South Western Railway nationalisation time.

[Kite159]

I bet that "simpler ticketing" probably means getting rid of Return tickets and making you buy two Single tickets and getting rid of Off Peak / Super Off Peak / Evening Out / Sunday Out tickets. So in other words making tickets more expensive. I would not be surprised if SWR or other nationalised TOCs are next to follow that awful LNER fare trial rubbish.

I wouldn't put it past them to get and get rid of those cheaper PM & Sunday tickets which were introduced post Covid as a way to raising money. Dressed up as more advance tickets being made available.

 

[Class465fan]

Now the franchise has been taken into government ownership under Starmer's (allegedly) leftist economic ideology, somebody should scribble out South Western Railway and replace it with...

...Socialist Workers Railway (SWR).

Don't give him any ideas

 

[Topological]

Now the franchise has been taken into government ownership under Starmer's (allegedly) leftist economic ideology, somebody should scribble out South Western Railway and replace it with...

...Socialist Workers Railway (SWR).

It is a shame SWR did not make more of the fact they had many coastal destinations and become Costal South Railway.

Since no one will ever accuse Starmer of being Socialist, a Champagne Socialist Railway would have worked better.

(I do not wish to suggest W for the replacement for Western, there are many)

 

[PLY2AYS]

Now the franchise has been taken into government ownership under Starmer's (allegedly) leftist economic ideology, somebody should scribble out South Western Railway and replace it with...

...Socialist Workers Railway (SWR).

Thought this whole idea of GBR was Shapps-Williams’ (or whatever name he wanted that week was) idea… Tories themselves conceding that their privatisation model had failed.

Not sure socialism should be the dirty word you’re implying it is, given that the right apparently wanted this before Labour got into power…

 

[Deepgreen]

The small irony of Heidi Alexander talking about “The Public want trains that work” whilst standing in front of a 701… most of which are spread around the country in storage…

Not ironic, but evidence of what fragmentation has foisted upon the railway - very fitting.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Joking aside, I hope that branding is the very last thing on the agenda. There's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig when you have a fleet of clapped out, uncomfortable trains which have no modern facilities on.
Passengers don't care for pretty logos and branding when the train they're on is a sardine tin on wheels.

Sardine cans on wheels was essentially the DfT policy (of all parties) they imposed on all franchise competitions since about 2005, and all current rail contracts.
Labour's DfT has not signed off any new rolling stock (bar more 345s for Crossrail), so we'll have to see if the policy changes.
The Desiro City, Aventra and Hitachi 80x fleets were essentially specified and procured by DfT, not the rail TOCs.

 

[TEW]

I wouldn't put it past them to get and get rid of those cheaper PM & Sunday tickets which were introduced post Covid as a way to raising money. Dressed up as more advance tickets being made available.

That's not quite what happened for the majority of flows. They simply replaced Super Off Peak tickets which were the same price, but Evening and Sunday Out tickets are far more restricted. There were some single tickets and non London flows that it meant a price reduction for, but generally it was a price increase and revenue raising exercise.

 

[JamesT]

Thought this whole idea of GBR was Shapps-Williams’ (or whatever name he wanted that week was) idea… Tories themselves conceding that their privatisation model had failed.

Not sure socialism should be the dirty word you’re implying it is, given that the right apparently wanted this before Labour got into power…

The Tory GBR would still have had private companies running services. Though more on a concession basis than the freedom the franchise system had. Labour might be still calling it GBR but they’ve been very clear it’s nationalisation they’re doing.

 

[Djgr]

The Tory GBR would still have had private companies running services. Though more on a concession basis than the freedom the franchise system had. Labour might be still calling it GBR but they’ve been very clear it’s nationalisation they’re doing.

...which to be fair is exactly what they explicitly said they were going to do at the time of the election.

Perhaps we are now more used to politicians simply spinning fairy tales, such as BoJo and his as yet unfulfilled promise to reverse the Beeching cuts.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Yes this photo has been floating around social media in the past few days.

View attachment 180546

It looks like such a cheap bodge job with just a basic sticker stuck on the side.

That's...not actually that bad.

I don't understand why they just dont call it British Rail which is a simpler name but it carries well.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I don't understand why they just dont call it British Rail which is a simpler name but it carries well.

Because British Rail has been and gone, and they don't want to promote a feeling of going back to the 90s.

 

[Gooner18]

Wonder why they are calling it great British rail , why not call in Railways England , or English Railways, after all Scotland have not named theirs Great British Railways

 

[omnicity4659]

Because “Railways England” would then be responsible for the rail infrastructure in Wales and Scotland, and GBR is also going to be a publicly facing brand for most trains in Britain, regardless of if they’re devolved and have ScotRail or TfW written on the sides of them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Avanti?

Nope. Avanti is a generic name. The franchisees are FirstGroup and Trenitalia UK. It's not a geographical name but it is a generic one.

 

[Kite159]

That's not quite what happened for the majority of flows. They simply replaced Super Off Peak tickets which were the same price, but Evening and Sunday Out tickets are far more restricted. There were some single tickets and non London flows that it meant a price reduction for, but generally it was a price increase and revenue raising exercise.

They replaced super off-peak day returns with ones valid for a month (so for those who could work within the restrictions had a nice decrease if they were previously buying off-peak returns.

Also some of the flows which now have evening out/Sundays out tickets which previously didn't have super off-peak tickets, so especially for those travelling on Sundays it was a price decrease.

 

[Cardiff123]

The name "Great British Railways" was chosen by Boris Johnson when everything his government was doing was amazing and fantastic and had to be emblazoned with a Union Jack, because Britain is the best country in the world etc....
Just "British Railways" would've been fine, the general public don't remember post-war "British Railways" brand.

But as Starmer is just as attached to the flag as Johnson was, the GBR name has stuck.

Maybe the reason that under performing TOCs won't get branded as Great British Railways is because UK government don't want the inevitable backlash when the new nationalised services end up being anything but "Great".

 

[TEW]

They replaced super off-peak day returns with ones valid for a month (so for those who could work within the restrictions had a nice decrease if they were previously buying off-peak returns.

Also some of the flows which now have evening out/Sundays out tickets which previously didn't have super off-peak tickets, so especially for those travelling on Sundays it was a price decrease.

Some flows, but not most. The changes were justified at the time as revenue raising. The flows which saw price cuts were very deliberately the ones which are less popular. The intention was very much to push those making a day trip to London on to the Off Peak fare. At the same time SWR have massively increased the number of advance fares available. So what you're trying to claim will happen as a result of nationalisation is in fact what happened under SWR already.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The name "Great British Railways" was chosen by Boris Johnson when everything his government was doing was amazing and fantastic and had to be emblazoned with a Union Jack, because Britain is the best country in the world etc....
Just "British Railways" would've been fine, the general public don't remember post-war "British Railways" brand.

But as Starmer is just as attached to the flag as Johnson was, the GBR name has stuck.

Maybe the reason that under performing TOCs won't get branded as Great British Railways is because UK government don't want the inevitable backlash when the new nationalised services end up being anything but "Great".

On the other hand it is geographically correct as GBR does not cover Northern Ireland.

 

[Goldfish62]

Now that SWR is a public body it is subject that Freedom of Information (FOI) and has wasted no time in publishing the current carriage working notices.

Freedom of Information​

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You can submit a Freedom of Information request to South Western Railway by email to: [email protected]

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www.southwesternrailway.com

 

[TheLastMinute]

Now that SWR is a public body it is subject that Freedom of Information (FOI) and has wasted no time in publishing the current carriage working notices.

There's been little time wasted by those wanting to request information either. The WhatDoTheyKnow site already has 36 requests submitted to SWR since yesterday, 4 of which are asking for CIS/PIS sound files.

 

[thelongestroad]

There's been little time wasted by those wanting to request information either. The WhatDoTheyKnow site already has 36 requests submitted to SWR since yesterday, 4 of which are asking for CIS/PIS sound files.

Some people have way too much time on their hands. Next they'll be requesting braking performance....

 

[thenorthern]

Has there been any announcement on how the branding will work with South Western Railway once full nationalisation happened?

South Western Railway has always been an odd one as the vast majority of it's service don't actually serve South West England.

 

[XCTurbostar]

Has there been any announcement on how the branding will work with South Western Railway once full nationalisation happened?

No, during an interview with Heidi Alexander she mentioned that this and the overall GBR branding had not yet been decided but that she was in favour of regional names. I would say its likely that the South Western name will remain for some time. I think we will get a better idea of the regional branding approach once C2C comes in July.

 

[swt_passenger]

Has there been any announcement on how the branding will work with South Western Railway once full nationalisation happened?

No,

South Western Railway has always been an odd one as the vast majority of it's service don't actually serve South West England.

It follows on from the London and Southwestern Railway, the South Western division of the Southern Railway, the same division of BR and NSE. Seems perfectly logical to me.

 

[thenorthern]

It follows on from the London and Southwestern Railway, the South Western division of the Southern Railway, the same division of BR and NSE. Seems perfectly logical to me.

Depends on who you ask although when I was younger I always found South Western Trains and South Central Trains rather odd given they largely operate in the South East.

 

[bramling]

There's been little time wasted by those wanting to request information either. The WhatDoTheyKnow site already has 36 requests submitted to SWR since yesterday, 4 of which are asking for CIS/PIS sound files.

The TOCs could avoid a lot of this by just putting this stuff on a discreet section of their website, which it seems some already do.

There’s certainly legitimate interest in having diagrams or CWNs in the public domain, as for announcements - well everyone pays their tax and there’s plenty of other things that tax gets spent on which isn’t really good value, in the grand scheme of things the few minutes of time that it takes to make some sound files freely available is pretty trivial.

 

[800Travel]

The TOCs could avoid a lot of this by just putting this stuff on a discreet section of their website, which it seems some already do.

There’s certainly legitimate interest in having diagrams or CWNs in the public domain, as for announcements - well everyone pays their tax and there’s plenty of other things that tax gets spent on which isn’t really good value, in the grand scheme of things the few minutes of time that it takes to make some sound files freely available is pretty trivial.

Scotrail is a good example of this - they frequently post on social media in fact telling people that they can find the announcements published on their site in response to an FOI request.

 

[Warrior2852]

South Western Railway has always been an odd one as the vast majority of it's service don't actually serve South West England.

I always got the impression it was to do with heading out of the south west of London - pairing with Southeastern coming out the south east of London and Southern coming out directly south.

 

[swr444]

A rash of 4 car services this morning, good luck to anyone commuting

 

[norbitonflyer]

Has there been any announcement on how the branding will work with South Western Railway once full nationalisation happened?

South Western Railway has always been an odd one as the vast majority of it's service don't actually serve South West England.

Thgere are other anomalies, with similar historical background. Great Northern gets no further north than Kings Lynn, which most people would not consdider to be in the North. Most of London North Western's network is in the West Midlands.