Southampton Tunnel

[LucaZone]

Hiya,

Maybe I have missed something but I am interested to know/see the improvesments to the Southampton Tunnel carried out over Christmas. I thought there would be some topics but cannot find any.

Cheers

 

[Metroland]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8428864.stm

 

[Mark O]

Whilst they're jiggling about with the tunnel, are there any active plans to reinstate the St Marys Curve?

A Station next to the Football stadium has been a long hoped for addition to the network - they could even go further and relay tracks to edge of old South Western House in order to serve that end of the city.

How about a nice Southampton area tram-train: Romsey/Chandlers Ford/Eastleigh/Parkway/Swaythling/St. Denys/Stadium/Docks/Soton Central/Millbrook/Redbridge/Totton/Hythe/Fawley

 

[SWT Driver]

Would someone call the "White Coats" another one has escaped from the asylum.

 

[Mark O]

Would someone call the "White Coats" another one has escaped from the asylum.

Yeah well thanks SWT Driver - that's a nice welcome!

Hey what's wrong with suggesting ideas???

 

[SWT Driver]

You're dealing with an honorary Pompey boy. Pompey doesn't like Southampton one jot!

So let's do a breakdown of your ideas.

1: A Station next to the Football stadium.

Impossible, Siemens Northam Maintenance depot is there, St Mary's is only a 10-15' walk from Woolston across the Itchen Toll Bridge.

2: Reinstate the St Marys Curve.

Impossible, the formation is occupied by a Signalling Gantry, Control Cubicals & Community Football Ground.

3: Southampton area tram-train: Romsey/Chandlers Ford/Eastleigh/Parkway/Swaythling/St. Denys/Stadium/Docks/Soton Central/Millbrook/Redbridge/Totton/Hythe/Fawley

There's a Salisbury circular service calling at all stations via Dean, Mottisfont Dunbridge, Romsey, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh, Soton Parkway, Swaythling, St. Denys, Central, Millbrook, Redbridge, Romsey, Mottisfont Dunbridge, Dean & Salisbury.

Totton is served by an hourly Waterloo - Poole service with peak extensions of the Salisbury loop service.

Hythe & Fawley have been discussed at length by the parties concerned, there's just no money or political will for it to happen.

Stadium can be walked to from St Denys, Bitterne or Woolston or by frequent bus from central.

Docks are served by buses or dedicated OLEx trains from Victoria.

 

[thefab444]

The only decent idea, and one that I think could offer a return on investment (although I've not got access to any kind of figures), is the reinstatement of the Marchwood/Hythe line, served by either an hourly shuttle to Southampton or half hourly to Totton, although I expect most pax in the Waterside area will want to go to Southampton.

Possibly add Netley/Woolston calls to the Victoria - Southampton Central service to give these places a slightly better level of service.

No need for a ghastly, expensive tram thing.

 

[paul1609]

The Victoria to Southampton service wont be going that way for much longer, its being diverted via Eastleigh to serve Southampton Airport.
Woolston has such a good bus service to the city centre I doubt an additional service would attract many punters not sure about Netley.

 

[LondonLarry]

1: A Station next to the Football stadium.

Impossible, Siemens Northam Maintenance depot is there, St Mary's is only a 10-15' walk from Woolston across the Itchen Toll Bridge.

A station at St Marys was proposed, but the football club chose not to invest in a station for the stadium.

 

[Mark O]

Thanks to SWT Driver for your reply

Only point I'd question was this rather odd line here: "Impossible, Siemens Northam Maintenance depot is there, St Mary's is only a 10-15' walk from Woolston across the Itchen Toll Bridge".

Come on mate...that's hardly practical is it? Windswept schlep across the bridge is not exactly the most attractive option when there are perfectly serviceable tracks right next to the stadium! (Cannot see why the maintenance depot should get in the way of building a station alongside the stadium/or indeed continuing the spur down towards South Western House to service that end of city centre)??

If we are serious about encouraging people from their cars/contributing to cutting down on pollution/reinvigorating rail travel etc, re-opening old/under-utilized lines and making better use of what infrastructure we have left is surely more sensible than doing nothing?

The Marchwood/Hythe line is fully maintained and completely under-used. Since so many people live there but work in Southampton/South Hants etc seems like one of the most likely candidates in the UK for possible re-opening. (This issue has been raised time and again since its closure - I had did an interview myself in 1988 about this with old 'Network South East' bosses who told me it was 'always open to consideration when practicable' ie when money/political will became favorable). Surely we're reaching that point now??

Cannot understand why Tram-Train is more costly than heavy rail though Celia?! Other than cost of rolling stock (which is always ridiculously high I agree) what are issues that make that option pricier than trad heavy rolling stock??)

 

[SWT Driver]

You can't put a station down there at Northam because you have two "roads" which form part of the Northam Maintenance Facility, the other one is the docks line and is not electrified.

If you enter Northam, into Multimap, select the Southampton one and then zoom in & select aerial, you can see where the spur from Central went round to the docks, like I said it now passes through a community football park.

It would have to have pass through a 6' thick retaining wall or which would have to be removed & pass through several thousand tonnes of soil & detritus would have to be removed and what does that line serve?

A dockside car transport facility, no residential area or shopping areas, so is pretty much worthless; Especially when you consider that you'd have to put a good long length of juice rail down to Chapel Road crossing & an expensive platform that will only see bi-weekly use in 9 months of the year & you'd then have to probably put gates on the crossing as well to prevent people abusing it.

 

[thefab444]

Cannot understand why Tram-Train is more costly than heavy rail though Celia?!

Well, I suppose it's the administrative costs as well, but millions is often spent on such schemes with no progress! Whereas heavy rail from Southampton to Hythe already exists, with some minor resignalling and construction of a station at Hythe (and probably some modifications to Marchwood), a Hythe - Southampton shuttle with a DMU is a very real possibility.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Victoria to Southampton service wont be going that way for much longer, its being diverted via Eastleigh to serve Southampton Airport.

I thought it was the Brighton - Southampton service that would be diverted via Eastleigh in one direction only?

 

[Domeyhead]

<p>Any large scale reinstatement involves the moving and realignment of lots of infrastructure so talk of gantries and Siemens depot and other obstacles is just so much loose change to be added to the Civil Engineering butchers bill. These are not show stopping arguments. </p>
<p>But you do need to make a business case, and one that shows the Treasury a return on investment ratio of 1.5 or better. Without listing the location of every ST box and point on the network I'd offer two pieces of evidence that suggest the result would fall way short </p>
<p>1) The failure to reintroduce a passenger service on the Hythe branch as Fab444 pointed out - even though a line is in place - because of the cost of upgrading existing infrastructure. This is telling. </p>
<p>2) Hazel Grove chord in Liverpool. Only 300m long, this chord was recently reinstated for the unbelievable cost of over £9m. It took investment from NR, Liverpool city council, the North West Enterprise Agency and freight operators to secure it. So you can imagine that the terminus western chord is never going to pay its interest, let alone its capital cost. </p>
<p>Put these two instances together and the hope of a passenger reinstatement to Northam St Marys or to "Southampton Harbour" as SWT (the company) laughingly described it in their last franchise puff is virtually zero. </p>
<p>Economics I'm afraid. A Southampton metro with turnbacks at Romsey and "Southampton Harbour" and an extension to Hythe sounds appealing but it will go the way of the Fareham and Gosport light rail network.</p>

 

[SWT Driver]

I know what's down there and the area well & that's probably because I sign all the routes in the Southampton area as well as all of my own depots.

 

[LondonLarry]

I thought it was the Brighton - Southampton service that would be diverted via Eastleigh in one direction only?

You're right. Going Southampton to Brighton via Eastleigh would cause too much conflict with existing SWT & XC services

 

[Drsatan]

A dockside car transport facility, no residential area or shopping areas, so is pretty much worthless.

Just to correct you there's an extensive housing and shopping complex near South Western House called Ocean Village. There are also many expensive restaurants near South Western House anyway.

But other than that, you're correct in that reinstating the St Marys curve wouldn't be cost-effective given that not many trains would use it. Moreover, unless NR was willing to pay the owners of South Western House (now used as a casino) £200-300 million to vacate the building, and pay even more to tear up the concrete under the station canopy and reinstate the platforms, then it looks pretty unlikely.

 

[Metroland]

As part of a £71m project designed to remove up to 50,000 lorries a year from the region’s roads and provide a cheaper, quicker and more practical way of transporting goods around the country, Network Rail has successfully lowered both tracks through Southampton Tunnel more than a year ahead of schedule

The original plan had been to lower one track during a full closure over the Christmas to new year period in 2009 and the second track during the same period in 2010. However, using new technology and smarter ways of working the work was carried out with just one major closure in 2009, together with some weekends and overnights in December, significantly reducing the disruption for passengers.

Richard O’Brien, Network Rail’s route director for Wessex, said: “This was the most complex piece of work out of the 50 or so structures we are upgrading as part of this scheme. It would be impossible to carry out a project of this scale without closing the line at some point, but the innovation and commitment of our engineers means we were able to keep disruption to a minimum. In the past, a job like this would probably have meant the railway being closed for 12 weeks.

“We still have a lot of work to do on other parts of the route from Southampton to the West Midlands before the benefits of carrying the larger containers by rail can be realised, but we have made a very positive start.”

Ian Johnson, Customer Service Director for South West Trains, added: “This was a great example of the industry working successfully together to deliver a large improvement scheme whilst keeping disruption to a minimum. We would like to thank our customers for their patience during these works.”

The upgrade of Southampton railway tunnel is required to enable bigger 9' 6" or ‘high-cube’ containers to be transported efficiently by rail from Associated British Ports' Port of Southampton across the country, making a valuable contribution to the economy and helping Britain compete better in the global marketplace. Rail can also provide a cheaper, greener and more practical way of transporting freight compared with road.

Peter Cusdin, development director at South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), added: “By providing infrastructure improvements on this key import/export route the partnership is delivering increased competitiveness and environmental improvements for the UK. The benefits will have a positive impact on the economies of Southampton, the South East, the Midlands and ultimately the country as a whole.”

Aart Hille Ris Lambers, business development manager, DP World Southampton, said: “We are delighted to hear that the works on the Southampton Tunnel have been completed so far ahead of schedule, which has helped limit the disruption to local rail users. With more high cube containers moving through the port than ever, the overall gauge clearance project will help our customers move more containers off the roads and onto rail.”

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=4949&NewsAreaID=2

 

[SWT Driver]

Drsatan, from a report on BBC South Today, I believe that the Ocean Village complex is in financial trouble with quite a significant downturn in trade.

As for the tunnel, we're considering opening a book on how long it takes Scummer Tunnel to flood as it's now almost on a canal bed!