AS CHRISTMAS approaches, here is all you need to know about South Western Railway (SWR) trains to make sure you make your destination on time. 

SWR is reminding customers to only travel if absolutely necessary on Christmas Eve as strike action and industrial action will mean a severely reduced service that ends by 15:00.

Parts of the network will also be closed completely on Christmas Eve.

Following the reduced service and early shut down on Christmas Eve, there will then be no service across the SWR network on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

On December 27, SWR will run a severely reduced service, with large parts of the network closed. RMT strike action at Network Rail means the network will be closed until midday, with first services starting even later.

However, some additional trains have been added to timetable, strengthening services between London Waterloo, Surbiton, Woking, and Basingstoke.

A limited number of off-peak trains are also serving Earlsfield and Whitton stations.

SWR has published a baseline service plan for the period up to January 2 to help people plan ahead.

Claire Mann, SWR managing director, said: "We are very sorry that RMT industrial action will cause so much disruption to our customers over the Christmas period. We share their frustration at what is a very busy time of year for travelling.

“The industrial action has significantly reduced the number of trains we can operate each day and we have unfortunately had to make some very difficult decisions on where and when we can operate.

“We have worked incredibly hard to strengthen some services from today and continue to advise customers to check their entire journey before travelling.”