Portsmouth blockade complete after life-expired timbers replaced

Portsmouth services have been disrupted by another nine-day closure for engineering work over the school half-term break.

The central project features ongoing repairs to Landport Viaduct, the raised track through the city centre into Portsmouth & Southsea station. Timbers are being replaced with a synthetic alternative.

It is the fourth time in three years that the line has been closed for a week.

“You’ve got a viaduct from Fratton to Portsmouth & Southsea, with the low-level platforms ending, and the high-level platforms that run through to Portsmouth Harbour,” explained Network Rail Programme Manager Jeff Rose.

“All of that we call the Landport Viaduct. For its entire length there are wheel timbers that run in the same longitudinal direction as the track. They had come to the end of their life. If we had done it in one go, we would have closed the line for at least a month.”

An engineering train delivered the composite timbers on one of the two tracks. Road-rail vehicles then lifted the old timbers alongside, cleaned up the base, and inserted the replacements.

“They are much bigger and heavier than sleepers,” Rose told RAIL.

“You can’t just pop them down as you would with sleepers on ballast. They have to be fitted into the steelwork, and they need tie bars between them to stop them moving apart.”

Over four days of the blockade, 400 metres of track and conductor rail were also replaced at Portcreek Junction, where the Portsmouth Direct and South Coast lines separate from the route via Cosham to Fareham. Points were also replaced.

Handback on February 19 was disrupted by an axle counter failure just one hour after reopening, requiring trains to be hand-signalled across the busy replaced junction. The work meant days of buses instead of trains to Portsmouth Harbour, for services connecting with Wightlink ferries to Ryde,

where the pier remains without trains until May during a nine- month closure. (RAIL 1025).

It ties in with a wider upgrade to the Portsmouth Direct Line. This autumn, after a delayed four-year project, new signalling will be commissioned between Farncombe and Petersfield. A nine-day closure will cover the October school half-term.

Before that, four level crossings on the North Downs Line are being upgraded from half-barrier to full barrier: Chilworth, Tangley, Brook, and Burrows Lane. Sixteen signals will also be upgraded and controlled from Guildford Area Signalling Centre.

“That all links into the main line work at Shalford, so there are quite a lot of shorter blockades ahead as well as we come to the end of a very long and complex piece of work,” explained Rose.

However, he warned that won’t be the end of passenger disruption.

“When that’s done, the next task is to resignal Havant to Portsmouth. And there is some structural work at Portcreek.”