Portsmouth Harbour railway station
Portsmouth Harbour railway station is a railway station in Portsmouth, England. It is situated beside Gunwharf Quays in the city's harbour, and is an important transport terminal, with a bus interchange and ferry services to Gosport and the Isle of Wight. The station currently has four platforms in use: numbered 1, 3, 4 and 5. It is managed by South Western Railway. Platform 2 is no longer in use, having been decommissioned in the early 1990s following major repair and refurbishment work to the pier that the platforms sit on.[1] The station is located adjacent to Portsmouth Harbour between the Gunwharf Quays shopping centre and the Historic Dockyard. Unusually for a mainline railway station, it is built over water as the station was originally constructed on wooden piles, which were later replaced by iron supports.[2]
Portsmouth Harbour  | |
|---|---|
 The station entrance (February 2014) | |
| General information | |
| Location | Portsmouth, Hampshire, England |
| Grid reference | SU629000 |
| Managed by | South Western Railway |
| Platforms | 5 (4 in use) |
| Other information | |
| Station code | PMH |
| Classification | DfT category C1 |
| History | |
| Opened | 2 October 1876 |
| Original company | Portsmouth and Ryde Joint Railway |
| Pre-grouping | Portsmouth and Ryde Joint Railway |
| Post-grouping | Southern Railway |
| Passengers | |
| 2017/18 |  2.035 million |
| Interchange |  0.144 million |
| 2018/19 | 2.101 million |
| Interchange | 0.188 million |
| 2019/20 | 2.036 million |
| Interchange | 0.121 million |
| 2020/21 | 0.540 million |
| Interchange | 14,576 |
| 2021/22 | 1.455 million |
| Interchange | 41,024 |
| Notes | |
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road | |
History
The station opened on the 2nd October 1876[2] as the terminus of Chief Engineers Frederick Banister's Portsmouth Waterside Extension to the Portsmouth Direct Line, which runs between this station and London Waterloo station.[3] The construction of the station superseded an earlier pier on the site called the Albert Pier that was used for passenger steamships in the mid-Victorian era.[2]
The station was rebuilt in 1937 when the route was electrified but was almost totally destroyed during World War II by fire after German bombing, then rebuilt after the war.
A short branch line built on piles used to connect the station to the neighbouring dockyard, but this was taken out of service when a German bomb damaged the swing bridge in 1941.
Accidents and incidents
- c.1928, T9 class locomotive No. 337 was derailed on the approach to the station, blocking all lines.[4]
Services
Railways in the Portsmouth area |
|---|
The station is served by a number of train operators. South Western Railway operate two services to London Waterloo, one on the Portsmouth Direct Line (via Guildford) and the other via Fareham, Winchester and Basingstoke. They also operate local trains to Southampton Central.
There are train services along the West Coastway route, operated by Southern to Brighton, Littlehampton, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon and London Victoria. Great Western Railway operate trains via Southampton, Salisbury and Bristol Temple Meads to Cardiff Central, via the Wessex Main Line.
The ferry from Portsmouth Harbour Station to Ryde on the Isle of Wight is operated by Wightlink. National Rail tickets between the Isle of Wight and stations on Great Britain include travel on the ferry.
The Monday-Saturday off peak rail service in trains per hour (tph) and trains per day (tpd) is as follows:
- Southern[5]
- 1tph to Brighton
- 1tpd to London Victoria via Horsham
- Great Western Railway[6]
- 1tph to Cardiff Central via Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads
- South Western Railway[7]
- 2tph to London Waterloo via Guildford
- 1tph to London Waterloo via Fareham and Eastleigh
- 1tph to Southampton Central
| Preceding station | National Rail |
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portsmouth & Southsea | South Western Railway Portsmouth Direct Line |
Terminus | ||
| Southern West Coastway Line |
||||
| Great Western Railway West Coastway Line |
||||
 Ferry services |
||||
| Terminus | Wightlink ferry |
Fishbourne | ||
| Terminus | Wightlink high-speed catamaran |
Ryde Pier Head | ||
| Terminus | Gosport Ferry Passenger ferry |
Gosport | ||
| Connection to Portsmouth International Port for Brittany Ferries to France/Spain and Condor Ferries to the Channel Islands | ||||
Former services
The station was served by Virgin CrossCountry until May 2003 with services to and from Liverpool and Manchester with InterCity 125 sets and in its last years, Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers.[8]
The station was also served by Wessex Trains with one train a day to and from Penzance, as well as the services that are now run by its successor Great Western Railway.
Future
With the award of the South West Region franchise to South Western Railway in 2017, Portsmouth City Council announced the intention to "spruce up" the station as part of a £90 Million investment by the new operating company. Potential improvements could include a direct walking route in to the Gunwharf Quays shopping complex.[9]
References
- "From Platform 0 to Platform 9¾: The strange world of British Rail mathematics" Jefferson, Ed; City Metric website article 3 August 2016; Retrieved 23 May 2019
- Easdown, Martin; Safe, Linda (2011). Piers of Hampshire & the Isle of Wight. Amberley Publishing. p. 186. ISBN 9781445623832.
- "Portsmouth Waterside Extension Railway". Archived from the original on 6 March 2005. Retrieved 7 April 2006.
- Bishop, Bill (1988). Off the rails. London: Bracken Books. p. 13. ISBN 1-85170-2083.
- Table 186 National Rail timetable, May 2019
- Table 123 National Rail timetable, May 2019
- Table 158 & 165 National Rail timetable, May 2019
- Virgin Train's Pompey pull-out Rail issue 462 28 May 2003 page 14
- "Portsmouth Harbour railway station targeted for improvements as part of £90m package". Portsmouth.co.uk. Portsmouth News. 31 August 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2017.
External links
- Train times and station information for Portsmouth Harbour railway station from National Rail