South Western Railway Hope To Reinstate Most Services Following Temporary Repairs At Hook On Monday
The work following the landslip on the tracks at Hook, have been temporarily repaired over the weekend, and Network Rail are confident that they will be able to restore direct services from the South West and Central Southern England to London Waterloo.
The landslip left a 44-metre stretch of track suspended in mid-air, with only one track of the usual four available for services. It resulted in a severely restricted service between Basingstoke and Woking could operate and no through trains from across our area.
A permanent repair will still need to be carried out, that is likely to take weeks, Network Rail emergency works have temporarily changed the layout of the tracks in the landslip area to provide two tracks for services to run on. The solution will increase capacity for the Basingstoke and Woking route, but not all, direct services will be reinstated.
The stations that have been without trains since the landslip, Hook, Winchfield and Fleet, will have some service, but only serve Hook in the direction of Basingstoke, due to where the landslip happened. A minibus service will operate between Hook and Winchfield for those needing Hook in the opposite direction.
Customers are asked to check services on Monday morning, as the works continue on Sunday and may still disrupted if the works overrun. The service patterns of usual services may change additionally while the remaining temporary repairs continue.
Peter Williams, Customer and Commercial Director of South Western Railway, commented: “We are very sorry for the ongoing disruption caused by the major landslip at Hook last weekend, which has meant a severely reduced service on one of the country’s busiest railway lines.
“With the permanent restoration of the embankment a number of weeks away, it is good news for our customers that Network Rail’s emergency works will increase the capacity of the route and enable us to reconnect London to the South West from Monday morning.
“With a reduced timetable in place, we urge customers to check the latest travel information on our website before travelling on Monday and to allow extra time for their journeys.
“We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding.”
Journey planners have been updated to show Monday's expected services, but as always check before you travel. Weymouth to Waterloo services seem to be back to 2 trains an hour. Portsmouth Harbour via Eastleigh to Waterloo looks unchanged too. However, there is still plans to run a limited rail replacement bus service between Basingstoke and Woking as the services from Exeter St Davids, will have some services terminating at Basingstoke at certain times.
We will keep you updated with when the full works to reinstate all the tracks are to be carried out.