A RAIL company has issued a warning to customers looking to travel from Southend into London this festive season. 

Greater Anglia is warning passengers planning to travel from Southend Victoria into London Liverpool Street from Christmas Day to New Year Day as the major London station is closed for renovation works. 

Many services will instead terminate at or start from Stratford with connections to central London via the Elizabeth Line and London Underground services. 

On Christmas Eve, there will be an early shutdown with most services finishing by 10.15pm.

There will be no services on Christmas Day, and only a revised Stansted Express service will run on Boxing Day

This is all to enable the improvement of the "customer experience" of the busy London station. 

Martin Beable, managing director, Greater Anglia, said: “While most of our services will be running over the festive period, engineering work is taking place and will affect passengers travelling on both main lines to and from London.

“Since the railway tends to be much quieter over this period, Network Rail uses it to carry out essential upgrade work that will help Greater Anglia to continue operating a very punctual and reliable service for customers in 2025.

“We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the service alterations, and we urge passengers to check before they travel as some journeys may take longer than normal.”