South West Trains to restore normal service from tomorrow (From Wandsworth Guardian)
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South West Trains to restore normal service from tomorrow
5:03pm Monday 21st January 2013 in News
Picture by Nathan Myers
South West Trains has advised passengers that it plans to restore its normal weekday timetable tomorrow.
All lines will reopen with trains calling at all stations, although some services may be subject to alteration and formed of fewer coaches than normal.
Test trains will run over lines which have been closed over the last few days due to icy weather conditions. With freezing temperatures expected to continue in parts of the UK over the next 48 hours, services will continue to be reviewed according to the developing conditions.
Passengers are advised to check for updates before they travel and allow extra time to get to and from stations.
Tim Shoveller, South West Trains Network Rail Alliance Managing Director, said: "Severe weather affects all forms of transport and access to our network also depends on road conditions which affect the travel of our passengers and our staff.
"The past few days have been challenging. I appreciate our passengers have faced longer and less comfortable door to door journeys than normal and I would like to thank them for their continued patience and understanding.
"The revised timetables we put in place have worked effectively and helped significantly to minimise the disruption. Our train and station staff, customer service teams and the engineers responsible for track and signalling have all worked tirelessly, often in freezing conditions, to keep the network open.
"Tomorrow, we will be restoring our normal weekday timetable, however we would still advise passengers to check the situation before they travel in view of the current weather situation. We will continue to monitor the conditions and provide passengers with the most up-to-date information to allow them to plan ahead."
For South West trains updates visit www.southwesttrains.co.uk or follow South West Trains Twitter account @SW_Trains.
Comments(14)
Tobermory
says...
9:37am Tue 22 Jan 13
321200
says...
9:40am Tue 22 Jan 13
Ice is not conductive.
Prince Philip of Greece
says...
2:55pm Tue 22 Jan 13
321200
says...
3:34pm Tue 22 Jan 13
DB
says...
4:50pm Tue 22 Jan 13
Last night, the guard actually announced that the train was full to capacity and no more people could get on. I have never heard them say that before how ever busy they have got.
Overall, I think that the idea of running a severe weather service is a good one in that all of the advertised service ran on time.
However, I think SWT set themselves too easy a target this time and cut the services far too severely, especially given how over-crowded their standard services are.
This morning it was back to the usual service - more trains scheduled, but all of them either delayed or cancelled. At least with the severe weather timetable people knew not to bother turning up to an SWT station at rush hour!
321200
says...
10:32pm Tue 22 Jan 13
DingDong69
says...
9:03am Wed 23 Jan 13
DB
says...
10:39am Wed 23 Jan 13
321200 wrote:Erm, I got it from the driver who announced on the tannoy that he would like to apologise for the overcrowding which was due to the train only having 8 coaches instead of the normal 12! Apparently, there was some type of fault, I can't remember what exactly as I only really recall the excuses these days when they are really ridiculous.
DB I don't know where you got this info about reduced train lengths... Most trains run at full lengths (12/10/8 depending on route)
The other thing which annoys me about the formation of the trains is that every train that leaves Surbiton after 8.30 is formed of 8 coaches instead of 12. SWT seem to think that the rush hour finishes at 8.30, but they seem to charge peak fares a full hour later.
It is the same on the weekends, when a lot of the trains routinely run 4 coaches and are often too packed to get on. There is no excuse to ever run a 4 coach train out of Surbiton as there are always enough people waiting there to fill an 8 coach one.
DB
says...
10:42am Wed 23 Jan 13
DingDong69 wrote:Well put.
SWT set a very low bar during the "big freeze" no doubt to satisfy some mangerial targets, suffice to say they failed, i am extremely unahhpy given this route must be the most expensive per mile in the wordl!!
SWT's 'normal' service is not nearly enough to satisfy demand, so I cannot work out how they thought it would be acceptable to cut it back so drastically.
I dread to think what will happen if we have a real big freeze.
321200
says...
10:42am Wed 23 Jan 13
DingDong69 wrote:actually, the service ran by SWT was more than what would usually run during this adverse weather. Any more trains on the network would have caused bigger problems.
SWT set a very low bar during the "big freeze" no doubt to satisfy some mangerial targets, suffice to say they failed, i am extremely unahhpy given this route must be the most expensive per mile in the wordl!!
Again, damned if they do, damned if they dont. very frustrating
DingDong69
says...
5:34pm Wed 23 Jan 13
DB
says...
10:15am Thu 24 Jan 13
DingDong69 wrote:Absolutely. If we can't run more than the most skeletal of skeleton services when we have 10cm of snow, what on earth would happen if we had more?
we are all **** then
As I said before, I appreciate SWT's efforts to actually design and run a service that works in the adverse conditions, but it was just so woefully short of demand that it should have come with a warning to only travel if absolutely necessary. Instead, SWT seem to be patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
The problem is that SWT cannot really afford to admit just how short their current service is of current requirements because there is no real solution to it apart from massive investment.
DB
says...
10:33am Thu 24 Jan 13
Before this time, it always used to be the departures pre 8.25 that either had limited standing room or were impossible to get on at all.
The 8.38 was easy standing room and the ones after that might even have a seat free.
Now, not everyone can physically fit on the 8.38, and we are back to uncomfortable standing room on the next couple of trains.
It is only after 9am that there is comfortable standing room now. (Although better not mention that to SWT otherwise they will reduce the length from 8 to 4 coaches on these services!)
DingDong69 says...
8:50am Tue 22 Jan 13