Portsmouth Harbour railway station

Portsmouth Harbour railway station serves the city of Portsmouth, in Hampshire, England. Located in Portsmouth Harbour, it sits between the Gunwharf Quays shopping centre and the Historic Dockyard. This station is a key place for travel, with a bus interchange and ferry services to Gosport and the Isle of Wight.

Unlike most train stations, Portsmouth Harbour is built over water. It was first made on wooden piles, and later these were changed to iron supports. This special design makes it an interesting and important part of the city's history and transportation.

History

The station opened on 2 October 1876 as the end point of a railway line to London Waterloo station. Before the station was built, there was a pier called the Albert Pier used for passenger ships.

The station was rebuilt in 1937 when the trains started using electricity. During World War II, the station was almost destroyed by fires from bombing, but it was rebuilt after the war. There was also a small railway line to a nearby dockyard, but it stopped working when a bomb damaged a bridge in 1941.

Facilities

The station is owned by Network Rail and managed by South Western Railway. It has four platforms in use: numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5. Platform 2 stopped being used in the early 1990s after repairs to the pier.

The ticket office is in the booking hall near the ferry terminal and is open seven days a week until 19:00. When it is closed, tickets can be bought from machines or online. There are places to park bicycles, but no parking for cars.

Services

Portsmouth Harbour railway station has many trains that come and go every day. South Western Railway runs two trains to London Waterloo—one goes through Guildford and the other goes through Fareham, Winchester and Basingstoke. They also have local trains to Southampton Central.

There are also trains along the West Coastway route. Southern runs trains to Brighton, Littlehampton, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon and London Victoria. Great Western Railway runs trains through Southampton, Salisbury and Bristol Temple Meads to Cardiff Central using the Wessex Main Line.

You can also take a ferry from Portsmouth Harbour Station to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, run by Wightlink. When you buy a ticket for the Isle of Wight using National Rail, it includes the ferry ride.

Former services

The Portsmouth Harbour railway station used to have trains from Virgin CrossCountry until May 2003. These trains went to and from Liverpool and Manchester using special train sets called InterCity 125. Later, they used Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers.

The station also had a train each day to and from Penzance run by Wessex Trains. Today, these trains are operated by Great Western Railway.

Future

In 2017, Portsmouth City Council announced plans to improve the station. This was part of a big £90 million investment by the new train company, South Western Railway. They wanted to make the station look better and might add a easier walking path to the Gunwharf Quays shopping area.