SOUTHAMPTON CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION

'Southampton Central railway station' is a main line railway station serving the city of Southampton in Hampshire, southern England. It is on the Wessex Main Line, the South Western Main Line and the West Coastway Line.
The station is managed by South West Trains who operated the majority of services including frequent trains to London Waterloo. Other operators are Virgin Trains (providing services to Birmingham and beyond), First Great Western, Southern Trains, which links Southampton to London Victoria via the south coast and Gatwick Airport, and to London Bridge following a similar route excluding Gatwick Airport.
Interestingly, Southampton Central has an ex-Red Star Parcels bay on the Bournemouth end of Platform 4. Known as Platform 5, a number of slow trains used to start from there, but they were phased out. Now it is used for stabling units, and often a Class 170 or Class 450 unit can be seen in there, however, all traces of the platform branding has been removed.
All the platforms are split into two sections, a and b, allowing two services to occupy a platform at the same time however platforms 1 and 4 are rarely used in this manner except when a train divides.

★ Platform 1 is used for services to London Waterloo from Weymouth and Poole, First Great Western services to Portsmouth Harbour and Virgin Trains services to the north of England from Bournemouth

★ Platform 2 is used for local services to Portsmouth and the stopping service to Romsey via Eastleigh. It is the usual platform for the stopping service to London Waterloo beginning at Southampton Central.

★ Platform 3 is used for local services to Totton and the local service to Westbury. This train sometimes departs from platform 2b. The Southern service from London Victoria usually terminates and departs from platform 3a.

★ Platform 4 is used for services to Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth as well as Cardiff Central
A number of empty stock loops are located a short distance away allowing terminating trains to clear the platforms for through services if required and also to allow passenger services to pass freight trains.

Contents

Services

Rail

Bus

History

External links

References

Services

Rail

Southampton Central has three trains an hour to London Waterloo of which 2 are semi-fast services taking approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes and 1 stopping service taking approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Romsey can be reached from Southampton Central using trains departing in both directions, by South West Trains via Chandlers Ford in the up direction and by First Great Western via the Salisbury line in the down direction.

Bus

The station has a free shuttle link service that links the station to the city centre and to Town Quay, for the Isle of Wight (Red Funnel) and Hythe ferries. This service is operated by Uni-link and departs from the Weymouth side of the station along with Uni-link's other routes which serve the station. The City Centre circular City Clipper services also departs from this side of the station. Bus services operated by First, Solent Blue Line, Wilts and Dorset and Stagecoach use stops on the London side. Taxi ranks are located on both sides of the station.

History

Southampton Central station was opened as ''Southampton West'' in 1895, to replace the original ''Blechynden/West End'' station (note nearby road namings). It was enlarged in 1934-1935 (from two platforms to four), and became ''Southampton Central''. Soon after the closure of Southampton Terminus station near the docks in 1966, the station was rebuilt in 1967, losing its clocktower and being replaced with an office block. At this point it was renamed ''Southampton'', although many years later it was once again renamed to ''Southampton Central''.

External links

References