I am so glad this forum does not run the railways. There is a perverse fetish among certain forumers that services must be cut - and they seem to enjoy the topic of reducing the railway!
I suspect that few in here actually want to make the cuts.
However one thing that got me thinking, if we are looking to ways of reducing subsidy, as passenger numbers are likely to fall (and this routes into the issue of NR is fairly fixed in its costs so if you reduce services you only make fairly superficial cuts) is there any merit in redistributing resources?
For instance if the expectation is that travel into Central London is going to fall significantly, could we increase income by reducing some of the services into London, however replace them with the services which many would like to see that aren't so London centric. As many have pointed out, trains serving local areas have remained busy (especially those which serve schools and colleges).
By finding suitable alternative routes, the overall frequency of services could remain (retaining passengers) and new station pairings could be more viable (attracting more passengers to the railways).
Yes it may result in some passengers needing to change trains to get to London, but if there had been 2tph direct and this changes to 1tph direct and 1tph with a change (ideally taking 10-15 minutes longer than the direct service) then the impact should be fairly small.
Of course it could cause issues when you need to reintroduce both direct services, however chances are there's the capacity on the network for both it's just that there's never been the rolling stock available.
If that's the case, then in the long term it could even reduce the subsidy needed as the extra costs to NR for those extra services would be fairly small, but they would generate extra income which wouldn't have existed before.
For the TOC's it's a good opportunity to use resources which would either be sat Idle or would otherwise be less well used.
As an example the SWR services to Yeovil could, rather than running to Waterloo, replace the GWR stopping service to Reading from Basingstoke. In doing so it would allow a better connection between Reading and Salisbury, but the local services between Basingstoke and Yeovil would retain their frequency and if they wished to travel to London then they'll have to change at Basingstoke, however with fewer people doing so then it becomes less of an issue. However for those from Andover going to Basingstoke for employment and college they keep their same frequency.
In time, if demand requires the services to Waterloo to be reinstated, then chances are they could be with only the need to improve the junction at Basingstoke (which needs doing anyway). It could even help the case to improve capacity through Reading West (when the new service is needed and a second service an hour for the old shuttle between Basingstoke and Reading is needed, and/or a second Yeovil to Reading service is required).
Of course there's going to be holes in the above suggestion, but it was just to illustrate the sort if thing which could be done.
Some of the best options may well require the linking of lines (so some new chords) to allow such services to run (as the junctions have always been setup to run services to London).
This may not be a good service, but just to highlight the sort of thing which could be done; a rail service running Guildford to Chessington South. With reduced commuter demand it could be that rail services look to keep into other markets. By connecting Guildford to Chessington World of Adventures it provides opportunity for station pairings which may be otherwise hard to achieve and puts a lot more places just one change away from it. In doing so it make rail travel more attractive. People are willing to change trains at a major station, less so at somewhere which is an unknown to them, or (in the case of people traveling from Portsmouth) could mean changing trains (at Woking) to be able to change trains (at Wimbledon) to be able to get to Chessington South.
