Fratton railway station

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). Fratton was once the junction for the Southsea Railway which closed in 1914.

The station includes a staffed ticket office, toilets, a light refreshment facility, car parking and a taxi rank. The three passenger platforms are connected via a footbridge. It is also the station referred to in the famous Portsmouth FC song: 'You'll never make the station'.

Platforms 2 and 3 serve Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour, with platform 1 serving all other destinations.

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. When complete, Platform 1 will be the Up Main, Platform 3 will be the Down Main with Platform 2 as a bidirectional through platform although the main function of platform 2 will however be to serve 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. See BBC story Rail repairs overrun indefinitely

Until 1st 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 the 2nd of April 2007 there was five trains per hour running between Fratton and Portsmouth - three South West Trains services, one Southern service and one First Great Western 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 planned linking the island platform (pltforms 2 and 3) with the Up Main platform (1). This will have stairs and lifts to allow disabled users full access to all trains, with lifts designed for easy wheelchair use.

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