Southampton Tunnel improvement work - 5 December to 10 January
Travelling to or through Southampton during this time? For further details about this work and altered train services please see below.
Work to allow freight containers to be transported by rail from the Port of Southampton across the country in a quicker, cheaper, greener and more practical way will take place from Saturday 5 December to Sunday 10 January.
Other work will also be done during this time, including replacement of a bridge and track renewals at St Denys and some work at Swaythling station.
For much of the time work will be done on one track only through the tunnel, leaving the other line open for trains. The signalling system will allow us to run most of the normal train service through the tunnel, but some train services will have to be altered as shown below. For nearly all journeys during the working week you will be able to travel through the tunnel by train, although for some journeys you may need to change trains in the Southampton area.
The tunnel will be completely closed each weekday night (starting from Monday 30 November) from about 2315 to 0545 and trains due to pass through during this period will be either diverted or replaced by buses. On Friday evenings the tunnel will remain open until the 0005 (Saturday morning) from London Waterloo has passed through, and on Monday mornings one line will open at about 0500.
The tunnel will be completely closed each Saturday and Sunday during this period with diversions and replacement bus services running as shown below. The tunnel will also be completely closed from 25 December to 3 January, which will affect those who need to travel to work by train between the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Monday to Friday train service (7 to 24 December and from 4 to 10 January) - from about 0900 to 1600
A special timetable will be issued for this period. A summary of the train service which will run is shown below.
Monday to Friday “peak” services
We will make maximum use of the line through the tunnel to run as near normal a peak service as we can. For most of our customers your normal train will run although there may be some retimings.
Monday to Friday “off peak” - from about 0900 to 1600
The following train services will run through Southampton Tunnel with minor retimings:
South West Trains services between London Waterloo and Weymouth (2 per hour each way)
Cross Country services between Bournemouth and Manchester (1 per hour each way)
First Great Western services between Portsmouth and Cardiff (1 per hour each way)
Southern services between Southampton Central and London Victoria (1 per hour each way)
Salisbury - Southampton - Romsey stopping services (1 per hour each way)
The following services will be altered in the Southampton area:
Stopping trains between London Waterloo and Poole will run between London Waterloo and Eastleigh with bus connection between Eastleigh and Southampton Airport Parkway (to connect with the Weymouth trains). Trains will also run between Southampton Central and Poole. Trains from Southampton Central will run about 30 minutes later than normal to Brockenhurst, then as the normal timetable.
The South West Trains stopping service between Southampton and Portsmouth will start from / terminate at St Denys. The Salisbury - Southampton - Romsey services will be held a few minutes as necessary to maintain connections at St Denys.
Southern services between Southampton Central and Brighton will start from / terminate at Woolston. A fast bus connection will run between Woolston and Southampton Central.
First Great Western services to and from Brighton will call at Eastleigh instead of Southampton Central.
Fewer trains are timetabled early morning and late evening and most will be able to run through the tunnel, except during the overnight closures.
Weekend / Christmas Holiday services
Southampton Tunnel will be completely closed during the following periods and buses will replace all train services in the areas shown. Timetables for these periods will be posted on the “engineering work calendar” pages as they become available and will be displayed at the stations concerned.
5 / 6 December
12 / 13 December
19 / 20 December
25 and 26 December - No service on South West Trains
27 December - 3 January (holiday period)
9 / 10 January
11 January - Tunnel re-opens fully and the normal timetable will run.