London-Paris train.

LeShuttle, the car-carrying operation between Folkestone and Calais, has resumed with delays. On Wednesday morning Eurotunnel, which runs the car-carrying operation, says: “Following a power supply issue, our teams are working hard to restore our service as quickly as possible. We apologise and thank customers for their patience.”

East Coast Main Line

There are multiple problems on the line that connects London King's Cross with Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland. The emergency services are dealing with an incident between London and Stevenage, with all lines blocked.

LNER and Lumo trains to and from Newcastle and Edinburgh are delayed, as well as Grand Central, Hull Trains and Great Northern services. Cancellations are likely to begin soon.

An earlier incident involving trespassers on the railway at Northallerton that blocked all lines has ended, but delays continue.

Engineering work

Widespread Network Rail engineering work is underway. Some key stations and lines will close, putting pressure on other routes.

No trains will run to or from the main London Liverpool Street station – the busiest in Britain – until 2 January. The exception is the Elizabeth line, which will enable travellers to reach Stratford station – where many links, including the Stansted Express, will start and end.

One of the UK’s other busiest stations, London Waterloo, has reopened with reduced service after four days of engineering work.

The West Coast Main Line, which connects London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, north Wales and southern Scotland, will be closed on the key stretch from Milton Keynes and Rugby up to and including 4 January.

A key junction at Hanslope, south of Rugby, is being replaced. Rail replacement bus services will operate. In addition, Chiltern Railway from London Marylebone to Birmingham, the East Coast Main Line north from London King’s Cross and the East Midlands line from London St Pancras will take the strain.

West Coast Main Line

Further north, the West Coast Main Line between Preston and Carlisle will close from New Year’s Eve to 15 January inclusive. A shuttle service will connect the two cities via the scenic Settle-Carlisle Railway.

No trains will run on the main line between Leeds and York until the start of services on 3 January.

New Year’s Eve will be quiet, with New Year’s Day seeing fewer travellers still – though in Scotland, almost no trains will run on 1 January.

Crowds will build back on Friday 2 January, with the final weekend of the festive season on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 January seeing large numbers of travellers – many of them displaced to other lines by Network Rail engineering work.

Road

The AA predicts that New Year’s Day will be the quietest festive travel day, but in the build up during 31 December some prospective key locations for congestion are:

In addition, the M27 in Hampshire is closed between junctions 9 and 11 until 4am on 4 January.

Ferry

Sailings are running normally between the Port of Dover, Calais and Dunkirk. The port is urging drivers not to arrive more than two hours before their scheduled departure.

Unlike aviation, there is no penalty for missing a ferry at Dover due to congestion; you will simply be rebooked free of charge. “If you missed your ferry, please don’t worry,” the port is telling motorists. “You’ll be put on the next available sailing.”

Caledonian MacBrayne ferries in western Scotland are mainly running normally, with cancellations between Ardrossan and Brodick on the isle of Arran.

No CalMac vessels will operate on New Year’s Day, and some services on 2 January are “request only”.

Air

Nearly 500 Emirates passengers who took off from London Heathrow for Dubai on Wednesday 31 December got no further than Maidstone in Kent before the pilots decided to turn back because of a landing gear door problem. The Airbus A380 SuperJumbo circled over Orpington for two hours to burn off fuel and landed safely, but it looks as though the passengers may see in the new year in from airport hotels in the Heathrow area.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “Emirates flight EK002 departed London Heathrow (LHR) for Dubai on 31 December 2025 after 13:40 GMT as scheduled, but returned to LHR shortly after take-off due to a technical fault.

“The flight landed back in LHR and passengers and crew were safely disembarked. All passengers will be rebooked to depart on future Emirates flights from LHR. Emirates apologises for any inconvenience caused, but the safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance and will not be compromised.”

At Lisbon airport, poor weather is causing delays of two to three hours on many arrivals and departures. EasyJet, one of the affected airlines, says: “Low visibility conditions require air-traffic control [ATC] to reduce the number of aircraft currently arriving and departing from the airport and has resulted in ATC slot delays especially for arriving flights.”

During the 17 days of the festive spell from 19 December to 4 January, aviation analysts at Cirium report 42,046 flights are scheduled to depart from UK airports with a total of 7.8 million seats. That is an average of more than 100 takeoffs per hour, with almost 20,000 seats.

Departures are up 2 per cent compared with the festive period in 2024, and available departing seats are up 4 per cent year on year.

London Heathrow has the highest number of flights, with one in five departures being from the UK’s busiest hub. It is expecting its busiest festive spell to date, as are Birmingham and Manchester airports.

The top destinations from many airports are:

This article is kept updated with the latest information.