Brits face triple Christmas travel chaos of booking tickets, limited trains & engineering works

BRITS face a triple whammy of having to pre-book tickets, limited trains and battling railway engineering works to see family over the holidays, it was warned today.

Festive travellers face a Christmas dash to get home next month - as the Transport Secretary warned people not to travel if they can help it.

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Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned people to "look very carefully at the transport route they take” when people cross the country.

He added:"We have got to understand there are limitations to the (train) network caused by, for example, things like the need on some trains to pre-book tickets at this time, in order to prevent overcrowding.

"So we are going to be appealing to people to look very carefully at the transport route they take and of course even making a choice about whether they travel at all.

"It is the reality of the situation we're in, we will try to do everything we can with the network to make it as good as possible, but I think it is worth people being aware that busy times of travel is a problem.”

He also warned there would still be significant disruption on the network from planned engineering works - which cannot be changed.

Mr Shapps said the fixes to the lines were often “18 months to two years in the planning” so could not be scrapped or postponed.

Although travel restrictions will be lifted at the end of the second lockdown on December 2, people in Tier Three areas will still be advised not to travel.

Mr Shapps said: He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are saying, avoid travel outside of your area.

"We are dissuading people travelling around generally from the very high tier areas.

“You can go abroad. But, of course there is a penalty to pay for that in terms of having a potential quarantine period when you come back."