South Western Railway and Network Rail Wessex are on a journey to build a timetable fit for the future.
South Western Railway and Network Rail Wessex are embarking on the first full refresh of the timetable across the south and west of England since 2004. While we make frequent small timetable changes to improve our service, this full refresh will take advantage of new opportunities including modern customer travel patterns, new Arterio trains with more capacity, and changes to how we manage the network infrastructure.
Throughout the process, we’ll be working to improve performance and build a timetable that customers can rely on. When approaching a project on this scale, we will need to balance our main priorities. With customers always at the centre, we will need to maintain reliability of the service, improve connectivity and, as a publicly owned service, use public money responsibly. This will mean some technical decisions will need to be balanced, for example between faster journeys from one station and more stops at another. At every stage, we will maintain our focus on delivering a great service for all customers.
Early Engagement Conclusion
Our early engagement phase, which has now concluded, gave people across the network the opportunity to feed in their views to help shape the future timetable. This included:
Five in-person events, speaking with hundreds of customers
Focus groups and stakeholder interviews
A digital campaign on Facebook and Instagram to reach as many customers, stakeholders, businesses and community groups as possible
Engaging with elected representatives across the network
We received nearly 3,000 feedback submissions, helping us better understand what matters most to the people and communities we serve.
Later this year, we will launch a formal consultation on proposed timetable options. This will provide an opportunity to review the proposals in detail, understand how they could affect journeys across the network and share your views, which will help inform the next stage of the process. The consultation will include a range of ways to take part, ensuring as many people as possible have the opportunity to have their say.
To receive updates relating to the timetable refresh and the next phase of consultation, please complete the contact details form below. You will only be contacted about this programme and not about any other SWR matters. Or alternatively, if you have any further feedback or questions, please feel free to email us at: