Major Rail Disruption This Easter for South-East Based Exiles

Reading station is under-going major changes over the Easter holidays. This will effect any one travelling by train through Reading to Exeter for the following games:- Plymouth Argyle away, Rochdale home, and Dagenham & Redbridge home.

Services to and from the South West into and out of London will be diverted to London Waterloo, this will add about 80minutes to journey times. Passengers needing to use Reading will need to travel to Basingstoke for a rail connection.

Travel to Plymouth for the Devon Derby, on Saturday 30th March, will be complicated by that game being a 1pm kick off. In fact it might not be possible to do so at all by train:-

London Waterloo dep 07.10 (South West Trains)
Exeter St Davids arr 10.42
Exeter St Davids dep 11.45 (Crossountry)
Plymouth arr 12.42

The return journey is not so problematic.

Plymouth dep 16.01 (First Great Western)
Exeter St Davids arr 17.01
Exeter St Davids dep 17.26 (South West Trains)
London Waterloo arr 21.45

So, an overnight stay on Friday in Exeter or Plymouth might be a sensible solution. You’ll still need to travel from Waterloo though.

On Easter Monday (1st April) we entertain Rochdale at St James Park. Again travel will be from London Waterloo avoiding Reading station.

London Waterloo dep 09.20 (South West Trains)
Exeter Central arr 12.37

The return journey could be:

Exeter Central dep 17.30 (South West Trains)
London Waterloo arr 21.04

Then on Saturday 6th April Dagenham and Redbridge will be at the Park. It looks like the trains on the Saturday will be as normal, for those travelling from London Paddington, but if travelling from any of the intermediate stations then do check. South West Trains times and information can be found here, and First Great Western information can be found here.