Around 2.6million car journeys are expected to kick off on Good Friday with many motorists making for the Channel - despite warnings of 'carmageddon' and delays on the ferries.
Travellers making the most of the Easter weekend are facing travel chaos with 'bumper-to-bumper' traffic on main roads and long lines at Dover - while passengers on the rails continue to contend with the impacts of Storm Nelson.
'It's a complete nightmare. You'd think they'd changed something with the systems but no, they just can't cope. Unbelievable.' But some train services are not going ahead due to pre-planned engineering works on the southern end of the West Coast Mainline - turning the normally frantic London Euston railway station into a ghost town.
A long single-file queue of traffic on the A35 in Dorset on Good Friday - some of the millions of journeys believed to be undertaken today as Brits head off on break Crowds at London's Liverpool Street station on Good Friday as they set off on Easter weekend getaways Factory-manager Colin added: 'Dover could be such a lovely beautiful town - but instead it's just somewhere where everyone travels through. We don't see the benefits of the port.'
'It seems that when everywhere else gets a bank holiday boost - Dover ends up with fewer people than it would on a weekday.And Network Rail has urged train passengers to check their journey details before they travel because some major routes will be closed due to engineering work - with 493 upkeep projects happening across the Easter period.
Greater Anglia warned of disruption across its routes because of construction work for the new Beaulieu Park station in Chelmsford, as well as track maintenance work. On the south coast, the Port of Dover authority said shortly before 11am today that queues were at least two hours long - but advised that French border controls were 'flowing well' despite delays caused by last night's stormy weather.
Traffic on the A20 in Dover winding its way through the town in order to reach the port. Thousands of vehicles are expected to pass through today Motorists wind their way along the A303 past Stonehenge in Wiltshire as they set off for Easter getaways. More than 2.6million journeys are expected to be made todayThe Orpington couple said they are going to the Netherlands to take in the tulips, but had already missed their booked ferry to Calais.
Another said: 'Taken three hours to get through to check in', while a third holidaymaker, responding to the Port's social media profile, said: 'Wished we'd taken the tunnel.' Ferry companies have asked travellers to be patient as the queues continue to build throughout Friday morning. Kent County Council has mounted Operation Brock on the M20, partially closing the coastbound motorway to non-freight traffic heading for Dover.
The Port said in an 'Easter holidays travel information' update on X earlier this week: 'France has heightened its border security checks following the attack in Moscow on Sunday. The southern section of the West Coast Main Line will be closed between Good Friday and Easter Monday, with replacement buses replacing Avanti West Coast trains in some areasGood Friday is expected to be a much milder affair than yesterday, with temperatures hitting the mid-teens later in the day and some scattered showers
READ MORE Rain in Spain! Met Office warns of Easter washout for families heading to European cities including 14C Madrid - but 25C Rome will be hot and sunny Advertisement He added: 'This has to be more efficient. Open more gates. If you know more people are booked in, then open more gates!' He said: 'It took me five hours to get from the Isle of Man to our AirBnB in London yesterday - and it's going to take longer to get out of this queue!
Around 175,000 Britons are due to leave from Stansted, 105,000 from Luton, 160,000 from Manchester, 79,000 from Birmingham, and 89,000 from Edinburgh, all between Friday and Monday. Liverpool Airport expects around 60,000 passengers over the four days, which is around 7 per cent higher than last year.
Nelson brought unexpected weather for some parts of the country - including on Dartmoor, in Devon, which found itself blanketed in snow Deputy chief meteorologist Dan Harris said: 'The weather is expected to gradually improve following the widely unsettled spell of the past few days, with a fairly typical mix of spring-like weather across the UK.
It's an improvement to the highly changeable conditions across the country on Thursday, which saw regions hit with rain, gale force winds, hailstones and even snow across the day.
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