For those supporters coming to Southampton by train on Saturday for the visit of Stoke City please be aware there are engineering works which will cause big delays. Sadly this will also be repeated for at least one other home game.

The lines between Basingstoke and Winchester will be closed all day Saturday and Sunday for maintenance work.

Saturday service

An hourly train service will run between London Waterloo and Weymouth. This service will be diverted between Woking and Southampton Central, calling at Guildford, Havant and Fareham.

A revised train service will run between London Waterloo and Basingstoke.

Replacement bus services will run between Basingstoke and Winchester.

Revised train services will run between Winchester, Poole and Weymouth, also between Winchester and Portsmouth.

CrossCountry services will be diverted between Southampton Central and Basingstoke with longer journey times.

In simple terms the journey time will be extended by about 30 - 40 minutes.

For instance the hourly service diverted via Havant leaving Waterloo at 10.05am will arrive at Southampton Central at 11.55am a journey time of 1 hr 50 minutes, if you choose the usual route with replacement bus then the 10.20am will get you in to Southampton at 12.22.

Bizarrely it will be quicker to get from London to Brussels on Saturday then it will be to get from London to Southampton via Basingstoke and Everton fans who travelled to Lille on Eurostar on Thursday would have got there in a similar time to the one that it usually takes from Waterloo to Southampton, what a state this countries railway system is.

This will also be the case for the Leicester City game on 8th November.

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