A rotten deal for Dorset?

Reading between the lines of the interview with South Western Railway Managing Director Andy Mellors ( RAIL 833), Dorset seems to be getting a rotten deal from the new SW franchise.

Our remaining ‘fast’ hourly train will stop at all stations during the peak, so it will be slower. And our ’semi-fast’ Waterloo train will now run to Portsmouth (presumably all stations, at least in Dorset), with no guarantee of a good London connection at Southampton or Bournemouth.

Mellors says he can’t run three trains an hour to Weymouth because of the power supply issue, but that’s the first time I’ve heard that!

He can’t run ten-coach trains to Weymouth, but he can certainly run three five-coach trains an hour. Indeed, during the Olympics we had extra eight-coach trains departing from Weymouth without any obvious problems. A more serious issue is the single-track stretch between Dorchester and

Moreton, but there are paths to be had for a third hourly train.

A much more sensible option would have been to run the Portsmouth trains as far west as Wareham, which covers the very real need for a rail option to compete with the M27 without compromising Weymouth’s half-hourly Waterloo service.

By running all stations east from Wareham, this train would also make it possible to take some stops out of the Weymouth service, and give enhanced connections for Swanage next summer.

Or how about going ahead as planned, but adding a few Weymouth-Yeovil-Salisbury-Waterloo trains? The summer Saturday experiment on this route was very successful in 2016 (sadly not continued in 2017 because of the franchise change, or so we’re told).

Or how about the coastal route in the other direction: Weymouth-Yeovil-Exeter, at least on a seasonal basis? The A35 road suffers terrible congestion.

All these things can just about be managed with the existing infrastructure. I get a horrible feeling we’re in for a long and tedious franchise, bereft of innovation or consultation.

David Henshaw, Dorchester