Bitterne in Southampton

🕗 opening times

comments 5

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  Eliza James

  :: 04 April 2018 14:16:16

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  Nevin Dogan

  :: 26 September 2017 05:36:09

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  Nicholas Brown

  :: 20 June 2017 23:24:22

  A small local station served by an hourly stopping service in each direction in the off peak. Trains here travel to Southampton Central from Platform 1 and Portsmouth & Southsea (and occasionally Portsmouth Harbour) from Platform 2, calling at all stations en-route. The station is unstaffed - tickets can be purchased from the ticket vending machine at the station entrance on Platform 2, and a help point is located nearby if you require information or assistance. Station facilities are limited to bike racks for 8x bicycles, a covered shelter on each platform, and live departure boards showing next train times, status and calling points. A footbridge connects the two platforms. Car parking is provided free of charge to railway customers. The station makes travel to Southampton and Portsmouth very convenient once one memorises the timetable. It is especially useful for example when there is a Saint's match on and the roads into and out of the city centre are rammed. A weekend super off peak return fare is super cheap too with my railcard - at just £1.90 it is often cheaper than parking for more than 1 hour in town! Onward connections at Southampton, Fareham and Portsmouth for more distant destinations (e.g. London, Brighton, Bristol) makes Bitterne a convenient start point for most rail journeys. The station loses a star because the only way to access Platform 1 (towards Southampton) is via a footbridge which means you're stuffed if you are disabled and cannot use stairs. Additionally the 1tph service pattern greatly hampers the station's overall usefulness and trains can sometimes be even more infrequent in the morning peak! South West Trains plan to double the number of hourly services between Southampton and Portsmouth from December 2018 and I hope this will include more services stopping at Bitterne, which will hopefully increase passenger numbers. Staffed facilities such as a ticket office or coffee stall would also not go amiss. All in all it's a very convenient little station to use unless you have special accessibility requirements, could be better but could certainly be much, much worse (looking at you, Shippea Hill)!

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  Robert Elmes

  :: 23 December 2016 11:40:35

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  Lucy Newman

  :: 07 June 2016 18:43:36