Confusing destination

[whole diary]

[John R]

Seen on the screens at platform 2 at CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains) this afternoon.

1630  Eastleigh, calling at (etc, etc)

Shouted many times on platform 2 at CDF this afternoon.

"Portsmouth Harbour train, platform 2"

On board the train awaiting to depart the very same platform 2

"This train is for Southampton Central".


No wonder someone on board was overheard to say  "I think this train is for Portsmouth, but I'm not sure."

[Ian01]

Seems like it was definitely going to get as far as Southampton, with some uncertainty as to what would happen after that.

However, once at Southampton there are plenty of opportunities to change to other services for onwards travel to Portsmouth.

[paul7575]

No wonder someone on board was overheard to say  "I think this train is for Portsmouth, but I'm not sure."

He wouldn't have got to Portsmouth unfortunately, the service was terminating and starting back from Southampton Central but going via Eastleigh, due to the planned engineering diversion having a landslip just south of Botley superimposed at short notice...     Just to keep the staff on their toes... 

When I was at Southampton earlier the arriving trains were running empty into one of the goods loops west of the station before returning to Cardiff from platform 1 - no doubt confusing all those who weren't bothering to read the displays...

PS, just had a quick look at both 'realtime trains' and 'opentraintimes', and neither reflect what is actually happening in reality.   National Rail's live departure boards seem reasonably correct though...

Paul

[Chris from Nailsea]

From Portsmouth News:

Landslide halts trains from Fareham

Buses will replace trains between Fareham and Eastleigh for at least the next two days following a landslide.

It happened on Friday afternoon following days of heavy rain.

Engineers worked through the night to repair the line but an inspection found more work was needed.

Trains are being diverted, extending journey times by up to 30 minutes.

Buses are running between Eastleigh and Fareham calling at Hedge End and Botley and First Great Western services are being diverted via Southampton Central.

A spokeswoman for South West Trains said buses will replace trains for at least two days.

Trains from Portsmouth to London Waterloo via Fareham will be affected.

[grahame]

Well at least the names didn't get mixed up on the boards - "Train for HamptonMouth" or "Train for "SouthPort"

[paul7575]

Seems this landslide might not be fixed for a few weeks, so it must be a bad one.  Should be no impact on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) during the forthcoming weekdays, except for the late night route retention diversions via Eastleigh, but SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s normal weekday timetable will be pretty much shot to pieces... 

Then with all the planned track renewals going on immediately west of Southampton Central at the moment they'll be pulling their hair out now designing reliable weekend timetables for the next few weekends.

I wouldn't book on the Melksham to Brighton 'rail cruise' just yet...   

Paul

[paul7575]

Funnily enough, we now see a down side of automatically publishing details of this sort of line closure on the various rail websites, such as NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Enquiries, as the ongoing problems between Eastleigh and Fareham are now showing up as an issue for FGW^▸ (First Great Western). 

But as we know, they only run this way once a day in each direction for route retention knowledge, so the impact on passengers should be near zero, as the Eastleigh reversal is not an advertised call.  The relevant services will just have to waste a bit of time somewhere as they take the normal route...

Paul