Tag: south western railway

• Say what you like about Mussolini…

  There are definitely questions to be asked about how well the government has run various rail routes – and particularly South Western Railway (SWR) – since they were nationalised, but the Daily Mail is not the outlet to do it – and here’s the proof.

  Marking a random period since SWR was nationalised in May 2025, ROSS CLARK says:

  If Burnham thinks bringing back the clanking, wheezing ghost of British Rail will make the trains run on time, here’s the proof he’s DELUDED

  Describing Labour’s plans (which pre-date Burnham) as “bringing back the clanking, wheezing ghost of British Rail” is hardly a set-up that inspires confidence in objective analysis. I don’t remember seeing the party, or the government setting out the policy in those terms.

  

  The analysis of how has it all worked out includes:

  the luckless passengers trying to travel on South Western from Surbiton to Waterloo in recent days might not have felt Labour’s doctrinaire experiment was ‘really positive’ after all.

  In the space of just one hour, no fewer than four services were delayed or cancelled – for different reasons.

  I sense a little bit of cherry picking here. From “recent days” we focus on “just one hour”.

  (more…)

  2026.09.01

• Did Labour make things worse at SWR?

  A parliamentary answer from (still) rail minister Peter Hendy effectively admits that nationalisation of South Western Railway (SWR) a year ago has failed to produce anything to write home about – but did it make things worse?

  Lord Patten (former Tory minister John Patten) asked His Majesty’s Government:

  what assessment they have made of the performance of South Western Railways since it entered public ownership on 25 May 2025.

  

  The reply from Lord Hendy started off in encouraging terms:

  The Department is closely monitoring South Western Railway’s (SWR’s) performance following its transfer into public ownership on 25 May 2025 through a range of measures, including punctuality, cancellations, and passenger experience.

  But the rest implicitly admitted that things are not going well – or at least not well enough to publicise:

  (more…)

  2026.07.23

• SWR losing revenue and train carriages

  Fare dodging is the unavoidable story of the day but concerns are also being raised about how South Western Railway – officially state-run – is actually being run and whether its service is getting better or worse.

  The BBC reports that:

  An estimated £45.5m of annual revenue is being lost from passengers not paying for tickets, South Western Railway (SWR) has said.

  The data was released after a campaign group submitted a Freedom of Information request to SWR, which said the overall rate of ticketless travel was about 3.9%.

  On the other hand, Transport for London is proactively publicising its revenue loss from fare dodging:

  It is a huge problem for TfL, costing it £190m a year. Fare evasion has increased since the opening of the Elizabeth line as more passengers use the TfL network, and many stations on the line don’t have staffed barriers.

  The loss equates to 3.5% of all fare income. TfL wants to get that down to 1.5% by 2030 although it admits this will be a significant challenge.

  

  The huge number of open stations on SWR’s network is obviously going to be a major factor.

  But elsewhere in the SWR story are concerns about how the Department for Transport is actually running the company and whether it is doing enough to improved the firm’s performance.

  The data was obtained by SWR Watch, whose spokesperson, Jeremy Varns, said he believed the service had got worse since May, when it became the first to be renationalised by the Labour government.

  He said: “My primary concern is a lack of accountability.

  “There’s still no publicly accessible contract between the operator and government and Department for Transport.”

  SWR said it was in a transitional arrangement and subject to amendments.

  It added that a copy of the final Service Agreement would be published in due course.

  Varns also criticised SWR’s longstanding policy of treating its passengers as an afterthought when disruption occurs:

  (more…)

  2025.10.20