Home > General

SWT getting even worse?

surbiton1's picture

surbiton1
10 years ago...

Has anyone noticed another step down in the quality of SWT’s service lately?

The reaction time to incidents just seems to be going through the roof, and the regulators do not seem to care.

On Monday a train hit and killed a person at Wimbledon at about 8.40am. I was on that train, and I think we were stuck at Wimbledon for about 90 minutes. I have no problem with that whatsoever, it is a tragic and awful incident and the proper investigations and clear up must take place.

Whilst thoughts and condolences must go to the family of the poor person that was killed, I can’t help but think that South West Trains then went on take take advantage of the incident somewhat.

I know for a fact that the train in question was taken out of service at Clapham Junction before 10.30am. Of course, this has a knock on effect on services for the next couple of hours whilst trains/crews get back into the right place, but SWT decide that there is going to be severe delays until ‘end of service’. Even during the evening service the NEXT DAY, they were still blaming the incident for short-formed trains and a couple of cancellations.

Clearly what is happening is that they are now using incidents like this to cancel more services than they have to for longer than they have to in order to save on wages and overtime.

What prompted me to write this rant is that it is now Friday afternoon of the same week, and there is a signal failure at Waterloo that was discovered at about midday. Funnily enough, this is also now going to cause delays until end of service tonight. Every time there is a hint of a problem ALL trains on the Dorking, Hampton Court and Chessington lines are cancelled, but they still refuse to run a reasonable service on the rest.

The problem is, they just seem to be able to do as little as they want to with no fear of retribution.

By posting content on Surbiton.com, you agree to adhere to the following guidelines.

  • Your username and password must only be used by you, keep them safe. If a posting is made using your username and password it will be considered to have been posted by you. If you have a friend who wants to use our site and post messages on the site, show them how to register.
  • Be courteous at all times, inciting racial hatred, posting abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libellous or sexually explicit material or any material that is found to be offensive is not acceptable and we may suspend your username and password.
  • Retaliating to offensive posts causes more problems for other users on the discussion boards. Just report such messages to us using the Feedback link which is available at the top of every page or the 'report this' link associated with individual postings. We will act on every report we receive.
  • Please respect other people's work and do not post material that infringes copyright.
  • Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law. You should only post material that you know to be public knowledge. If you have any doubts do not post it on the site.
  • Never attempt to gain unauthorised access to any area of the site. This is known as hacking and is illegal.
  • Content posted represents the opinions of the author, and does not represent the opinions of Surbiton.com or its affiliates and has not been approved or issued by Surbiton.com. You should be aware that the other participants are strangers to you and may make statements which may be misleading, deceptive or wrong.
  • Spoofing or posing as another user is unacceptable. Anonymous users' postings should always be considered with suspicion.
  • Help keep Surbiton.com a safe place for information and opinion. Please alert us of any anti-social behaviour as described above.
Please note that Surbiton.com does not monitor the comments posted and we are therefore reliant upon users reporting antisocial behaviour.