Travel chaos has struck the UK with long-holds ups snaking down the M25, as train passengers face delays, cancellations and packed platforms after strikes.
As countless Brits scramble to get back home after Christmas, they’ve been greeted by huge Bank Holiday queues and delays across the country’s roads and railways.
Even as the latest train strike finished at 6am this morning, the country's railways were in chaos in places as the M25 saw heavy traffic snaking for miles along the motorway.
On top of that, engineer works and more usual problems, like signal failures, have caused even more disruption, with ongoing work meaning no trains ran out of London Euston this morning.
Meanwhile desperate Brits gathered at London Paddington early this morning only to find that the station too had been affected by engineering works, triggering long delays.
Overrunning engineering works outside Paddington meant that trains were unable to depart and Brits saw their pre-booked tickets cancelled.
On the M25, National Highways warned drivers would face mammoth waits in nine miles of congestion on the motorway, anti-clockwise between Junction Four, Orpington, and the Dartford Crossing.
Those not risking the roads, and trying to travel by train instead, have been urged to double check their route as Network Rail could reportedly only guarantee 70 per cent of services would be running today.
This, they said, would rise to 90 per cent in the coming days.
Meanwhile members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) at CrossCountry continued their fight for better pay as they staged a 24-hour strike from 9pm on Boxing Day.
One of the first trains due to depart this morning was the 7:59am from Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street.
But it too was cancelled due to signalling problems.
Many other trains didn't even start running until later on, with passengers between London, Gatwick Airport and Brighton unable to set off on their journeys until the early afternoon.
Whilst this side of Christmas has seen chaos on the road, Christmas Eve ran relatively smoothly as Brits seemingly heeded the transport warnings amid strikes and the threat of traffic on the roads.
The AA predicted just over 15million people travelled yesterday after spending Christmas Day with family and friends.
Delays were worse than expected with some serious traffic jams on the M6, M1 and A303 as Boxing Day shopping sales and the return of the Premier League adding to the travel misery.
This all comes amid ongoing industrial action across the country’s railways.
An estimated 40,000 workers from Network Rail and 14 train operating companies are set to strike again between January 3 and 7.
RMT workers are still on an overtime ban, that runs from 18 December until 2 January, as they warn the government were “directly interfering with our attempts to reach a settlement.”
The overtime ban is bookended by two strikes, which will see services reduced to 20 per cent of normal capacity.
Walkouts by TSSA workers will compound travel issues as the union’s organising director Nadine Rae said: “Make no mistake, we will see trains coming to a halt unless rail bosses and the government do the right thing for our members and our precious rail network which so many people rely on.”
