South West Trains (SWT) is a train operating company operating in the United Kingdom, providing train services to the southwest of London, chiefly in Greater London and the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, and Wiltshire (the area largely covered before 1923 by the London and South Western Railway company, hence the new company's name).
A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, SWT took over the franchise of the old British Rail Southern Region's South West division in 1996. At the time it started changing the livery of its rolling stock to one with an orange, red, blue, and white stripe as this was an easy modification of the trains' existing British Rail Network South-East livery, but in recent years it has standardised on a trio of slight variations of this original - mainly white for long-distance services and mainly blue for outer-suburban services. As the Class 455 electrical multiple units go through refurbishment they are emerging in the mainly red livery which has been designed for inner-suburban services. Since privatisation a number of initiatives have been undertaken including refurbishing stations, better access for disabled people, and the Customer Information screens showing next train departures at every station.
The hub of the network is London Waterloo station, SWT's London terminus. It connects London to such major towns and cities in England as Basingstoke, Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Guildford, Weymouth, Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter and Torquay. However a large portion of the company's services are concerned with suburban and commuter lines to/from Wimbledon, Windsor, Putney, Chessington, Teddington, Kingston-upon-Thames and Reading. All of SWT's trains into and out of Waterloo pass through or stop at Clapham Junction station, reputed to be the busiest rail junction in Europe. The company also operates the coastway services from Southamton to Portsmouth and Brighton, and the "Lymington Flyer" services from Brockenhurst, in the New Forest, to Lymington, connecting with the ferry to the Isle of Wight. As of 2004, South West Trains operates services from Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads, having taken over from Arriva Trains Wales.
The franchise for the line was renewed in February 2003 for only four years instead of the expected 20 year franchise that the company was hoping for. However, this did not delay the long-awaited introduction of new Desiro rolling stock built by Siemens to replace the old slam-door trains which are coming to the end of their useful lives. The Desiro stock comes in two variants - Class 450 units have four cars and are mainly used on outer suburban services, while Class 444 units have five cars and are for use on longer-distance services to, among other destinations, Portsmouth. The old slam-door stock is expected to be replaced by mid-2005.
The vast majority of SWT's services are on electrified lines using the 750 V DC third rail system. SWT operates up to 1690 trains per day. Due to the high volume of trains and years of under-investment delays are commonplace and often lead to passenger angst, but efforts are being made to improve the situation including the commissioning of a unified Network Rail and SWT control centre at Waterloo which aims to improve communication between the different organisations responsible for the operation of the railway.
Recent developments include the introduction of new rail services and the reopening of Chandlers Ford station in Hampshire. At the end of 2004 the company completely recast its timetable for the first time since 1967 in an attempt to bring service provision into line with changing demand and to take into account the different characteristics of modern rolling stock, with the intention that this would improve reliability and punctuality across the network.
A complete smoking ban on all South West Trains services was introduced from May 2004. In addition, there are restrictions on the carriage of bicycles - non-folding bicycles are banned from early morning and evening trains to and from London Waterloo, which has drawn criticism from integrated transport advocates and cyclists alike. The company justifies this policy by pointing out that many trains are extremely crowded during the rush hour, and that bicycles take up as much space as several people.
See Also
External link
