NO TRAINS will run on Christmas Day or Boxing Day as engineers spend the festive period completing railway upgrades.

Network Rail has announced that £148m of work will take place between Christmas and New Year, with 25,000 members of staff taking part.

The disruption will begin on Christmas Eve, when many Northern services will be withdrawn at 7.00pm and almost none will run after 9.00pm.

Then, on December 27 and 28, replacement buses will run instead of trains on some routes, although Bolton's services should operate as normal.

Union strike action is also scheduled during this period, so a limited number of trains will run on Saturday, December 29, although most services will be back on track the following day.

Finally, on New Year's Eve there will be fewer services than usual after 7.00pm and on New Year's Day some early morning services will be cancelled before 8.00am.

Martin Frobisher, Network Rail's London North Western route managing director, said: “The railway is traditionally much quieter than usual during the festive period so taking on and delivering these bigger pieces of work at this time, as part of our Railway Upgrade Plan, means we will cause the least inconvenience to the fewest number of people."