South Western Railway (SWR) is reminding customers to only travel by train if absolutely necessary for the rest of this week.

The company has reiterated that there will be severe disruption across the network, and on strike days there will be no trains running to Portsmouth or beyond Southampton to the coast.

This comes as further nationwide RMT strikes are taking place today (June 23) and Saturday (June 25), with a severely reduced service provided only on the routes that Network Rail has made available. Large parts of the SWR network will be shut down completely.

The knock-on effects of each strike mean that a late starting Sunday level of service will run on both Friday (June 24) and Sunday (June 26), causing significant disruption.

On these two days, the first trains on the network will leave after 7.30am, with first services from many stations much later.

This is due to the signal and maintenance workers being unavailable until later than normal and the challenge of getting trains and people in the right place following the early shutdown on strike days.

Customers who have to travel are able to check trains times via www.nationalrail.co.uk,