Fratton railway station

Fratton
Looking North-West
Location
Place	Fratton
Local authority	Portsmouth
Coordinates	50°47′47″N 1°04′26″W / 50.7964°N 1.0740°WCoordinates: 50°47′47″N 1°04′26″W / 50.7964°N 1.0740°W
Grid reference	SU653000
Operations
Station code	FTN
Managed by	South West Trains
Number of platforms	3
DfT category	C2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	1.246 million
2005/06	1.289 million
2006/07	1.369 million
2007/08	1.465 million
2008/09	1.577 million
2009/10	1.486 million
2010/11	1.530 million
2011/12	1.583 million
2012/13	1.552 million
2013/14	1.571 million
2014/15	1.644 million
History
Original company	Portmouth & Ryde Joint
Post-grouping	Southern Railway
1 July 1885	Opened (Fratton)
4 July 1905	Renamed (Fratton and Southsea)
1 December 1921	Renamed (Fratton)[1]
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Fratton from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Railways in the Portsmouth area

Legend Portsmouth Direct Line to London Waterloo via Guildford West Coastway Line to Southampton West Coastway Line to Brighton & London Victoria Portchester Havant M27 Bedhampton Cosham A3(M) A27 Portsbridge Creek Hilsea Southsea Railway 1885-1914 Fratton Jessie Road Bridge Halt Albert Road Bridge Halt Portsmouth & Southsea East Southsea Admiralty Line to HMNB Portsmouth Portsmouth Harbour FastCat to Ryde Pier Head Gosport Ferry to Gosport

Fratton railway station is a railway station in Portsmouth, located near Fratton Park, the stadium of association football (soccer) club Portsmouth F.C..

It is located on the Portsmouth Direct Line which runs between London (London Waterloo) and Portsmouth (Portsmouth Harbour).

Platforms

Normally, platforms 2 and 3 serve Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour, with platform 1 serving all other destinations. Platforms 2 and 3 are also signalled to allow northbound passenger departures.

History

The railway line through Fratton was planned by the Brighton and Chichester Railway as part of the Chichester to Portsmouth Branch Railway, approved in 1845.^[2] The line was completed in 1847, the Brighton and Chichester railway merging with several other companies to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1846, who went on to operate the line. Fratton was once the junction for the Southsea Railway which closed in 1914.

After the Motive power depot closed in the late 1950s, some former sidings were used during the withdrawal of the South West Trains greyhound fleet around 2003. The same sidings were then used in 2007^[3] and in 2009 for freight trials, this involved DB Schenker Rail (UK) hauling small container trains to and from eastleigh.^[4] The Idea was abandoned in 2010 due to running costs.

Portsmouth Area Resignalling (PARS)

The Portsmouth Area Resignalling project was instigated in late 2006, aiming to improve the flexibility of the track layout in the Fratton area. Platform 1 became the Up Main, Platform 3 became the Down Main with Platform 2 as a bidirectional through platform (although the main function of platform 2 is down line trains). Prior to the project, trains could not reverse south to north at Fratton in service.

The work, scheduled by Network Rail to take place between 23 December 2006 and 4 February 2007, was subject to a massive overrun. The works were first extended six weeks into mid-March 2007 but in late February it became obvious that there were major problems with the new equipment being installed by the contractor Siemens AG.^[5]

Until 1 April 2007 there were only three trains per hour between Fratton and Portsmouth Harbour with the remaining services terminating at Fratton and passengers using a replacement bus service. After 2 April 2007 there were five trains per hour running between Fratton and Portsmouth - three South West Trains services, one Southern service and one Great Western Railway service with some services still terminating at Fratton with passengers forced to change to continue their journey. The "six-week project" was eventually completed in October 2007 - some ten months after it started.

New DDA compliant footbridge planned

A new footbridge is now operational, linking the island platform (platforms 2 and 3) with the Up Main platform (1). This has stairs and lifts to allow disabled users full access to all trains, with lifts designed for easy wheelchair use.

Motive power depots

The London Brighton and South Coast Railway and the London and South Western Railway jointly built a motive power depot at Fratton in 1891, replacing an earlier one at Portsmouth Town station. It was of the double roundhouse type. It came under the ownership of Southern Railway (Great Britain) in 1923 and British Railways in 1948. This building was badly damaged by bombs during the Second World War but repaired in 1948. It closed 2 November 1959, but the building continued to be used for stabling locomotives for several years. They were demolished in 1969.^[6] Fratton Traction Maintenance Depot, operated by South West Trains now occupies part of the site.

Service pattern

• Monday to Saturday (off peak services)

South West Trains

• 4tph to London Waterloo, of which three run via Guildford and one runs via Eastleigh and Basingstoke
• 3tph to Portsmouth Harbour
• 2tph to Portsmouth & Southsea
• 1tph to Southampton Central

Southern

• 1tph to London Victoria via Horsham
• 1tph to Littlehampton
• 1tph to Brighton
• 2tph to Portsmouth Harbour
• 1tph to Portsmouth & Southsea

Great Western Railway

• 1tph to Cardiff Central
• 1tpd to Brighton
• 1tph to Portsmouth Harbour

• 
  Station approach
• 
  Same building looking from platform
• 
  Up platform
• 
  Marshalling yard

References

1. Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 100. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
2. "Hampshire County Council - Railways of Hampshire". 29 January 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2009.
3. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.railway/5VYHgAGV2zM
4. http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/deal-to-be-struck-to-turn-fratton-into-freight-depot-1-1257605
5. Rail repairs overrun indefinitely BBC, 28 February 2007, 12:51 GMT
6. Chris Hawkins and George Reeve, An historical survey of Southern sheds, Oxford: OPC, 1979, pp.38-9.

Rail Atlas Great Britain & Ireland, S.K. Baker ISBN 0-86093-553-1