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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Ross Lydall

Euston station to close for four days over Easter

Euston and rail station will be closed for four days and there will be no Elizabeth line trains in central London over the Easter holidays.

Major track improvements to the West Coast Main Line at Watford will result in the closure of Euston between Friday and Monday.

Trains will start or end at Milton Keynes, with passengers forced to rely on rail replacement buses to get them to or from Bedford, where they can switch to Thameslink services. There will also be buses to Potters Bar to connect with services into King’s Cross.

Victoria Station will be part-closed. There will be no trains between Victoria and East Croydon due to engineering work at Streatham.

Most Southern services will be diverted to London Bridge, and the Gatwick Express will not run.

Passengers travelling to and from Gatwick should use Thameslink or other Southern services. Replacement buses will run between Clapham Junction and East Croydon via West Croydon.

Trains on the Brighton, Eastbourne / Ore, Portsmouth Harbour / Southampton Central / Bognor Regis, Littlehampton and East Grinstead routes will be diverted to operate to / from London Bridge, with an amended timetable with and longer journeys. Trains on the Horsham / Dorking route will also run to / from London Bridge.

On the Elizabeth line, there will be no services between Paddington and Abbey Wood between Good Friday and Easter Sunday to allow for an upgrade of the signalling software on board the £1bn fleet of trains.

Trains to Heathrow will run from Paddington’s mainline station rather than the subterranean Elizabeth line platforms. A similar situation will be in place at Liverpool Street for services on the line’s eastern branch to and from Shenfield.

There will also be fewer trains on the Elizabeth line between Paddington and Maidenhead.

There will also be significant closures on the London Underground. There will be no services between West Hampstead and Stanmore on the Jubilee line from 2pm on Good Friday until Tuesday morning.

On the Metropolitan line, there will be no services between Good Friday and Easter Monday between Aldgate and Harrow-on-the-Hill.

London Overground services in and out of Euston will also be disrupted. On Friday and Saturday there will be no services between Kilburn High Road and Euston. On Sunday and Monday there will be no services between Euston and Watford Junction.

Overground services between Gospel Oak and Barking Riverside will not run on Sunday.

Network Rail said the £10.8m track upgrade at Watford would improve future journeys between London and Crewe. Engineers will focus on completing the overhaul of Watford junction that began three years ago.

The work will close all four tracks on the West Coast main line – resulting in the closure of Euston station. Further disruption is taking place at Carstairs, south of Glasgow.

Passengers wanting to avoid long delays are advised to travel on Thursday or next Tuesday.

James Dean, Network Rail’s west coast south route director, said: “This Easter bank holiday weekend we’re returning to Watford junction to complete a huge £15m upgrade which will transform the way we can move trains through the area, meaning fewer delays and extra capacity on this economically important passenger and freight route.

“We know there’s never an ideal time to close the railway, so I’d like to thank people in advance for their patience ahead of this complex project. With Euston closed for four days my best advice is, if you can, travel either side of the Bank holiday.”

On South Western Railway, passengers were warned that engineering work will affect services to and from Waterloo over Easter.

Rail replacement buses will operate between Woking, Winchester and Andover; Reading and Andover; in the Staines area; and between Clapham Junction, Earlsfield and Wimbledon.

Earlsfield station will be closed, and Vauxhall will have fewer services, on Sunday and Monday.

Further work at Victoria is planned on the weekends of April 22-23 and 29-30. The work is part of a four-year series of upgrades to modernise 1980s track and signalling in south London and into Victoria.

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