Two months of disruption for South Western Railway at Salisbury due to train crew shortage

South Western Railway have announced that there will be major disruption on Saturday's for their West of England line until at least December 11th.

That's due to an ongoing shortage of train crew as Covid-19 has disrupted their driver training programme.

This will affect services between Exeter, Bristol, Salisbury and London Waterloo on Saturday's only.

It means there will be no direct SWR trains from Salisbury to London Waterloo or from Salisbury to Bristol.

The Salisbury to Bristol line has been permanently withdrawn.

However, the line from Exeter to London Waterloo will run as normal, just the services from Salisbury to Waterloo directly will be affected.

A statement on the South Western Railway website says:

"The underlying cause of these issues is a shortage of available drivers, due to the extensive disruption Covid restrictions have caused to our new driver training programme over the past year. The delay to newly trained drivers passing out of our Salisbury depot has been further compounded by problems securing replacement buses and taxis. By taking this action, we aim to provide certainty for customers and reduce the number of late notice cancellations.

We're sorry for the inconvenience this will cause our customers."

WHAT CHANGES CAN WE EXPECT?

Here is a full rundown of the changes in place from this Saturday (9th October):

• Salisbury to London Waterloo stopping services will terminate at Basingstoke – customers will need to change at Basingstoke for onward services to Woking, Clapham Junction and Waterloo

• London Waterloo to Salisbury services will start at Basingstoke. Customers travelling from Waterloo, Clapham Junction and Woking will need to catch an earlier service and change at Basingstoke

• SWR services between Salisbury and Bristol will not run. Customers will need to use connecting GWR services via a change at Salisbury. If you have an Advance ticket, you will be able to travel on GWR services on this route. If you can, try to travel close to your original booked time.

• Customers to / from Warminster and Westbury may be able to use the Salisbury – Yeovil via Westbury services which will continue to run.

• SWR services to Yeovil Pen Mill / Yeovil Junction via Westbury will run as normal.

• SWR services between London Waterloo and Exeter (via Salisbury) will run as normal.

You can find out more by visiting to the South Western Railway website.

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