South Western Railway is advising customers to plan travel ahead on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th of February as the Hook landslip site emergency repair work continues and will see a rail replacement bus service operating between Farnborough and Basingstoke after 22pm.
Saturday the 18th of February will see last services operating through Farnborough and Basingstoke earlier than normal. Sunday the 19th of February will see a later start for morning services than usual and once again an earlier end to services operating in the late evening.
Alongside the emergency repair work taking place at Hook, engineering work in the Southampton area will also see services between London Waterloo and Weymouth start and end at Eastleigh. Rail replacement buses will be in operation between Eastleigh and Bournemouth and a revised rail service will operate between Brockenhurst, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth.
South Western Railway customers are also being urged to add extra time to their travel plans and where possible travel earlier in the day.
Details of service changes:
The last direct services from London Waterloo on Saturday the 18th of February are as follows:
- London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) at 22:09 (as normal)
- London Waterloo to Basingstoke (stopping service) at 23:12
- London Waterloo to Salisbury at 23:39 (as normal)
- London Waterloo to Eastleigh at 23:35
The last direct services to London Waterloo on Saturday the 18th of February are as follows:
- Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) to London Waterloo at 18:59 (as normal)
- Basingstoke to London Waterloo (stopping service) at 22:54
- Eastleigh to London Waterloo at 00:08
- Exeter St Davids/Salisbury to London Waterloo at 20:26/22:26 (as normal)
Following the last direct services, trains will terminate at Farnborough/Basingstoke where rail replacement bus services will be in operation.
The first direct services from London Waterloo on Sunday the 19th of February are as follows:
- London Waterloo to Eastleigh at 07:35 which is running 9 minutes later than usual
- London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) at 07:54 (as normal)
- London Waterloo to Basingstoke (stopping service) at 08:07 (as normal)
- London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids at 08:15 (as normal)
The first direct services to London Waterloo on Sunday the 19th of February are as follows:
- Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo (via Eastleigh) at 07:17 (as normal)
- Salisbury to London Waterloo at 07:27
- Basingstoke to London Waterloo (stopping service) at 08:16
- Eastleigh to London Waterloo at 08:08
The last direct services on Sunday the 19th of February will be earlier than usual with the last direct trains operating from London Waterloo as follows:
- London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) at 20:55
- London Waterloo to Basingstoke (stopping service) at 21:07
- London Waterloo to Salisbury/Exeter St Davids at 21:20
- London Waterloo to Eastleigh at 21:35
The last direct services to London Waterloo on Sunday the 19th of February as follows:
- Basingstoke to London Waterloo (stopping service) at 21:16
- Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) to London Waterloo at 20:17
- Exeter St Davids/Salisbury to London Waterloo at 18:25/20:21
- Eastleigh to London Waterloo at 21:31
Following these last direct services, trains will terminate at Farnborough/Basingstoke and rail replacement bus services will be in operation.
Service changes which have been in place from Monday the 13th to Friday the 17th of February will be repeated on Monday the 20th and Thursday the 23rd of February. Further to this, the 22:05 and 23:05 services operating from London Waterloo to Bournemouth will see a diversion in place via Havant and the 23:05 service will terminate at Southampton Central.
Stuart Meek, SWR's Chief Operating Officer, said: “As we approach the last stage of the landslip repairs in Hook there will be some service changes this weekend. We're advising customers to check before travelling, allow extra time to complete their journeys and to travel earlier if at all possible.
“As our customers will have seen this week, the last direct services through Farnborough and Basingstoke are earlier than normal, and this will also be the case at the weekend. On Sunday, the first direct services will be later than normal as well.
“There will again be an early shutdown from Monday 20 to Thursday 23 next week before our normal timetable is reinstated on Friday 24. We will reinstate some services sooner if it is possible.
“We'd like to thank our customers for their continued patience during this disruption – which will be further complicated by important maintenance in the Southampton area at the weekend – but we are nearing the end of this challenging period.”
Mark Killick, Network Rail's Wessex Route Director, said: “We'd like to thank customers and residents living alongside the railway for their patience while we've carried out this major repair.
“Fixing the landslip at Hook has been an incredibly tough and complicated job. I'm so sorry our customers will have to endure more disruption before we can reopen all four lines. Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution, but this approach is the least disruptive to our customers overall.
“We've taken the difficult decision to carry out the track layout work over multiple nights because I recognise how important it is to provide a direct service to and from London and the southwest, particularly as the Portsmouth Direct Line will be closed from the 11 to 19 of February as part of a multi-million-pound upgrade that has been planned for more than two years.
“It's crucial this work goes ahead because customers wouldn't see the benefits soon enough and it would cost taxpayers a fortune to reschedule and cause more disruptive closures in the future.”
Glad that Network Rail are doing what they could with the landslip which caused lots of delays and cancellations and it wasn’t deemed safe for trains to pass. In case of the landslip that could expand causing further more disruptions.
I experienced the temporary timetable last night, Thurs 16th, WAT-HOK. Southbound before 22:00 trains were running approximately 1ph (instead of the pre-landslip usual 2ph, although pre-pandemic in peak there were a couple of extras I think).
Nice to be able to get to Hook by train again instead of going to Basingstoke and taking the last run of the day of Stagecoach Bus 13 (Alton) back to Hook with the extra costs although benefiting from the £2 max bus fare “promotion”, although the overall journey time wasn’t too much longer
The replacement bus later in the evening was a 28 seater mini-coach, very clean, luxe-comfort, but limited ability for luggage, no possibility for cycles, and would not support disabled travel.
Bus ran time through Winchfield and Fleet up to Farnborough where the train was waiting and soon departed. All in all no drama, SWR could have paid for extra runs of bus 13 for Hook from first week and other replacements.