Bognor train passengers face big disruption in April

Weekdays for a fortnight will see just three trains in each direction connecting the town to London Victoria.

Other journeys will have to be made by a series of shuttle trains between Bognor and Barnham or replacement bus services. All train services to and from the town will be replaced by buses for most of two weekends running.

The temporary timetable will be in place from Monday, April 21, until bank holiday Monday, May 5.

Train operator Southern Railway says the changes are necessary because of the major re-signalling works taking place around Barnham railway station.

Track owner Network Rail is spending 25m improving the signalling and track layout.

"This will allow greater flexibility for operating trains in and out of the station, which will provide benefits to timetables as well as improving performance," it states.

But passengers who turn up at Bognor or Barnham stations looking to travel along the six-mile branch line will have to endure curtailed services. Arun Valley Rail Users' Association treasurer Trevor Tupper said he feared chaos on the roads if passengers had to rely on a fleet of buses and coaches to add to the usual peak time congestion.

"I've not very happy about this. If they can keep the line open for three trains in the morning and afternoon, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to allow more trains to run," he stated. There's a lot of passenger traffic between Bognor and Barnham and Chichester going to schools and colleges alone.

"The replacement buses carrying those students, as well as other passengers, are going to get snarled up in all the queues along the A259.

"They can't afford to be late and neither can anyone on their way to work."

He also criticised scrapping all trains to Bognor on a bank holiday weekend at the start of the summer season.

Network Rail will replace a 20th century rail signalling infrastructure with a modern system. It is the biggest set of changes to the network around Barnham since the Bognor branch line became double track in 1911. The changes will see the branch line connection moved several hundred metres eastwards beyond the station to create three lines of parallel tracks over an extended Yapton Road rail bridge.

This will enable platforms one and two to be extended to allow trains to be split on platform one for the first time.

The east-west line by platform two is becoming reversible to enable same direction train overtaking to be possible in the only location between Havant and Worthing.