South West Trains

Not to be confused with Mouth Wets Trains, which are a truly mouthwatering prospect.

These multicoloured trains are mostly red but also yellow and blue, which makes a really interesting color combination. They basically did everything from London to the southwestern tip and all along the South Coast from Portsmouth and Southampton to the West.

This train-chain has the most destinations in this region, although the North Coast of Cornwall and Devon and Somerset were woefully under-represented. But the rest of the region was pretty well attended too, except for the coastline from Weymouth down to Torquay which again was under represented by these services.

They were operated by Stagecoach which is why they look like the Stagecoach buses, and are expensive. They took over other little local franchises and were taken over by South Western Railway in 2017.

It was part of the privatization of British Rail which basically ruined trains for the whole country. Southwestern at least has more traditional looking trains and colours and operates a much lesser part of the region. So it's kind of sad.

The only reason I give it a higher rating is because of the colors.

Aptly named South West Trains dominates the rails at lovely Waterloo Station, with services to the south and west of England. Destinations include Weymouth, Portsmouth, Exeter St. Davids, Bristol Temple Meads and Reading. They also operate former Underground stock on the Isle of Wight between Ryde Pier Head and Shanklin.

I've had the opportunity to ride the line from Reading to Waterloo, which stops at only eleventy billion stations. What is usually a 30 minute journey on the Great Western line to Paddington is an hour and a half on the South West line to Waterloo. I swear, some of these aren't even real stations. They just stop there because they can! But if you need to be at Waterloo, this could be helpful.

And the Waterloo to Hampton Court line is useful. It stops at the Wimbledon District Line station on separate platforms. Platforms have an easy to read "next train" board and my experience was that the trains arrived and departed at the scheduled times.

The South West trains I've ridden were clean and well kept with a surprisingly low amount of litter or graffiti. On board information screens were quite useful.

Helpfully, many South West stations in the London Transport Area (including Wimbledon and Hampton Court) have Oyster Readers. If you're traveling in this area (check first), you might be able to save a huge bunch of £!

Bought a ticket. Got a receipt. Lost my ticket. Took the receipt to the ticket counter. Got handed a piece of paper outlining their response. Buy another ticket, even though I had proof of valid travel.
Absolute disgrace SWT.

Whilst these trains go to many locations I found there were the following problems:

- Not enough trains going between Southampton and Eastleigh (despite it being only 6 miles apart).
-Overcrowded trains, more trains required at peak hours.
-Lateness. Many trains were late, often to do with weather or signalling. Some was due to fatalities on the line. This wasnt their problem obviously they can't account for people who are selfish and decide to jump in front of the train.
- Bus replacement services on Sundays.

Southwest trains are the culmination of decades of insufficient government attention to public transport.

Small seats and high prices take tired commuters into the hopelessly crowded Waterloo Station. Alas, much of the crowding is down to the railways monetizing every inch of space so it resembles shops overran during Black Friday.

Wifi on trains? Forget about it!

GBP 30 million profits........built on the back of the long suffering public forced to leave London because of the influx of foreign investors distorting the property market. But no wifi!

Did I mention that they do not have wifi.

Usually on time though......

I used to work for South West Trains. They don't give a toss if you are being harassed or stalked by an ex colleague as they don't or won't ban that person. If you're a woman and you just had a baby, they don't consider changing your hours to be flexible. They are the worst company to work for.