London's Paddington station will close from Christmas Eve until Thursday 28 December.

Network Rail said engineering works were necessary and that it had tried to "keep disruption to a minimum".

HS2 work at Old Oak Common and laying new track at West Drayton will see no services from London Paddington between Sunday 24 and Wednesday 27 December. Long distance services will terminate at Reading with onward travel to either Ealing Broadway or London Waterloo.

The Piccadilly Line will be fully open for travel to Heathrow Airport.

Lawrence Bowman, network strategy director for Network Rail, said:

"We understand how important this time of year is for our passengers for reconnecting with family and friends. With more than 96% of the network open for business as usual, we have tried as far as possible to design our investment projects around our passengers and keep disruption to a minimum.

"We are carrying out some significant projects, not as many as past years, but still some £127m of investment ranging from laying new track, installing new bridges and making improvements to stations so that passengers can benefit from better and more reliable services and facilities.

"We plan our Christmas engineering programmes months- and in some cases years- in advance and target the quietest times – overnight, weekends and Christmas Day and Boxing Day to ensure we keep what disruption there is to an absolute minimum and will always looks to use diversions rather than put people on buses.

"But some routes will see disruption as we upgrade the railway, so it's important that passengers check their journeys before travelling."