SWR cancellations among the worst
South Western Railway (SWR) is in the top five companies for cancelling rail services in the last month. Figures released by the Office of the Rail Regulator showed that SWR cancelled or “part-cancelled” 2,293 services. SWR is the rail company that operates train services from Exeter to London via Crewkerne, Yeovil and Templecombe.
The cancellations represented 5.4% of the total services that the company ran in the month of January. That made it the fifth worst out of 26 train companies. It was however a long way behind TransPennine which cancelled just under a quarter of all of its services (23.7%).
SWR’s poor performance will not have been helped with the disruption on the London line caused by the landslip at Hook. Trains will continue to be disrupted across this weekend:
- Changes to trains through Farnborough and Basingstoke on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 due to engineering work, with journey planners updated on Friday 17
- Last trains will be earlier than normal on Saturday 18, first services will be later and last services will be earlier on Sunday 19
- Last through trains will again be earlier than normal between Monday 20 and Thursday 23
A full service is unlikely to be restored until 24 February
It is perhaps telling that the average level of cancellations across the UK was 3.8%. In which context the 3% cancellation rate of GWR, the other train operator in Somerset, looks impressive.