Rising to the challenge as footbridge removed in week of upgrades on Petersfield to Portsmouth railway

Engineers have been given a massive lift in the latest stage of a multimillion bid to upgrade rail services between East Hampshire and Portsmouth.

It’s been a year since signal boxes in Petersfield, Haslemere and Farncombe were decommissioned as part of the Portsmouth Direct Upgrade.

Control was shifted to a regional operating centre in Basingstoke as part of a two-year project to replace outdated signalling equipment and infrastructure on the Guildford to Portsmouth line.

Now the focus has moved to the section between Petersfield and Havant with signalling controls at the latter also being transferred to Basingstoke.

The engineering work resulted in the half-term closure of the line south of Petersfield with the dreaded rail bus replacement service hitting the road in the meantime.

But there was another reason for the closure on Tuesday (October 27) as a section of a rusting footbridge next to Havant railway station was lifted away ahead of its long-awaited replacement.

Network Rail say the changes and centralisation will result in a more “efficient and streamline service”.

Some of the upgrades include the installation of new axle counters to track train positions, new Automatic Warning System and Train Protection and Warning System components. Cable routes are also being refurbished while new fibre and power cables and being installed.

“What the Havant project does is connect us really nicely to the re-signalling project we completed last year from Farncombe to Petersfield,” said George Murrell, Route Renewals Director at Network Rail.

“The existing system was installed in 2007 so it’s almost 20 years old now. It is now obsolete so there some reliability issues with the existing system so it’s proving difficult to maintain and keep up to the operational expectations that we want.

“Effectively, we’re going to be removing the existing signalling system and installing new railway assets and making sure they align with more modern standards.”

The hope is that the changes, when complete, will mean the end to disruption on the line, as a reliable signalling system and track is key to a reliable railway system.

The removal and replacement of the footbridge at Havant railway station is also desperately needed so it made sense for the projects to coincide with each other.

Nonetheless, Jeff Rose, Blockade Director at Network Rose, understands why rail passengers get annoyed about the disruption.

He said: “The reason why we’re doing the disruption this way is that the alternative would be to do it on weekends.

“And that will be multiple, multiple weekends because by the time you’ve finished half the day setting up, half the day breaking down, so you have only a day and a half in the middle. Here we can carry on working right the way through.”

“The same goes for the bridge,” he added.

“You wouldn’t put that massive crane up for one weekend and then take it down for another weekend and come back for another weekend.

“It would cause so much disruption. So, this is the least disruptive way to get a better.”