Improvements to South West Trains

Rail passengers on South West Trains, the UK’s busiest commuter network, will benefit from a £50 million package of improvements after the Department for Transport reached an agreement with the operator Stagecoach Group.

Planned improvements will be introduced between now and 2017. They include:            

• Half hourly service from Salisbury to London on Sunday afternoons.
• New hourly express trains on Sunday early evenings from London Waterloo to Salisbury calling only at Clapham Junction with journey times of 1hr 10m.
• 1000 extra seats on the West of England line on Sunday afternoons between Salisbury and London.
• A new online booking system and an expansion of their smart ticketing programme will allow joined up journeys with London’s bus and Tube network.  This will be trialled on Portsmouth to London trains from autumn 2015.
• The roll-out of a £65m investment in 108 refurbished train carriages for the network and plans for a £210m fleet of 30 new five-carriage trains. Collectively, these two projects will deliver a total peak-time capacity increase of around 30% by 2018.
• Major infrastructure improvements at London Waterloo.
• More fare promotions and marketing campaigns that will enable passengers to get access to the best value fares available.

Full details are available from South West Trains.