LevellerLive

SWR has announced an emergency timetable will operate this week from 5 to 9 September. The operator provides train services to London from Crewkerne, Yeovil junction and Templecombe. The service has been dogged with issues in recent weeks as SWR managing director, Claire Mann, explains: “After two weeks of delays and short-notice changes to our services, this decision to introduce a revised timetable will allow us to run a resilient service and at least provide certainty to our customers in the West of England.”

The line is facing speed restrictions and that has led to the so called “resilience timetable.” The extreme hot and dry weather over the past few weeks has caused the clay embankments to dry out and shrink. This means that the lines laid on top become uneven, For safety reasons trains are now unable to travel at full speed.

Officially the emergency timetable is only for this week. However SWR has hinted it may need to run until October.

As a result there will be a reduced number of services between Salisbury and Yeovil Junction Journeys will also take longer than usual.

The new timetable should operate from today. However when we checked this morning it was not available on the SWR website.