Totton Sidings (Southampton), Making up Track Sections Again Poss ?

[Supersaint]

Morning all, Anyone know what there doing in Totton Sidings (Southampton) as there building up concrete sleepers again like they did back in Autumn/Winter 2009, is it possible there going to make up track sections again, if so where for ?

 

[swt_passenger]

Morning all, Anyone know what there doing in Totton Sidings (Southampton) as there building up concrete sleepers again like they did back in Autumn/Winter 2009, is it possible there going to make up track sections again, if so where for ?

Southampton Central S&C renewal, I'd suggest. Every weekend in Jan and a couple in Feb. They've started between the tunnel and the station, they are using most of the up side car park to build up prefabricated sections as well.

Not sure how far towards the west the work goes, but there's a fair amount to do around the station even if Millbrook is the limit of the area.

 

[Hydro]

About bloody time too! Typical of them to finally take the biggest maintenance headache of that patch out of the equation once I leave.

 

[Oracle]

It seems that fairly recently they renewed the track on the Test Valley line from Redbridge Junction including the crossover used by the FL trains. I seem to recall seeing an Engineers' train parked-up on the curve.

Is the Southampton station layout being changed or is it like-for-like?

 

[swt_passenger]

Is the Southampton station layout being changed or is it like-for-like?

Seems like for like from what I can see so far, (although that's not a huge amount), and from what I've heard elsewhere. Rules of the route only showed it as planned renewals, and once the renewals of the S&C are done they are updating the interlocking, again like for like - according to Modern Railways a while ago anyway.

It ought to be the convenient time to reinstate full signalling for platform 5, which is the only significant change I have found mentioned in the route plan.

Lastly, I noticed that the signals on the last gantry approaching from the west are now LED heads, not sure if that is part of the job or just a coincidence.

 

[Oracle]

I wonder if [the west end bay] P5 is coming back then? It makes a heck of a lot of sense despite its short length.

 

[swt_passenger]

I wonder if [the west end bay] P5 is coming back then? It makes a heck of a lot of sense despite its short length.

Even if it wasn't used all day, it occured to me that on those occasions when it is used as a bolthole for delayed trains, such as late running FGWs following bridge strikes etc, you'd save a lot of time shunting in and out of the main platforms to get pax on and off.

It would possibly add a bit of extra flexibility if the few services that terminate from the west went in there rather than using the main island, such as the 1420 ish Great Malvern service that arrives and departs in front of the Poole train during its layover.

The current Wessex route plan, in the Network Rail Discretionary Fund candidate schemes list simply has this to say, but there's no GRIP stage shown:

2009-2014
Southampton Central Platform 5
Signalling enhancements to permit full passenger use of platform
Improved capacity utilisation in light of predicted freight growth