Starting on Monday, 11th August until further notice, train services between London Waterloo and Exeter St Davids will be reduced to one train every two hours instead of the current one train per hour.
As well as a reduced service, the trains will take one hour longer, but train services will be restored to Crewkerne after a period of being served by rail-replacement bus services to Yeovil Junction and Axminster.
The reduction in services and longer journey times has been imposed because track levels have been affected by soil moisture deficit in clay soil embankments.
Concurrent with the reduced service to Exeter, hourly train services between London Waterloo and Yeovil Junction will also take 25 minutes longer. The amended timetable will restore train services to Crewkerne, which has been served by buses since Monday, 28 July, and will now be served once every two hours by trains between London Waterloo and Exeter St Davids.
Meteorological Office records show that this spring was the country’s warmest and sunniest since 1910, with the least rainfall since 1976.
These conditions continued into this summer, which resulted in the extremely dry conditions removing moisture from clay soil embankments between Gillingham in Dorset and Axminster in Devon, causing them to shrink and resulting disturbance of the track above.
To maintain the safety of passing trains, Network Rail has been forced to impose speed restrictions, with a maximum speed of 40 mph instead of the former 85 mph.
The problem is compounded because most of the route west of Salisbury is single track. There are only a few places where trains travelling in opposite directions can pass each other.
With speed restrictions extending for 12 miles, the planned passing times for trains passing each other have been disrupted, meaning it will not be possible to maintain services following the normal timetable.
With the dry conditions set to continue, further speed restrictions may be required
Engineers will carry out permanent repairs to stabilise the embankments and restore track levels, once soil moisture levels have improved, and the ground starts to rehydrate and settle. Normal timetabled services will resume once those permanent repairs have been completed.
The west of England main line has suffered periodically during the last few years with speed restrictions brought about by weather conditions, including in 2022, when speed restrictions were imposed at various locations near Tisbury, Gillingham, and Axminster. The line was also closed in 2023 because of a landslip at Crewkerne.
“We are very sorry for the disruption that customers will experience due to this change, as we know just how important the West of England line is to the communities it serves. We have not taken this decision lightly and we recognise the impact that it will have on customers west of Yeovil in particular. However, to continue operating a safe and reliable service, we have no alternative but to introduce a reduced timetable.”
“We always aim to minimise disruption and so, together with our colleagues at Network Rail, we will carefully monitor train performance and work hard to give customers a service that they can rely on. We encourage customers to plan ahead via our website and allow extra time to complete their journeys.”
Stuart Meek, Chief Operating Officer, South Western Railway
Responses
I see both Network Rail and the train operator are blaming this track issue on “climate change” and the supposedly drier weather. This drier weather is not as unprecendented as the Met Office conveniently claims, and I very much suspect that this is just an excuse for Network Rail’s failure to adequately maintain the track on this route which has, since BR days, been treated as secondary.
About time the track reductions of the 1960s and 70s were reversed, for too long the LSWR route to Exeter has played 2nd fiddle to the GWR route. The line needs doubling and electrifying from Basingstoke westward. Also some of the closed stations need reopening as the communities along the line has grown over the past 60years.
With all the time and effort being put into the tracks, a shame that all of about a 100 miles away, no one in Network Rail has sought to learn from the recent addition on the the Par-Newquay, a passing loop at Tregoss Moor; to also make a few passing loops on the WAT to EXE line, costing not that much.