Passengers travelling through Southampton over festive period reminded to check before travelling ahead of £8 million upgrade work: Track maintenance

Monday 18 Dec 2017

Passengers travelling through Southampton over festive period reminded to check before travelling ahead of £8 million upgrade work

Region & Route:
Southern: Wessex
| Southern
  • Passengers reminded of service alterations in Southampton area from 24 December to 1 January as upgrade work takes place
  • Network Rail and South Western Railway advise passengers to plan their journey ahead and travel before Christmas Eve on Sunday 24th December if possible

South Western Railway passengers have been reminded to plan their journeys in advance over the festive period as Network Rail prepares to deliver an £8 million investment into the railway in the Southampton area.

Services through Southampton will be disrupted from December 24 until January 1 as Network Rail undertakes track engineering work at Mount Pleasant Road next to the River Itchen, with all journeys through the Southampton area affected, including between London and Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth. Passengers can plan journeys in advance at www.southwesternrailway.com 

The work will mean more reliable journeys for passengers in and out of Southampton, and quieter tracks for lineside neighbours near Northam Junction. It forms part of Network Rail’s biggest-ever Christmas investment in Britain’s rail infrastructure, with more than £160 million being spent nationwide.  

Chris Loder, head of service strategy for South Western Railway, said:

“We encourage passengers to check our website before they travel ahead of Network Rail’s work over the festive period. Buses will replace trains on many services in the Southampton area.

“We also encourage passengers to avoid travelling on Christmas Eve if they can and to be prepared for longer journey times between Christmas and New Year. We’re doing all we can to minimise disruption and make sure we get all our passengers to their destination over the festive period."

Jason Bridges, chief operating officer for Network Rail’s Wessex route, said:

“This vital work will improve the railway through Southampton. We appreciate there is never a good time to carry out work which disrupts passengers and we have worked closely with our colleagues at South Western Railway to keep disruption to a minimum and make information for passengers as clear as possible.

“Southampton is a critical part of our network, and by keeping the infrastructure reliable we are meeting the needs of the communities our railway serves, both now and in the future.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Notes to Editors

The work will involve:

·         Replacing 14 sets of points.

·         Renewing about 200 metres of track.

·         Replacing about 6,000 metres of electricity supply and control cabling.

The benefits will include:

·         Improved reliability of key infrastructure, meaning fewer delays for both passengers and freight.

·         Reduced track noise, meaning less disturbance to local residents.

Upcoming service alterations:

December 24 until January 1 (inclusive)

The lines between Southampton Central and Southampton Airport Parkway, also between Southampton Central and Fareham, will be closed until January 1 2018 for the Southampton Area upgrade project.
The following service alterations will apply: 

·         Trains between London Waterloo and Weymouth will be replaced by buses between Southampton Airport Parkway and Southampton Central.

·         Buses will run between Eastleigh and Southampton Central, connecting with trains between London Waterloo and Portsmouth via Eastleigh.

·         Trains will run between Southampton Central and Weymouth.

·         Stopping trains will run between Southampton Central and Poole. Millbrook and Redbridge will be served by these trains instead of the Salisbury trains.

·         Trains will run between Salisbury and Southampton Central, connecting with buses to and from Eastleigh.

·         Great Western Railway services to and from Portsmouth will call at Eastleigh instead of Southampton Central. These trains will also serve Chandler’s Ford.

·         CrossCountry services will be diverted between Southampton Central and Basingstoke with longer journey times.

·         Southern services will be altered to run to and from Portsmouth. Buses will run between Havant and Southampton Central.

·         Bus services will run between Fareham and Southampton Central. Please use other train services through Fareham to connect with these buses.

Island Line services will start to shut down from about 2000 and will finish by about 2100. Further details will be published nearer the time.

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - Wessex Route
07710 959476
mediarelations@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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