Possible ideas for a Southampton Metro?

[LCRTrainfan979]

I can envisage St Denys, Swaythling, Bitterne, Woolston, Sholing being obviated by a decent tram network

The problem with closing down all of those stations is that I can imagine much of the demand the further east you go being for services to Portsmouth instead of Southampton. Getting rid of those services would just cause new issues where people would cram onto buses going into a nearby junction station. That is why I would personally have such a tram system continue onto Portsmouth, so that could fully replace all demand from those quiet stations. Having all of the way to Portsmouth could in turn allow more fast trains from Portsmouth to Southampton, as no trains would now no longer have to call at all of the quiet stations on the Netley line. That could also allow better spacing, as all of the trains on the section would have more similar stopping patterns, rather than among loads of semi fast or fast services, having to squeeze in a stopping service which calls at 8 more stations than the fastest non-stop services over the same line. That in turn would mean better regional services for people travelling well beyond Southampton, and could eliminate some of the poor spacing that was evident on the timetable before the May 2024 timetable change with Southern.
Beyond all doubts, the Netley line cannot close, and I was absolutely never suggesting that line is closed down. Rather I would suggest that in such a scenario, you could close all except maybe a few of the busiest stations, which I would personally say should be Woolston, Netley and Swanwick, each of which could in turn have passenger interchanges to the tram for onward travel connections.

 

[PTR 444]

I’ve often thought about how the Southampton Tunnel bottleneck could be resolved by utilising tram-trains, bearing in mind that widening the tunnel will be prohibitively expensive.

My idea would be to build a street running light rail loop from the SWML between Southampton Central and Northam Junction, utilising Civic Centre Road, New Road and Northam Road. This completely bypasses the tunnel and has the added advantage that you can serve Above Bar Street too. With this line in place, I’d look at converting the Pompey - Soton stopper, Romsey Rounder and any future Hythe service to tram-train operation, so they can utilise this loop and free up the tunnel for additional passenger and freight services.

 

[zwk500]

I’ve often thought about how the Southampton Tunnel bottleneck could be resolved by utilising tram-trains, bearing in mind that widening the tunnel will be prohibitively expensive.

My idea would be to build a street running light rail loop from the SWML between Southampton Central and Northam Junction, utilising Civic Centre Road, New Road and Northam Road. This completely bypasses the tunnel and has the added advantage that you can serve Above Bar Street too. With this line in place, I’d look at converting the Pompey - Soton stopper, Romsey Rounder and any future Hythe service to tram-train operation, so they can utilise this loop and free up the tunnel for additional passenger and freight services.

Anything to do with Tram-trains will make capacity issues worse, not better.

In places like Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan, local transit is segregated as much as possible from long-distance travel and freight. The UK has a particularly frustrating habit of trying to squeeze the absolute life out of every inch of track instead of thinking about traffic.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Anything to do with Tram-trains will make capacity issues worse, not better.

Agreed. Also, trams running on street can get caught in traffic, which would then becomes a nightmare for scheduling if a tram-train delayed in traffic then has to travel an extended distance along a rail line. It's very noticeable that the only tram-train we have managed to get going in the UK is in Sheffield and has a route that is massively less ambitious than what is being proposed here: The Sheffield one shares track with national rail on only a very short section that is only really used by local trains, and it also has practically no on-street running. It also doesn't have 3rd rail electrification to contend with. And even with those limited ambitions, it was massively expensive to develop. A tram-train that runs right through the centre of Southampton and then travels on national rail tracks all the way to Portsmouth is a very different proposition, and I would suspect the technical and operational difficulties trying to implement it would rule it out.

 

[daodao]

Would it not be simpler just to add a few additional stops to existing train services so that all stations within Southampton Borough and a few just outside it have a 2 tph service (ideally close to every 30 minutes) to Southampton. The only stations where extra stops need to be added to achieve this service frequency would be:

• Millbrook and Redbridge (added to Bournemouth stopping service)
• Totton (added to London-Bournemouth semi-fast service)
• Swaythling (added to Winchester-Southampton local service, possibly together with St Denys)
• Bitterne (added to one of the 2 Brighton-Southampton services, possibly together with St Denys)
• Netley and Sholing (added to one of the 2 Brighton-Southampton services)

I accept that there would need to be some timetable adjustments to accommodate these extra stops. I also question the need for 2 semi-fast Brighton-Southampton services, but no equivalent service from Brighton to Portsmouth. If there was just 1 Brighton-Southampton service, stops at Netley, Sholing and Bitterne would all be added to this service.

 

[swt_passenger]

… I also question the need for 2 semi-fast Brighton-Southampton services, but no equivalent service from Brighton to Portsmouth. If there was just 1 Brighton-Southampton service, stops at Netley, Sholing and Bitterne would all be added to this service.

There’s an existing thread with links to the consultations that explains why the June 2024 coastway changes were made:

Southern timetable changes consultation Coastway West

https://www.southernrailway.com/westcoastway West Coastway: proposed timetable changes Engagement on proposals As part of our commitment to supporting your journeys, we have developed some proposals to change Southern services on the West Coastway from 2024. From Download our document...

www.railforums.co.uk

also a thread that split from it with ideas to combine certain stations:

How to improve and increase capacity of the West Coastway line, including merging merging Sholing & Woolston stations?

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/southern-timetable-changes-consultation-coastway-west.252975/page-11#post-6706876 The Sholing-Woolston area itself is pretty built up so even if the bus connections are not as good as Southern imagine, I think the extra stops are...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Magdalia]

I also question the need for 2 semi-fast Brighton-Southampton services, but no equivalent service from Brighton to Portsmouth. If there was just 1 Brighton-Southampton service

This is a recent development, with the 2tph Arun Valley service to/from Victoria all using Portsmouth instead of both the Brighton and Arun Valley services alternating Portsmouth and Southampton. It makes for a more robust regular interval timetable. Arun Valley<->Southampton and Brighton<->Portsmouth can still be done by changing trains at Barnham, Chichester or Havant.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

This is a recent development, with the 2tph Arun Valley service to/from Victoria all using Portsmouth instead of both the Brighton and Arun Valley services alternating Portsmouth and Southampton. It makes for a more robust regular interval timetable. Arun Valley<->Southampton and Brighton<->Portsmouth can still be done by changing trains at Barnham, Chichester or Havant

Well with Brighton to Portsmouth, due to the compaints with the original proposal, that service ended up being retained by changing a stopping service to Chichester by taking out some calls at quieter stations and at Littlehampton, allowing the train to be extended west to terminate at Portsmouth & Southsea.

Would it not be simpler just to add a few additional stops to existing train services so that all stations within Southampton Borough and a few just outside it have a 2 tph service (ideally close to every 30 minutes) to Southampton. The only stations where extra stops need to be added to achieve this service frequency would be:

• Millbrook and Redbridge (added to Bournemouth stopping service)
• Totton (added to London-Bournemouth semi-fast service)
• Swaythling (added to Winchester-Southampton local service, possibly together with St Denys)
• Bitterne (added to one of the 2 Brighton-Southampton services, possibly together with St Denys)
• Netley and Sholing (added to one of the 2 Brighton-Southampton services)

That sounds reasonable, and while they may need to retime some trains, it does make sense with many local stopping services, where it makes full sense to call at all stations, considering fast services are already available on the two remaining London Waterloo services.
However, with Southern services to Brighton, I dont really agree with that idea because the service is supposed to be a regional express running quite a long way beyond Southampton, so you do need to retain some speed on such a service, and while they did add Woolston for connections to many local buses, adding any more journey time with extra stops would eventually put some people off making such a journey.
Say if they had a stopping service to Littlehampton (or something similar to the former Littlehampton to Portsmouth & Southsea service that went in the timetable change), that is where you can add unlimited stops as its mainly a stopping service shadowing a faster service, but that is obviously never going to happen with a lack of paths available out of Southampton.
However, beyond all doubts, SWR probably could and should look at adding extra stops to their existing services.

 

[30907]

I’ve often thought about how the Southampton Tunnel bottleneck could be resolved by utilising tram-trains, bearing in mind that widening the tunnel will be prohibitively expensive.

How much of a bottleneck is it in reality? The core passenger service is 9tph which leaves plenty of paths for freight and growth.

One of the problems, it seems to me, is that the railway in Southampton forms the edge of the built up area most of the way, which reduces the traffic potential at the local stations (apart from East of the Itchen, where the route is too circuitous to be much use for shorter distance traffic).

I would go for half-hourly Eastleigh-Redbridge (Winchester-Poole and Romsey rounder) connecting out of the London fasts at Airport, with maybe a new station in the St Mary's/Northam area (line speeds are low so the stop would add little time).
Whether Millbrook needs 2 tph I'm not sure because it is so poorly sited.
(Totton would have to be served off-pattern by the semi-fast Waterloo - or the Hythe service of course.)

I am not sure a second Pompey stopper would be justified, but a second semi-fast (St Denys, Woolston, Swanwick) on the opposite half-hour to the GW might be useful.

 

[Meerkat]

Heavy Rail hasnt got the capacity and isn’t really in the right places.
I don’t see the advantage of trams over buses here.
I can’t see any way of using rail apart from going all out with an underground line from an eastern P&R on the M27 to a northern P&R by M27 J3, via Woolston station, Ocean Village, Waterfront, City Centre, Central station, and the hospital.
I’ll leave someone else to find the money……

Dont suppose the ORR would allow a 3rd rail extension from Redbridge to a P&R station by the northern end of the M271, with a station by J1, so Southampton terminators could run through to there?

 

[Dougal2345]

[...]Southampton Tunnel [...], bearing in mind that widening the tunnel will be prohibitively expensive.

Out of interest, how expensive would widening the tunnel be, relative to other costs of schemes suggested here?

According to Wikipedia, it's 528 yards (483 m) long and was mostly constructed using cut-and-cover.

A lot of the ground above it is still parkland, so could that part be re-cut, widened and re-covered and the rest dug out using traditional methods? Are tunnels still built that way?

Or would the only option be a second, new bore running parallel?

Looking at the current double-track line to the east of the tunnel, it looks as though there might be room to add an additional pair of tracks to the south of it, all the way until the junction with the lines coming north from Terminus, with only a couple of small three-storey blocks of flats at the junction of North Front and Craven Street needing to possibly be demolished.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Out of interest, how expensive would widening the tunnel be, relative to other costs of schemes suggested here?

According to Wikipedia, it's 528 yards (483 m) long and was mostly constructed using cut-and-cover.

A lot of the ground above it is still parkland, so could that part be re-cut, widened and re-covered and the rest dug out using traditional methods? Are tunnels still built that way?

Or would the only option be a second, new bore running parallel?

Looking at the current double-track line to the east of the tunnel, it looks as though there might be room to add an additional pair of tracks to the south of it, all the way until the junction with the lines coming north from Terminus, with only a couple of small three-storey blocks of flats at the junction of North Front and Craven Street needing to possibly be demolished.

Interesting, but I'm not sure what the purpose of widening the tunnel would be? At that location everything is slowing down for Southampton Central so there's probably little need to allow fast trains to overtake slow ones. I'd have though that 4-tracking further East/North would be a good deal more useful (as well as not requiring tunnelling, although with the complication of land-grabs and possible rebuilding of stations).