After more than a month, when many bitter words were exchanged between South Western Railway and passengers groups, local MPs and others, it was announced that the weekday timetable would revert to its December 2021 level of service from Monday February 21st.
The news came in the House of Commons after the West Dorset MP Chris Loder
told the Prime Minister that “South Western Railway has totally cut off Dorset, Somerset, most of Wiltshire and Devon from its direct rail services to London as well as slashing our service in half, most of which is totally unnecessary". He asked Boris Johnson to support him and his neighbouring colleagues to help get " direct services back to West Dorset with a timetable that is fit for our region”
South Western Railway confirmed that the timetable would return to pre Omicron levels saying that the change was always intended to be a temporary one that would ensure reliability for customers during a challenging period, and some key services
have been able to be restored since then.
The news that a full service was due to be re-introduced came as a great relief to passengers, who had been forced to contend with crowded carriages, and being forced to change trains at Salisbury for a service to Waterloo. The temporary service cuts had a major impact on students, commuters and others, with passengers only having a two-hourly service to Exeter, except at peak times.
The severity of the local cuts in January had led to fierce criticism from many passenger
groups, such as Travel Watch South West and the Salisbury to Exeter Rail Users Group.
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