Alliance Rail details finalised Waterloo-Marchwood open access proposal as plan is submitted

Alliance Rail has submitted its application to run open access services between Marchwood, Southampton and London Waterloo to the rail regulator.

The firm is planning eight daily return services between Marchwood and Waterloo, running every two hours, with seven more Southampton-Marchwood shuttles, as first revealed by RAIL in December.

This would create an hourly service on the Waterside Line which has closed to passengers in 1966.

Alliance says car travel is the dominant modal choice despite congestion, with an estimated 26,500 vehicles a day travelling along the single carriageway A326. Meanwhile the Hythe ferry to Southampton has not operated since August 2024.

Train services should take approximately 15 minutes, while bus journeys can take up to an hour.

Managing Director Ian Yeowart said there have been “constructive talks” with bus firm Bluestar about syncing operations and the latter potentially serving Marchwood station, which Alliance plans to refurbish and reopen before opening a new station in the long run as the current site doesn’t have a car park.

“There’s no parking at Marchwood, we can’t get away from that,” Yeowart said.

He told RAIL the operator has been talking to a nearby business which has “a huge area for parking” and could be used for a park and ride option that stays clear of the main road.

“It’s short term, if it takes off as we hope it will, for people who have got vehicles,” he said. “It’s not ideal to have a park and ride but there are other places where this happens. In the short term it would be a solution. It’s about being pragmatic, what’s there now and what to do.”

More than 5,500 new homes and thousands of new jobs also expected to be created across the area over the next few years.

Alliance proposes trains to London would call at Totton, Southampton Central, Southampton Airport Parkway, Eastleigh, Winchester, Basingstoke and Hook, with plans to stop at Woking and Wimbledon dropped.

“It will compete at a number of locations between Waterloo and Southampton,” Alliance Rail’s form said. “However, it provides an improved service at Hook in particular, and re-opens a closed station, introducing a completely new service to Marchwood which will benefit both local and longer distance passengers.”

Yeowart is confident the proposal has a not primarily abstractive score of above 1.3.

He also hopes the service will bring people into the area, which is on the edge of the New Forest, something the Network Rail study “didn’t consider”.

“The original syudy focused on local traffic movements. It didn’t consider making the area attractive for inward visitors. Hythe is a lovely place,” Yeowart said.

“Our proposal would open it up in a way that was not envisaged originally. Not just for people in London, but in Basingstoke and Winchester.”

Porterbrook-owned Class 769 bi-mode DC/diesel trains, currently off lease, are the intended rolling stock. These could be replaced during the seven-year access agreement which the operator wants to start in September 2026.

Yeowart hopes the application can be approved by mid-summer given it’s away from the contested East and West Coast main lines.

“We’re hoping we can get the support of Network Rail, who produced a very positive report. That dilutes a lot of the pressure on the regular,” he added.