To SERUG

We are writing to advise you that unfortunately South Western Railway
(SWR) will need to introduce a revised temporary timetable on the West
of England line from the start of September (currently expected to be
5th September), due to a speed restriction on the line in the Tisbury
area in addition to the existing one in the Crewkerne area.

The key points to note are:

   *

Services between Salisbury and Yeovil Junction will continue to run on
an hourly basis to / from London Waterloo but with some journey times
extended and timings at intermediate stations altered
   *

There will continue to be through services between Exeter and London
Waterloo but these will only run every two hours instead of the normal
hourly service (in effect one train every two hours will extend from
Yeovil Junction to / from Exeter)
   *

Journey times between Salisbury and Exeter will also unfortunately be
extended by around an hour

   *

A detailed timetable will be published as soon as possible but requires
review and approval from Network Rail. We will let you know more details
as soon as we can.
   *

The length of the temporary timetable is still to be confirmed but is
expected to continue into October subject to future weather conditions
and Network Rail (NR^» (Network Rail - home page)) being able to carry out mitigation measures.

You may have already seen a stakeholder message from Network Rail
earlier today explaining the problem behind the speed restriction in the
Tisbury area. One of the embankments upon which the track runs is built
on clay and has experienced significant movement and shrinkage due to
the exceptional weather conditions. This in turn has caused problems
with the track.

The speed restriction on this lengthy single line section causes
significant issues for the timetable which you may have experienced in
recent weeks. Unfortunately, this has led to quite lengthy delays on
many services with some station calls needing to be modified as a
result. SWR and NR have decided to introduce the temporary timetable to
provide greater certainty to stakeholders and customers and improve the
reliability of the service.

We will provide more details during the week beginning 29th August
including a more detailed explanation behind the new timetable, a
communications plan (which we will need the support of stakeholders to
help maximise awareness) and information on how we plan to manage
capacity on the available services, particularly recognising the start
of the new school and college terms. There will also be further
information on how the new timetable will be integrated with the
existing planned engineering blockade between Axminster and Pinhoe later
in September

Please accept our apologies for the disruption this will cause. We will
work closely with NR to answer any queries you have in the meantime but
otherwise will provide further information to you as soon as possible.

   It's all systems GO in Iron Acton, as work to replace the track continues.

  In fact the scheduled stops between Paddington and Exeter were dropped due to overcrowding. I can’t remember running non-stop between these two stations before.