SWR after May

[JonathanH]

New app, special offers for weekend travel, maybe introduce an annual "Network Day" in the summer holidays like the NSE events of years gone by.

I'm not sure that building up weekend travel is the issue it might have been once, certainly not at this time of year. Any rebuilding of ridership really needs to be focused on peak time travel.

 

[Zomboid]

Sorry for going off topic, are they really putting 720s for Stansted Express?? Oh boy, the airport users will love the 3+2 seating! They really should've kept the 379s. OK back on topic

No, that's just one person's hopes of what should happen. Doesn't mean it won't, but don't get excited one way or the other yet...

 

[moley]

701s sounds about right, plenty available for vinyling also as you say for putting a positive spin for the DfT and SWR after the disastrous & much delayed rollout

Has a 701 been to Bournemouth depot before?

 

[Kite159]

The press event will probably to announce that in the event a SWR service is cancelled you can use your tickets on trains run by South Eastern, LNER, TPE or Northern.

Written by a clueless civil servant who doesn't realise there is no overlap in services between SWR & South Eastern, but it sounds good.

 

[Farnborough]

The press event will probably to announce that in the event a SWR service is cancelled you can use your tickets on trains run by South Eastern, LNER, TPE or Northern.

It's amusing how the brain reads what you expect, based on experience... I read that as:

The press event will probably be to announce that SWR event is cancelled

 

[Meerkat]

Whining about shareholders taking money out then spending lots of money on branding to make a political point would be a field day for the press.
Is there anything they can promise to do that SWR couldn’t, and won’t just have First saying “we would have done that if DfT let us”?

 

[The Ham]

Whining about shareholders taking money out then spending lots of money on branding to make a political point would be a field day for the press.
Is there anything they can promise to do that SWR couldn’t, and won’t just have First saying “we would have done that if DfT let us”?

Probably not, but then the opposite could have been said by BR (i.e. "what can private companies do that we couldn't of we were just allowed to do it by the DfT?")

 

[Farnborough]

Probably not, but then the opposite could have been said by BR (i.e. "what can private companies do that we couldn't of we were just allowed to do it by the DfT?")

I think, that would be more of

... if we were just allowed to do it by the Treasury?

I'm old enough to remember BR last time around...

 

[Meerkat]

Probably not, but then the opposite could have been said by BR (i.e. "what can private companies do that we couldn't of we were just allowed to do it by the DfT?")

Because there isn’t the same motivated drive in a nationalised industry, and they didn’t have access to private money.

 

[The Ham]

I think, that would be more of


I'm old enough to remember BR last time around...

Fair enough, I was keeping the analogy simple. Ultimately money talks.

Because there isn’t the same motivated drive in a nationalised industry, and they didn’t have access to private money.

There are two sources of money for the railways, government or passenges, as such private money is paid back from one of those two sources.

(OK there's other income, but that's mostly things which the passengers pay for, such as parking or buying things to pay the rent - there's sometimes office space rents and other things which bypass passengers but given we're mostly talking TOC rather than Network Rail that's less of a factor).

Whilst there's potentially less drive, there's an element of it being limited by the restrictions placed by DfT (or Treasury) if BR was given a bit more flexibility (for example allowed to put together a "franchise bid" for a group of services like the TOC's did) then chances are they might have done a lot of the things the TOC's have done (only without having spent 5 lots of bid money as there wouldn't have been several TOC's putting forwards packages which sometimes weren't that different from each other).

 

[vuzzeho]

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L48405/2025-05-25 <- is it true that this will be the last FirstGroup SWR service ever?

 

[[.n]]

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L48405/2025-05-25 <- is it true that this will be the last FirstGroup SWR service ever?

Assuming that's true - I'm nearly tempted to travel on that - having said that it'd probably run late knowing my luck! I recall when SWR came into being my first 100 journeys were all late (even if only a few minutes), and I stopped counting after that.

 

[Mainline421]

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L48405/2025-05-25 <- is it true that this will be the last FirstGroup SWR service ever?

If the handover is scheduled for 02:00 as it was at the start of the franchise, then it's probably this one: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:Q41922/2025-05-25/detailed I suppose it depends on how you define it, but it's likely to arrive early.

 

[boiledbeans2]

701s sounds about right, plenty available for vinyling also as you say for putting a positive spin for the DfT and SWR after the disastrous & much delayed rollout

Yay, the fourth 701 launch.

Quote below from:

Class 701 'Aventra' trains for South Western Railway: progress updates

I would be astounded if 10 more units were in service next month. They can't reliably deliver the handful of diagrams that are currently meant to run. Indeed. We shall have to wait and see. 1732812381 At one stage in 2020 DfT effectively instructed BT to deliver on schedule as Covid wasn't a...

www.railforums.co.uk

This is actually the third launch for the class 701 Arterios.

The first launch, Mark Hopwood pretty much just launched the (rather clunky) name: Arterios.

The second - rather odd - launch was by Claire Mann.

And now this third launch.

Just as well it wasn’t the Titanic! Not so much Arterios; More Arteriosclerosis.

It's going as predicted by RailUK members:

Done the maths and at this rate it’ll take 7 years to rollout the whole fleet. [...]

That would be sufficient time to carry out another 3 or 4 "soft-launches".

...and 3 to 4 more media events, each with a new MD to say "the rollout is coming"

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 May 2025 ==

OR

The press event could be that SWR have finally figured out the answer to this headline?

South Western admit they don’t know when £1bn fleet of new trains will be in service

The train operator said it is trying to speed up its training programme

www.independent.co.uk

"South Western Railway admit they don’t know when £1bn fleet of new trains will finally be in service"

 

[Snow1964]

With just over 2 weeks to go until nationalised. No doubt any Press event will be tightly stage managed, and any journalists will not be allowed to ask any questions, or if they are will get waffle non-answers.

The obvious rolling stock questions are:
1) So far only about 10% of the 90 class 701s are in use, what is timescale for remainder
2) The diesel class 159s are 33-36 years old, can't be expected to continue much longer, so when will plan for their successors be announced

 

[The Ham]

With just over 2 weeks to go until nationalised. No doubt any Press event will be tightly stage managed, and any journalists will not be allowed to ask any questions, or if they are will get waffle non-answers.

The obvious rolling stock questions are:
1) So far only about 10% of the 90 class 701s are in use, what is timescale for remainder
2) The diesel class 159s are 33-36 years old, can't be expected to continue much longer, so when will plan for their successors be announced

The second question is fairly easy to answer.

Until last year it was expected that future rolling stock would have been the responsibility of a future franchise bid, since then we've been working hard on looking at options however this will include reducing the need for running diesel engines on our trains within clean air zones. As franchises needed 18 months to create their tender offering we would expect a firm decision within that timeframe.

T&C's
We like a freebie, any rolling stock manufacturer who are willing to provide us with a tour of their factory (and preferably lunch) can contact us at [email protected] if you want to be part of the options we are looking at
Promise of reduced running of diesel engines on trains is at a national level, does not mean that your local station will benefit
18 months is to be timed from a time yet to be agreed by us, do we mean from the election, government first sitting after that election, the legislation to show us to nationalise the railways, now, the launch of GBR, it some future date - we don't know so why should anyone else.
A firm decision may or may not include an actual order for trains.

 

[boiledbeans2]

I hope they remove the hideous SWR logo from 455868.

 

[Mikey C]

The SWR advert characters have already been made redundant.

Wesley Peck has started work as an Uber driver, while Sandy C Gull has got a job in a call centre.

 

[boiledbeans2]

The SWR advert characters have already been made redundant.

Wesley Peck has started work as an Uber driver, while Sandy C Gull has got a job in a call centre.

RMT should ballot for strike action. I'm sure it would get the support of LNER's Eleanor and WMM's Wes and Mindy.

 

[XCTurbostar]

Branding wise it doesn’t look like first MTR has amended any trademarks so it appears nationalised SWR will have to use different branding for south western railway unless they intend on changing this soon.

 

[OneTrackMinded]

Branding wise it doesn’t look like first MTR has amended any trademarks so it appears nationalised SWR will have to use different branding for south western railway unless they intend on changing this soon.

This would be interesting but pretty sure at the end of any franchise contract the branding automatically becomes property of the DfT.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

Branding wise it doesn’t look like first MTR has amended any trademarks so it appears nationalised SWR will have to use different branding for south western railway unless they intend on changing this soon.

That might happen, I don't think it will as the only change would be removed is the "A First MTR company".

But, if the above happens then it may be like Northern Rail post-Arriva with a tweak of only changing the Northern lettering to capitals.

Or... back to "South West Trains", though unlikely, as the SWT name actually belonged to the DfT in transisting from BR sectorisation (NSE) to privatisation (Stagecoach). Stagecoach took on the SWT name but adapted it to its corporate colours. The original SWT logo was a large "SWT" which Stagecoach later dropped. Also likely a reason why the trains never got debranded when F-MTR South Western Railway took over in 2017.

 

[OneTrackMinded]

That might happen, I don't think it will as the only change would be removed is the "A First MTR company".

But, if the above happens then it may be like Northern Rail post-Arriva with a tweak of only changing the Northern lettering to capitals.

Or... back to "South West Trains", though unlikely, as the SWT name actually belonged to the DfT in transisting from BR sectorisation (NSE) to privatisation (Stagecoach). Stagecoach took on the SWT name but adapted it to its corporate colours. The original SWT logo was a large "SWT" which Stagecoach later dropped. Also likely a reason why the trains never got debranded when F-MTR South Western Railway took over in 2017.

The name of the new company is "South Western Railway Limited" so I slightly doubt option three

 

[dorsetdesiro]

The name of the new company is "South Western Railway Limited" so I slightly doubt option three

"South Western Railway Ltd" trading as "South West Trains"? As Govia Southeastern's legal name was London & South Eastern Railway Ltd.
Who knows??

 

[Helvellyn]

If the double arrows are coming back in some form you could see those giant SWR logos with the odd logo ("let's cut a square out of the route map") removed. Getting the First-MTR branding off will be a priority though.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

If they're not going to go for a single unified brand or categories such as service type, and they keep separate brands (though I think doing so on a permanent basis would be a mistake), then they're going to have to surely amend them all a little bit as the inconsistencies and randomness of everything just wouldn't work.

What I mean by that is, if they're all sub brands of the same company, having Southeastern but South Western Railway instead of Southwestern, and having the name of that written in full but Great Western Railway abbreviated to GWR, and the former in modern corporate branding with the latter in heritage style, and why they have traditional names for those but the Great Eastern Railway is the decidedly more contemporary Greater Anglia - and don't even get me started on c2c.

Avanti doesn't count as there's no way it'd stay. But you get the point, right? It makes sense if it's because they're all completely different companies and co-companies, but one complete railway ought to have similarities in some ways at least.

 

[The Ham]

If they're not going to go for a single unified brand or categories such as service type, and they keep separate brands (though I think doing so on a permanent basis would be a mistake), then they're going to have to surely amend them all a little bit as the inconsistencies and randomness of everything just wouldn't work.

What I mean by that is, if they're all sub brands of the same company, having Southeastern but South Western Railway instead of Southwestern, and having the name of that written in full but Great Western Railway abbreviated to GWR, and the former in modern corporate branding with the latter in heritage style, and why they have traditional names for those but the Great Eastern Railway is the decidedly more contemporary Greater Anglia - and don't even get me started on c2c.

Avanti doesn't count as there's no way it'd stay. But you get the point, right? It makes sense if it's because they're all completely different companies and co-companies, but one complete railway ought to have similarities in some ways at least.

There's nothing wrong with branding which picks between name in full and initials.

The longer the name the more likely initials would be used.

L&SWR could be used to use the heritage profile if there was a desire to.

Of course Northern is likely to be written in full.

 

[nw1]

It would certainly be nice to try and reverse at least some of the more blatant Covid cuts if at all possible - though this will perhaps have to wait until the 701s arrive fully.

 

[Mike Machin]

Well, I have received an email today relating to data protection in relation to my SWR account and App. It states that my data and various consents will transfer to the new company - South Western Railway Ltd upon nationalisation on May 25th.

It goes on to say nothing else will change:-

‘Although the legal operator is changing, your experience won’t. You’ll continue to see the same branding, same services, and the same teams running your trains.’

So, at least for the time being it looks very much like it’s business as usual!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2025 ==

Well, I have received an email today relating to data protection in relation to my SWR account and App. It states that my data and various consents will transfer to the new company - South Western Railway Ltd upon nationalisation on May 25th.

It goes on to say nothing else will change,

 

[OneTrackMinded]

‘Although the legal operator is changing, your experience won’t. You’ll continue to see the same branding, same services, and the same teams running your trains.’

The intentional tone is for this to be a positive thing, but considering the "experience" people are currently provided, it's very easy to read it the other way.