Andy Munns
South Western Railway will revise the timetable for trains travelling between Salisbury, Yeovil and Exeter from Monday (5th September 2022).
Temporary speed restrictions have been in place on the line between Tisbury and Gillingham, causing delays. These delays sometimes reach 30-40 minutes because of knock-on effects on the single line.
Only one train can pass through some sections of the line at a time. This means trains coming in the opposite directions must wait, sometimes causing significant delays.
The new timetable for the week commencing 5 September is now available in online journey planners, showing the following changes:
Services will generally run hourly between Waterloo & Yeovil Junction
Services will generally run every two hours between Waterloo & Exeter St Davids
Journey times will be amended and/or extended across most services on the route
The issues are caused by the lack of rainfall and drought conditions. It has caused the clay underneath the tracks is drying up and shrink. The shrinkage has been causing the tracks to move and become uneven.
Network rail has explained that they cannot fix the lines by ‘tamping’ them. A process that re-packs the ballast that sits under the railway tracks. The issue is that as the clay is still shrinking, the tracks would quickly become uneven again.
Commenting, SWR’s Managing Director Claire Mann said:
“After two weeks of delays and short-notice changes to our services, this decision to introduce a revised timetable will allow us to run a resilient service and at least provide certainty to our customers in the West of England. I am sorry to all those whose journeys will be affected as we wait for weather conditions to improve so Network Rail can safely remove the speed restriction.”
Network Rail’s Wessex Route Director, Mark Killick, said:
“We’re sorry for the disruption that our customers are seeing between Salisbury and Yeovil Junction, which is a direct result of the hot and dry conditions. We hope the amended timetable can give our customers confidence, but we do recognise that the reduced number of services and longer journey times will be disruptive. As soon as it is safe to remove the speed restriction, we will do so, but this may not be until October when we hope conditions will improve.”
People making the journey by train are advised to check before they travel – https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey
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