Albion fans set for a long journey (From The Argus)
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Albion fans set for a long journey
4:10pm Friday 17th February 2012 in News By Neil Vowles
Thousands of fans will be hitting the road and railway and clocking up hundreds of miles as they follow the next leg of their club’s FA Cup journey.
About 40 coaches as well as hundreds of cars are expected to hit the motorway on Sunday morning while some train services are already fully booked.
Fans from all over Sussex as well as Bristol, Hampshire and Cornwall are expected to make their way to Anfield to see Albion take on Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup.
The late afternoon kick-off is giving fans some difficulties getting back home on Sunday night in time for work the next day.
Virgin Trains said it has two services for passengers after the final whistle with a 7.48pm service already full for reserved passengers getting fans back to Brighton after midnight.
A second service at 8.48pm from Liverpool would get fans back to Brighton at 2.23am and there are still plenty of seats available.
Roundabout routes
London Midland is also running hourly services between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street taking about three hours with services after the game at 7.48pm, 7.52pm and 8.48pm.
The trip northbound should be easier for fans with five Virgin Train services leaving Euston for Liverpool Lime Street between 8.15am and 12.02pm with the last service getting fans in for 2.24pm.
Fans making the trip across the capital from London Bridge to London Euston for northbound trains will have a slightly more roundabout route because no underground Northern line trains will be running between Camden Town and Kennington via Bank.
Instead fans will have to use the Jubilee and Victoria lines which are both scheduled to be running a normal service.
A Southern spokesman said the train operator was not putting on any special services between London and Brighton on the day but that their regular services would be unaffected by planned engineering work.
Connecting trains elsewhere in Sussex could be affected with rail replacement buses in place between Barnham and Worthing and replacement buses between Hastings and Ore.
Coach and car passengers can expect to be on the road for more than nine hours in total on Sunday although there are no major roadworks on their route.
Motorists can get real time traffic updates from www.highways.gov.uk/twitter, www.highways.gov.uk/traffic or or by calling 0300 123 5000.
Road to Wembley
In The Argus tomorrow we will have a bumper FA Cup edition ahead of the big match.
On Sunday, we will be running a live blog from the coaches travelling up to Liverpool, and throughout the match.
