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Trains coming from Chandler's Ford reverse every hour at Romsey, and I note a Sunday morning train direct to Southampton starting there, and also occasional trains terminating there at times of disruption.

Question - can trains arriving from Southampton direct reverse at Romsey, and if so at which platforms?  While I'm "at" asking - can it be done at both platforms from Chandler's Ford, and do reversals from Salisbury need to shunt, or is there a crossover on the Salisbury side?

Trains from Southampton, via either Chandlers Ford or Redbridge, always terminate in the Salisbury bound platform (down Salisbury - platform 2), and there are signalled moves for reversing back south towards both routes, via a crossover immediately south of the platform, I don't think there is a signalled move from Chandlers Ford into the southbound platform (up Salisbury - platform 1).   Trains arriving from Chandlers Ford use normal LH running over the final two track length, (about ^ mile I think), into Romsey, and as far as the drawings in the online sectional appendix are concerned they are on the 'main route', the Redbridge direction is drawn as the branch, surprisingly.

Here's a Saturday of reversals at Romsey, showing all passenger services arriving in, and departing from, P2:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/ROM/2015/09/12/0600-2000?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

The track layout requires that a train from Salisbury must enter the southbound platform, and there is another trailing crossover at the north end of the station to allow it to return to Salisbury, I don't know for sure if that is a passenger signalled route, but there seems to be no other practical way of reversing directly towards Salisbury, there are no facing crossovers on the line in that area.

I have had a dig around in real time trains to see if I can confirm what happens with a south to north reversal.   Here we are, in late September FGW are running via Eastleigh and Chandlers Ford during a Southampton closure, and SWT are running a Salisbury to Romsey service.  The latter arrive in P1, and shunt to P2 via a particular signal:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Q88041/2015/09/27/advanced

Unfortunately I can't confirm the whereabouts of that signal, but give me a few days and I can...

Hope that helps.

Paul

That is of tremendous help, thanks Paul - if (in some ways) confirming the impossible; confirms that the turn around of the Romsey 6 HAS to be quick, for example.  It does suggest that the "6" could become a "d" if traffic in the Southampton area allowed it - but that would have flow implications.   However current system is not bust apart from incredibly long layover of train in Salisbury, and doesn't need fixing south of there. And it still needs a reasonable layover "up north" anyway for robustness and perhaps PNBs

Thanks for the offer to check the signal - if you do, great, to complete the answer but it's probably an interesting sideshoot.   In any case, turning a southbound train one stop before a city is usually a silly thing to do as typically there's a big flow of business available to the city (I can think of one place in FGW land where it happens every day, though!)

E995 is a ground disc signal facing towards platform 1, situated on the up line towards Chandlers Ford just beyond the junction, so it allows for the shunt move from P1 back into P2.

Paul