Queen Elizabeth II: Trains and coaches busy as mourners head to London

Train and coach companies across the south of England are putting on extra services as people head to London to pay their respects to the Queen.

Operators are amending timetables, adding extra carriages and offering limited services through the night on some routes to cope with demand.

National Express coaches said it was also increasing capacity.

Her Majesty will be lying-in-state at Westminster Abbey from Wednesday afternoon, her funeral is on Monday.

Chiltern Railways said it would operate an "enhanced timetable" from Wednesday through to Monday, with two additional overnight trains in the early hours of each morning.

A 01:35 BST Oxford to Marylebone arriving at 03:00, and a 03:15 return from Marylebone.

However, it said some late-night journeys would take considerably longer than usual, and may involve travel via alternative routes, on other operator's services and/or rail replacement bus services.

TfL Rail, which runs the Crossrail services from Reading on the new Elizabeth Line, said it would run a special service with 12 trains per hour on the central section from Paddington to Abbey Wood on Sunday.

The East and West sections will operate as normal.

Great Western Railways (GWR) said all services were expected to be "extremely busy". It said it would operate extra trains between Reading and Paddington from Wednesday.

Spokesman Dan Panes said: "We are running as many as we can, but even so we don't expect them to touch the sides of passenger demand."

The operator will also run "further additional services, particularly in the very early morning and late evening" on the day of the funeral to "take people towards London and back home again", it said.

It said it would not be possible to view both the funeral in London and travel to Windsor, where the Queen will be laid to rest.

GWR asked passengers to keep baggage to a minimum and warned Thames Valley Police and British Transport Police may conduct security checks.

South Western Railway's website showed departures from Southampton Central at 03:15, Basingstoke at 02:15, 04:03 and 04:54.

The operator said customers should check journey planners regularly for the latest information but services were expected to be "extremely busy on the day of, and in the days leading up to, the funeral".

The coach company said it was seeing "unprecedented demand" for travel over the period of national mourning as the public head to London to pay their respects.

Online enquiries for travel on London routes increased by 40%, compared with the previous week, following the announcement of the Queen's death last Thursday.