Travelling by train to/from Southampton between 5 December 09 and 10 January 10?

[Red Fox]

For those travelling to or from ships using Southampton if you plan on using the train between 5th December 2009 and 10th January 2010 then you may want to check http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...nnel200910.htm to see if you planned service will be affected (this includes MegaTrain, First Great Western and Southern services)

Basically Southampton tunnel is being rebuilt to allow trains with larger containers to pass through, during the week this will mean some changes to services but at weekends the tunnel will be closed so a bus will be required to take passengers to Southampton Airport Parkway, Eastleigh, Woolston or Netley stations.

[scrozuk]

Yeah, must apologise, hadn't realised someone had posted this already.

It would be a good idea to check if you may be affected either coming into or leaving the city.

If so, I'd recommend taking the Greyhound or National Express coaches instead as they'd be better suited to carrying your luggage.

From what I know of the arrangements made by SWT, the buses are often cramped, no storage facilities for the bags, the timetable is optimistic to say the least (10 mins to get out of Southampton City Centre, yeah right!!).

Good luck

ScrozUK

[John Bull]

Originally Posted by scrozuk

Yeah, must apologise, hadn't realised someone had posted this already.

It would be a good idea to check if you may be affected either coming into or leaving the city.

If so, I'd recommend taking the Greyhound or National Express coaches instead as they'd be better suited to carrying your luggage.

From what I know of the arrangements made by SWT, the buses are often cramped, no storage facilities for the bags, the timetable is optimistic to say the least (10 mins to get out of Southampton City Centre, yeah right!!).

Good luck

ScrozUK

I think the problems are a little over-played, and you have misunderstood the anticipated delays.

The tunnel will be mainly open with a single line, creating delays of about 10 mins, and will be fully closed only at night & weekends plus Christmas Day to Jan 4th - at those times delays are quoted as a max of 45 mins due to the need to provide buses between Southampton Central & either Southampton Airport/Parkway or Eastleigh (normal road journey time by bus about 20 to 25 mins, and there's very little commuter traffic on the roads at that time of year)
All will be back to normal from Jan 10th. There will be similar disruption in Dec 2010 to complete the work.
Southampton has a low volume of cruise business at that time of year, and those with airport connections would be silly not to allow for delays anyway.

There is no problem with luggage space on the rail-replacement buses & coaches, most passengers will be travelling without luggage & the rail-replacement buses & coaches have to operate the same rules as the rail companies, which to all intents & purposes is no luggage limit.
Nat Express & Greyhound have a stated luggage limit pp of 2 x 23kg cases plus hand-luggage, though this is usually enforced only if there is a risk of over-loading the vehicle.
And rail-replacement buses are not cramped, NetworkRail always over-cater, they mainly run with very few passengers except at commuter time and there will be precious few commuters when the tunnel is closed.

John Bull