No trains on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Last year Waterloo shut 27 December to 4 January and the last Weymouth train left at 7.35pm on Christmas Eve.

There are no trains anywhere in Dorset on Christmas Day, and on Boxing Day most operators run nothing. Beyond those two fixed facts, the 2026/27 Christmas timetable for the Weymouth line and the West of England line through Gillingham and Sherborne has not been published. National Rail says the detail starts going up from the beginning of October, and the guide to the last trains on Christmas Eve follows in late November.

This page carries what is confirmed for this year, sets out exactly what happened last year so you can plan around the likely shape of it, and lists the free-parking dates the councils offered in 2025. It will be updated as each operator publishes.

The quick answer

  • National Rail’s Christmas period runs from Thursday 24 December 2026 to Monday 4 January 2027. No trains on Friday 25 December. On Saturday 26 December “most train operators will have no service”. Monday 28 December is the substitute bank holiday and its service is “to be confirmed”.
  • Last year the last South Western Railway train to Weymouth left Waterloo at 7.35pm on Christmas Eve, and Waterloo to Clapham Junction was shut for engineering work from 27 December to 4 January, with Weymouth trains diverted and slower. Expect 2026/27 detail from October.
  • Free council parking on named dates: in 2025 Dorset Council waived charges in fourteen towns on selected dates including Small Business Saturday, and Weymouth’s ten town-centre car parks were free on four days. The 2026 dates are expected in late October or November.

What National Rail has confirmed

National Rail’s Christmas and New Year 2026/27 page gives the period as “Thursday 24 December 2026 until Monday 4 January 2027 inclusive” and says “there will be no National Rail services on Christmas Day as usual”. For Boxing Day, “most train operators will have no service”, with “a small number” running “a very limited train service”. Monday 28 December is the substitute bank holiday for Boxing Day, and “details of the train services that will be running are to be confirmed”.

The same page says detailed information “will start being added to the pages from the beginning of October onwards”, with the last-trains guide for Christmas Eve published in “late November / early December” and the New Year’s Day extras in “early December”. The only major work it names so far is at Birmingham New Street, which does not affect Dorset.

Network Rail’s Christmas and New Year engineering page had no 2026/27 projects listed for the Wessex route when we checked on 25 September, and South Western Railway’s planned engineering works calendar ran only as far as November.

What happened last Christmas on the Weymouth line

South Western Railway’s Christmas travel page still carried the 2025/26 arrangements on 25 September, and they are the best guide to what to expect. Last year:

  • Christmas Eve, 24 December: last trains left London Waterloo before 10pm, and the final service to Weymouth left at 7.35pm.
  • 25 and 26 December: “There will be no services on the SWR network.”
  • 27 December to 4 January: all lines were closed between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction for track, signalling and platform work, so Weymouth trains started and finished at Clapham Junction on 27 to 30 December. On 4 January the Weymouth service was diverted via Guildford, and a separate closure between Basingstoke and Andover put rail replacement buses on the Salisbury line, with West of England trains terminating at Basingstoke or Andover.
  • New Year’s Eve: an enhanced service with “additional services after midnight” for people returning from London.

SWR’s December 2025 statement also advised passengers from Salisbury, Yeovil and Exeter to consider connecting at Westbury for Great Western trains to Paddington during the two-day Waterloo closure on 27 and 28 December. If the same pattern repeats, the two Saturdays and Sundays inside the fortnight are the days to check most carefully, and a journey from Weymouth to London on 27 or 28 December is likely to need a change and 45 minutes or more extra.

Our Dorset train times to London page has the normal journey times and first trains from every station, for comparison once the Christmas timetable is out.

Weymouth to Bristol, and the Sherborne line

Great Western Railway runs the Heart of Wessex line from Weymouth and Dorchester West to Yeovil Pen Mill, Castle Cary and Bristol. Its Christmas and winter improvements page had not been updated for 2026 on 25 September; it still said the impact of Christmas 2025 work “has yet to be finalised”. GWR’s Christmas Day and Boxing Day position is the national one: nothing on the 25th and, in previous years, nothing on the 26th.

Gillingham, Sherborne and Templecombe are on SWR’s West of England line from Waterloo to Exeter. Last year’s Basingstoke to Andover closure on Sunday 4 January turned that route into buses for the day, so the first Sunday of January is worth checking as well as the Christmas week itself.

Buses

Neither First Bus, which runs the Weymouth, Dorchester and Bridport networks, nor morebus, which serves Wimborne, Ferndown, Swanage and Blandford, had published 2026 Christmas timetables when we checked. We will add the operators’ own timetables when they appear.

Free Christmas parking: the 2025 pattern

Dorset Council offered free parking in council car parks on “various dates in the run-up to Christmas 2025” in Beaminster, Blandford, Bridport, Corfe Castle, Dorchester, Ferndown, Gillingham, Lyme Regis, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Sturminster Newton, Wareham, Weymouth and Wimborne. The council announced it on 27 November 2025, naming Small Business Saturday on 6 December, and the year before it had announced the scheme on 21 November 2024. On the free days the JustPark app and ticket machines are “set to no charge”.

Weymouth’s dates were published earlier and in more detail. Weymouth Town Council’s notice of 27 October 2025, a joint scheme with Dorset Council, made ten car parks free on four days: Sunday 9 November for Remembrance Sunday, Saturday 29 November for the lights switch-on, Saturday 6 December for Small Business Saturday and Carols by the Coast, and Monday 22 December for last-minute shopping. The car parks were Cosens Quay, North Quay, Governors Lane, Harbourside, Melcombe Regis, Park Street, Pavilion, Pavilion Forecourt, Royal Yard and Swannery.

If the towns repeat the pattern, expect Weymouth’s dates in late October and the county-wide list in late November. Our parking in Dorset page has the normal charges, and the Christmas lights switch-on page has this year’s dates, which are the days the free parking tends to follow.

Roads

The Dorset roadworks and travel page is updated weekly and will carry the Christmas position on the A35, A31 and A350 when the closure schedules for the fortnight are published.

What else changes over Christmas

Bin collections slip by a day after Christmas and again after New Year, with normal rounds back from 11 January 2027: the dates are on our bin collection days page. The ten recycling centres close on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day only: see recycling centre opening times. Schools break up on 17 or 18 December: see school term dates.

Still to be confirmed

  • SWR’s 2026/27 Christmas engineering works and reduced timetable: from October.
  • Last trains on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve extras: late November.
  • GWR’s Heart of Wessex Christmas arrangements: no date given.
  • First Bus and morebus Christmas timetables: no date given.
  • Weymouth and Dorset Council free parking dates: late October and late November, on last year’s timing.

Sources