Great Western Coffee Shop

It might be underpublicised that various factors has resulted in South Western Railways timetabling few trains to run before 8am in many areas, and also to close some stations/lines entirely until January 3rd.

Mark

Due to the knock-on impact of RMT strike action and long-planned engineering works, you are urged to only travel if absolutely necessary on 18 December.

There will be a severely reduced service on a very limited number of routes, from 07:00 to 22:00 only, consisting of:

Four trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Woking
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Basingstoke
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Southampton Central
One train per hour between Basingstoke and Salisbury
Trains will not stop at all the stations on these routes. There will be no SWR services across the rest of the network on 18 December.

Due to industrial action by the RMT and TSSA unions, you are advised to check your whole journey before you travel.

This action includes a ban on members working overtime or on rest days and affects people in a variety of roles, including guards on trains as well as dispatchers on platforms and shunters in our depots. This means that our ability to operate train services is significantly limited.

There will be a reduced service from 07:00 to 22:00 only, with some routes closed, consisting of:
Four trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Woking 
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Basingstoke
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Southampton Central
Four trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Windsor & Eton Riverside 
One train per hour in each direction between Woking and Portsmouth Harbour
One shuttle train per hour in each direction between Eastleigh and Portsmouth Harbour
One train per hour in each direction between Southampton Central and Weymouth
One train every two hours between Basingstoke and Salisbury (on alternate hours to the Basingstoke to Exeter service) 
One train every two hours between Basingstoke and Exeter St Davids (on alternative hours to the Basingstoke to Salisbury service)
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Reading via Twickenham
One train per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Shepperton 
Two trains per hour in each direction between London Waterloo and Guildford via Leatherhead
Some peak time services in each direction between London Waterloo and Alton

Incident created              18/12/2022 13:58
Last updated                   18/12/2022 14:06
Route affected                 Across the South Western Railway network

Following a period of significant cold weather, South Western Railway have now been made aware of heavy rain and forecast high winds that will impact the outer part of their network.

In order to make sure you can travel safely, trains will have to travel at a reduced speed on some parts of the following routes:

    Southampton to Weymouth, with delays of up to 20 minutes expected for trains along this route
    Salisbury to Exeter St Davids, with delays of up to 20 minutes expected for trains along this route
    Eastleigh to Fareham
    Guildford to Havant, with delays of up to 15 minutes expected for trains along this route
    Ash Vale to Alton

South Western Railway are running a number of empty trains in the morning to make sure that the tracks are clear before passenger services run in order to avoid more restricting speed limits, but trains on these routes will need to travel at 40mph. This means that your journey will take longer than normal.

The speed restriction is expected to be in place from 18:00 on Sunday 18 until 12:00 on Monday 19 December, but may need to be extended based on weather conditions on the day – we’ll update this message when we know more.

For further information or onward travel advice please speak to a member of staff or use a station help point.

(https://i.ibb.co/KKSgV77/Strike-Network-Map-18-Dec-2022-v2.jpg)

Bespoke? Are SWR suggesting this offering was made for just one customer? Or that it is somehow a tailor made offering of excellent quality?

Someone buy SWR a dictionary.  ::)

No SWR trains for me today at Bookham. NO RRBs were shown on the planner either. On the plus side, next week we get twice as many trains as usual. Two trains an hour instead of one, although the first train to Waterloo is 20 minutes later than the one I would normally get.

. An @SW_Help person tells me they have 495 train guards on roster today. 143 have duties, leaving 352 - an astonishing 70% - being paid to sit around as “spare.” Because only 47% of the timetable is operating, trains parked idle.
How can the railway function like this?

  I’m told officially by @SW_Help that a few extra services are running and “only” 150 guards are spending all day on duty drinking tea as “spare” turns, as “40 something %” of trains are operating, with Clapham depot closed entirely.

SWR have stopped making stock allocations public for the Reading service, so they have disappeared from RTT. This seems to also be true for Alton, though the rest do seem to still be there. Both trains I took yesterday were 455s, and so are the others I've seen since, rather than the recent fare of all 450s. Are they ashamed of that? Their passengers are likely to be caught out as a result, or even short. Or is it just something to do with the makeshift nature of the service operating for the time being?

Hmm, the title of this thread needs to be pushed out to "8th January 2023", yes?