Barnham rail improvements work on hold

The planned disruption to the Southern Railway timetable to enable Network Rail to complete a 25m improvement scheme around Barnham station has been put on hold. The change was announced late last Wednesday '“ just three days before changes to some train services heralded the start of the upheaval for passengers.

A Network Rail spokesman said: "All projects are subject to periodic review and, as part of this process, the decision has been made to complete the Barnham resignalling project later this year.

"This means the scheduled changes to Southern services from Monday, April 21, to Friday, April 25, and Monday, April 28, to Friday, May 2, will not now take place because we no longer require access to carry out work during these times.

"However, we will still be using planned periods of work in May, including the bank holiday weekend, to do the majority of the work that was intended to take place, including track and platform work.

"The only parts of the project that will not be happening in May are the final re-alignment of the platform one track and the transfer of operations to the new signal box.

"This will now happen later in the year. Weekend work will be necessary."

Some changes to weekday services will take place from May 6 until May 30. Track layout restrictions at Barnham will mean trains being retimed. Extra services will run to maintain connections. Only early morning and evening journeys will be affected. The ongoing work meant that passengers experienced some disruption last weekend and will again this weekend.

Last Saturday and Sunday saw buses replace all trains between Littlehampton and Chichester and Bognor Regis.

Normal services will run this Saturday but Sunday will see replacement bus services between Bognor and Barnham until 12.15pm before a shuttle train service takes over. The bank holiday weekend, May 3 to 5, will again see buses replace all trains between Littlehampton and Chichester and Bognor.

The extensive scheme around Barnham station is taking place to provide more flexibility to keep trains operating normally as much as possible.

Changes to the Bognor branch line's junction to the coastway line and resignalling comprise two elements of the biggest railway scheme in the area since 1911.

n One result of the postponement of the resignalling work is a reprieve for Barnham station's signal box.

This is due to become redundant once the new signal box comes into operation. This is now unlikely to happen for several months.

Mr Cavanagh also revealed some hope that the box might be spared demolition.

"We are currently speaking to interested parties about the longer-term future of the box," he stated.