Train strikes Hampshire: Autumn South Western Railway services cancelled and disrupted as ASLEF plans industrial action

South Western Railway has apologised for impact of seven days of upcoming industrial action, which will see services reduced or cancelled, and advised customers to only travel if “absolutely neccessary” on these days.

An extremely limited service will operate on a small number of lines, with the majority of the network closed, on Saturday 30 September and Wednesday 4 October. On these two dates, South Western Railway will not operate services to or from any Portsmouth stations.

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On Friday 29 September and Monday 2, Tuesday 3, Thursday 5 and Friday 6 October, a normal weekday timetable will operate with a small number of cancellations due to strikes and overtime bans.

Stuart Meek, South Western Railway’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

“I’m sorry to say that, due to industrial and strike action by the ASLEF union over the next two weeks, we will be forced to make changes to our timetables.

“We will run an extremely limited service on both Saturday 30 September and Wednesday 4 October and our advice to customers is to only travel if their journeys are absolutely necessary. While we will run as many services as possible on days subject to overtime bans, our advice to customers is to check before travelling.

“On all seven dates of industrial action customers should check their entire journey before they travel as other operators will be affected. We’re very sorry for the disruption that this will cause and we’re very grateful to our customers for their continued patience.”

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On Saturday 30 September trains will only run between London Waterloo and Basingstoke, Woking and Guildford via Woking. On Wednesday 4 October trains will only run between London Waterloo and Basingstoke, Feltham, Woking, Guildford via Woking and between Basingstoke and Salisbury.

On both dates trains will only run between the hours of 0700 and 1900. There will be no other services outside of these times.

There will be no service on the Island Line and customers in areas such as Bournemouth, Exeter, Portsmouth, Reading, Southampton, Staines, Windsor and Yeovil will not be served by SWR services on these two dates.

Full information can be found at southwesternrailway.com/strike.