The Christmas rip-off will see travellers using Southeastern services pay double the normal ticket price for trains which take three times longer than usual for 10 days over the festive season.

Passengers on Britain’s busiest rail route, the London to Glasgow west coast line, will pay fares up to 400 per cent on Christmas Eve – when eight in 10 trains will be out of service, doubling the time of their journeys.

Four of the seven main line routes will see delays due to station and track closures.

These are London Paddington to the West, London Bridge to the Southeast, London Liverpool Street to the East and London Euston to Glasgow.

It comes as motorists will have to endure delays caused by 123 miles of roadworks at 27 sites this Christmas, including a project running six months over its scheduled finish date.

This will affect hundreds of thousands of travellers.

Passengers using Southeastern trains will be worst hit with no services running into London Bridge, Charing Cross, Waterloo East and Cannon Street from December 23 to January 1.

The operator, which is partly French owned, has scrapped all advance fares for this period, meaning journeys will cost up to twice more than usual but take three times longer due to engineering works for new Thameslink routes.

Passengers will have to use buses or the London Underground to catch diverted services and there will be far fewer trains.

A spokeswoman for Southeastern said: “We’re not offering advance fares on services during the Christmas blockade as we’re encouraging people to find alternative routes to use.

"We’ll be running a severely reduced service.”

Passengers will also face having to pay more for slower journeys on the west coast main line, which will see a 20-mile stretch of track between Preston and Lancaster shut on Christmas Eve and on December 27, adding at least one hour and 15 minutes to journeys. 

Virgin Trains and TransPennine Express have announced they will only put cheap advance tickets on sale for the four trains they have scheduled from Manchester to Glasgow using the west coast main line on December 24.

There are usually 26 services with cheap fares running on this route on Sundays.

The standard price is four times that of the advance fare.

Passengers travelling from Manchester to Glasgow via the east coast line also face journeys taking two hours longer than usual. 

Virgin Trains said: “Advance tickets are on sale for December 24.

"We know engineering works can impact people’s travel plans and recommend customers check before travelling.”

TransPennine Express said: “On Christmas Eve trains will run between Lancaster and Glasgow Central.

"Engineering work is an essential part of maintaining and upgrading the rail network.”

The London Paddington to Slough line will be hit by engineering works from December 24 to December 30, with Great Western Railway services starting from London Marylebone.

London Liverpool Street will have no Greater Anglia trains from December 23 to New Year’s Day.

Rail workers for CrossCountry, which runs trains from Plymouth to Aberdeen, went out on a 48-hour strike in a row over Sunday working yesterday.

Further 24-hour strikes are planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

Network Rail has confirmed it will spend a record £160million on 260 projects at 3,400 locations this month.

This is on top of the biggest ever Easter engineering works, which saw £70million spent on 200 projects.

Rail expert Ian Baldry, of IBPTS travel consultants, said: “Passengers will be unhappy about cheap advance tickets being reduced.

“And works making journeys take longer than usual means passengers will not even get the service they have paid for."

He said: “It’s the worst year of rail engineering work there has ever been.”

A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train companies and Network Rail, said: “Carrying out this vital work over Christmas and New Year, when fewer people use the railway, will help to minimise disruption while ensuring Britain has the railway it needs to prosper.”

Families taking to the roads will be delayed by Highways England works including a 26-mile stretch of the A1 from Leeming to Barton in North Yorkshire, which has 50mph speed limits.

The three-year roadworks at this location were meant to finish in June.

Other roadworks remaining in place over Christmas include an eight-mile stretch of the M62 with 50mph limits from junctions 30 to 32, and various speed restrictions on the M6 from junction eight to the M5 junction three near Birmingham.

Highways England will suspend 61 miles of other roadworks at 14 sites from December 22 to January 2.