Overnight trains between the capital and the south coast will be stopped later this month for ‘essential maintenance’ works.

Southern services between London Victoria and Brighton will no longer run at night on weekdays from Sunday, May 21. The franchise has not announced when the service would return to its normal timetable.

Currently trains run at 12.05am, 1am and 4am from the north London station.

But when the new timetable is introduced the final train to Brighton will depart at 12.07am.

Passengers with valid Southern tickets will be able to use Thameslink services from London Blackfriars or St Pancras International to travel between central London, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport and Brighton.

The trains will also call at Purley, Coulsdon South, Merstham, Redhill and Horley with some others running further to Haywards Heath and Brighton.

Southern’s Friday and Saturday night trains will be retained.

The present arrangements where there is no Gatwick Express service between 11.30pm and 5am will continue.

A Southern spokesman: "Passenger numbers have doubled in the past two decades and Network Rail needs this extra time to carry out essential maintenance and improvement work overnight to give passengers at busier times of the day a more punctual and reliable journey across the Southern network.

"It will also help Network Rail deliver critical elements of a £300m improvement plan that was announced by the Government in January, which will improve our services on this, the UK's busiest, most congested network.

"Just 14 trains in total are being affected overnight into and out of Victoria and the busy Friday and Saturday night trains won't be altered at all. Also, we'll have alternative Thameslink services from London Blackfriars that will get passengers south from East Croydon where they need to be."

To find out more about when trains are running visit the Transport for London website here.