Great Western Coffee Shop

Southern have launched a consultation about rationalising the service patterns between Brighton and Portsmouth/Southampton.

I know a number of people have always been interested in the Southampton to Brighton route, and a number of calls for improvements have been made, often proposing more through services across Southampton.

What they’re proposing now though, is that both the Southampton services will run to Brighton, and be half an hour apart.  The flip side is that both Southern services from Portsmouth will therefore have run to Victoria.  Both “country” destinations end up with services 30/30 mins apart, rather than 45/15.

Southern explanatory pdf here:
https://www.southernrailway.com/-/media/goahead/gtr-all-shared-pdfs-and-documents/timetable-consultation-2023/west-coastway-timetables-changes-engagement.pdf

I think, (although they skim over the point), spreading the services on the Netley line about the hour might have a slight impact on GWR and SWR timings.

Hope this is of interest.

Paul

It makes for a very interesting read and study.   Not a line I have used very much but I note

* There is sense in the Woolston stops every half hour - you'll note that I can across this interchange-in-waiting on my rover the other week.

* There is also sense in having a regular 30 minute service from each of Southampton and Portsmouth on routes to an beyond Chichester

* I wonder how many passengers from Southampton and beyond travel on the direct train to Gatwick, and whether the loss of that through service for people who are likely to have heavy luggage and not be the most nimble changers at a station between Havant and Barnham on the new pattern

* Bognor looses its direct trains to both Littlehampton and Brighton.

* I suspect that traffic joining a train at one of the tiny stations and leaving at another of them is virtually non-existent, so that the alternating of stations on trains (none stopping at them all any longer) makes sense

* Has anyone considered serving all stations to Lymington Pier with an extension of a train from Brighton, or extending a Southampton to Brighton train onto Lewes, Eastbourne, Bexhill, Hastings and Ore?  How many carriages would that be limited to due to the layout of Brighton?

On the last point I believe there’s only platform 3 that allows a train to do the crossing from east to west, and it’s a mid platform set of points so very short, only 4 car.  The full platform 3 takes 12 cars as usual with the main part of Brighton station.

But even then I believe reliably timetabling a crossing move across the entire throat at Brighton is usually considered next to impossible, it must be quite a while since it was routinely done.

I think the 2017 SWR proposals included a Portsmouth to Bournemouth through service, that was to be a semi fast on the Netley line but a stopper west of Southampton, but I don’t ever recall any serious proposals to have through trains to Lymington.  I think the probable reason is that there’s only a finite capacity on the Redbridge to Brockenhurst section, with the mix of fast and stopping trains, and the timings on the branch are suited to a shuttle. If a through train an up service would have to cross to the up side west of Brockenhurst, and coincide with a suitable path towards Southampton. 

Extending any SN service west of Southampton would always require an extra unit, or possibly units depending how far it went, but the times would have to fit in with SWR and XC.  SN used to run Victoria to Bournemouth until about 2003, (from memory), and the service was apparently binned because it carried very few through passengers and got in the way of more useful services.

I also suspect if you theoretically could extend a Brighton service through to Lymington Pier it would not be able to have an adequate layover at that end of the route, so the only option for reliability would probably be to do that at Brockenhurst.

Paul

"... both Brighton services serving Southampton only, providing connections for
journeys into the west of England."

Good to see inter-regional travel getting a mention, especially given the loss of the direct trains to/from Brighton.

Mark

You'd think that with the decline of mass commuting, services might become less London-focused and therefore more inter-regional. At least you'd hope so.

If less London focused, how are MP's supposed to turn up for work.
Perhaps they could work from home!

One unintended consequence of this may be daytrippers leaving the IoW ferry at Portsmouth Harbour and getting on the painfully slow Victoria train to London rather than the direct Waterloo one. Unless the differing journey times are clearly shown on journey screens it would be easy to be misled if you're not familiar with railway geography.

Incidentally, is the current operation of the Victoria trains terminating at/starting from Portsmouth & Southsea rather than the Harbour a recent thing? Sure I've often seen - and nearly caught without thinking - trains to Victoria when I've come off the ferry myself.

Is that right?

I can't see that the proposal affects direct Portsmouth to Waterloo via Guildford seevices?

PMH - WAT via either Guildford or Basingstoke are SWR services

Here are the current 12 trains in a typical hour from Portsmouth and Southsea

To London
10:04 12:08 PMH to Waterloo via Winchester - SWR
10:08 11:51 PMH to Waterloo via Guildford - SWR
10:15 12:15 PMS to Victoria via Horsham and Gatwick Airport - Southern
10:50 12:22 PMH to Waterloo via Guildford - SWR

To other destinations off Portsea Island
10:27 PMH to Cardiff Central - GWR
10:33 PMS to Brighton - Southern
10:38 PMS to Southampton Central - SWR
10:57 PMS to Littlehampton - Southern

And 4 trains to Portsmouth Harbour

I think they cut back to Southsea sometime within the last couple of years, supposedly to increase the turnround time.

Regarding the times, I’d think it’s more of an issue to accidentally get on the Waterloo train that goes via Eastleigh and Basingstoke, I’d assume if you had arrived from Waterloo you’d be looking to go back to Waterloo?

I also think there is more space at Portsmouth and Southsea low level.