Southampton to Midlands ^70m rail route revamp complete

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

A ^70m upgrade of the rail route between Southampton docks and the Midlands has been completed after two years of work, ^10m under budget.

The route between Southampton and Nuneaton, via Reading, Didcot, Oxford and Banbury, will take up to 50,000 lorry journeys a year off roads.

It will mean trains can distribute freight more quickly and economically.

Network Rail has said much of the traffic on the A34 is caused by lorries taking goods to and from the port.

The aim is to get 40% of containers going through Southampton Port on to rail, rather than road.

During the work, Southampton tunnel was made deeper and more than 20 bridges were rebuilt. Passengers were not affected.

Adam Cunliffe, of Freightliner, which operates freight trains, said: "Today we'll be running two extra services. That allows us to take up to 170 boxes, which would have otherwise gone by road, on to rail. That benefits not just the local community but the entire [transport] network."

But the way the owner of Southampton Port - Associated British Ports (ABP) - plans to recover its share of the cost is causing controversy.

Shipping companies have complained to the Office of Fair Trading about plans by ABP to levy a surcharge of ^3 on every container for the next eight years.

From this week, the levy will also apply to road freight as well as containers going by rail.

[anthony215]

Also allows larger containers to be carried on trains going along that route.

I did have a look at this as part of my presentation at uni a few weeks ago.

[Chris from Nailsea]

For those interested in further details, there are many facts, figures and quotes in the Network Rail press release.

[paul7575]

Also allows larger containers to be carried on trains going along that route.

Also?    The entire reason for the upgrade was to allow larger containers to be carried on normal wagons

During the work, Southampton tunnel was made deeper and more than 20 bridges were rebuilt.

But we know different don't we - one of them isn't done yet...

Passengers were not affected.

Except on the many various occasions their weekend travel was bustituted, or over the Christmas/New Year 2009/10 tunnel closure at Southampton.

Paul

.

[bobm]

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) South Today had a driver's eye view of the route speeded up in the style of that old London to Brighton film. Has anyone found it on line. I doubt the BBC did it - it might even have been Network Rail PR^▸ (Public Relations) I suppose.

[willc]

Quote from: BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)/NR^» (Network Rail - home page)
During the work, Southampton tunnel was made deeper and more than 20 bridges were rebuilt.

But we know different don't we - one of them isn't done yet...

Look, the fact is the trains are running with 9ft 6in boxes on them - have been for some some weeks now - and whatever may or may not have been done yet at that bridge near Goring, the clearance for 9ft 6in boxes is there under it - I now see them on northbound and southbound trains passing Oxford pretty much every evening around 6.45 to 6.50pm.

They haven't actually completed the work at the Old Abingdon Road bridge, at the southern end of Oxford just yet. That is due to reopen to road traffic on April 20, slightly later than planned.