Hundreds of thousands of passengers and freight users will benefit from a Christmas and New Year investment carried out on Britain's rail network.

Over 20,000 members of Network Rail's employees will spend Christmas Day and the days that follow working on the railway across Britain to deliver the Railway Upgrade Plan.

The work will consist of new station facilities, longer platforms, extra tracks, new junctions and thousands of pieces of new, more reliable equipment are set to be installed.

The investment program totals £150 million and will begin late on December 24th of this year, pending the last run of trains for the evening.

Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne said that the work by their dedicated employees would bring "more reliable journeys for passengers across Britain".

He was assured in the fact that the "vast majority of the network is running normally" through the festive period, allowing Christmas to go ahead largely untainted.