Tag Archives: Timetable

An update on South Western Railway timetable – January 2021

From: SWR Stakeholders
Date: 8 January 2021 at 5:06:54 pm GMT
To: nikki.barton@haslemeretc.org
Subject: An update on South Western Railway timetable – January 2021

Dear Nikki,

As you will know, throughout this pandemic, our priority has been to provide safe and reliable train services for all those key workers who are keeping our country running through this difficult time.

As we enter a third national lockdown this commitment hasn’t changed.

However, as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, we, like many other businesses are feeling the effects.

More of our colleagues are testing positive for COVID-19 or self-isolating. We also have a number of colleagues that are shielding due to being Clinically Extremely Vulnerable.

Alongside this, with further restrictions in place, we have again seen a reduction in the number of customers travelling with us.

Therefore, in order to continue to provide a reliable service for those who need it, from Monday 11 January 2021 we will be reducing the number of weekday services we will be running.

Our journey planners for next week have been updated, and PDF timetables are available on our website at: www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/timetables.

However, further changes to timetables may need to be made at short notice, so we strongly recommend customers  check their journey closer to the time of travel at www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey.

We’ll continue to keep this position under review so that we can again increase services when it’s appropriate to do so, taking account of Government policy and customer demand, and we’ll continue to keep you updated.

If you do have any questions please do not hesitate to contact myself or my team by emailing stakeholders@swrailway.com

Thank you for your continued support and cooperation.

Yours sincerely,


Senior Regional Development Manager.
South Western Railway

South Western Railway update on the December 2020 timetable

Dear Nikki,

I wanted to write to you to provide an update on our plans regarding our timetable from 13 December 2020.

In October SWR informed our stakeholders about our plans to increase services from 13 December 2020. The decision to increase our services was made earlier this year, at a time when we were seeing a steady increase in passenger numbers.

However, since I wrote to you, the nation has entered a second lockdown and from tomorrow we will again be entering a tiered system of restrictions. As you will appreciate, these measures have had an impact on our passenger numbers both current and forecasted.

In light of this, with the permission of the Department for Transport, we have taken the decision to “rollover” our weekday timetable from 13 December 2020 to 26 March 2021. We believe this is the right decision for our business and the taxpayer, who through the Government have been supporting the rail industry throughout this pandemic.

To summarise our timetable from 13 December 2020:

Weekdays – SWR will continue to operate the same timetable that has been running since early September 2020, subject to final approval by Network Rail and planned engineering works, particularly over the Festive Period.

Weekends – Some weekend timetables will still change to reflect patterns in demand and to accommodate planned engineering works, so we are advising our customers to check before they travel.

I hope you will appreciate the scale of the challenge posed by the fast-moving situation presented by COVID-19 as we try to keep our passengers informed of changes in a timely manner. Please rest assured that my colleagues at SWR and Network Rail are working hard to ensure journey planning systems are up to date with the latest information.

While weekday services should be correct through to March 2021, we are working closely to ensure that planned engineering works during the festive period and weekend changes are reflected in the system. We are confident the journey planners will be fully updated by 5 December 2020, although weekend timetables will be subject to change up to 4 weeks in advance of travel.

More information on our current and future timetable can be found at: https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/timetables        

Thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Hopwood
Managing Director
South Western Railway