south west trains reading to brighton service: your help needed

[Big Bob Jones]

hello, this is my first post so sorry if i appear slightly ignorant, but i'm really intrigued to know why the reading to brighton service was withdrawn, and when it was withdrawn.

 

having read various responses from SWT, what i have understood so far is that the service was withdrawn because the new SWT franchise with meant that they were no longer contractually obliged to run this service.

 

fair enough, but then why isn't someone else running it? my understanding was always that network rail were responsible for all train services in the uk and that the train companies could bid for the routes that they wanted to operate. so have i got this wrong? because surely if SWT's new franchise meant they no longer had to operate it, another company would have to.

 

another article i read somewhere seemed to be suggesting that it was withdrawn because people were not using it to go all the way from reading to brighton and were just using it for "local journeys" :-|.... but why is that a problem? so long as people pay for their tickets, does it really matter wether they stay on the train all the way? i mean people never stay on the SWT stopping services all the way from southampton to waterloo, they are just used for local stations, as people from southampton can get fast trains to waterloo.

 

can anyone in the know shed some ligt on this for me, i need your help here, as i'm really confused about the whole thing.

the withdrawl of the service is a nightmare for me, i used to go from reading to chichester, but now have to go via southampton to do this which takes twice the time and is really congested.

 

also, i thought SWT were saying their services were over-used, they say that and then go and get ride of an hourly service which, from what i could see was very well used

[nufsaid]

Hiya Big Bob welcome to cag.

There is an article and video I found regarding the train service you mentioned.

 

SWT cease services to Brighton

 

It seems Dec 9th 2007 is when stw stopped going out of Brighton altogether.

 

YouTube - Last day of South West Trains at Brighton, 08/12/07.

 

Public transport in this country is a shambles the people who govern it are seldom the ones who have to use it.

NS

[Conniff]

Public transport in this country is a shambles the people who govern it are seldom the ones who have to use it.

 

 

You are so right nufsaid. If this government really wanted people to use public transport, they would knock off or vastly reduce the amount they add to the fuel for buses.

Also, if they really wanted people out of cars, why did they force dealers to reduce the price of cars a few years ago to be the same as that of the Eupropean dealers, it was not a directive at the time.

[nufsaid]

You are so right nufsaid. If this government really wanted people to use public transport, they would knock off or vastly reduce the amount they add to the fuel for buses.

Also, if they really wanted people out of cars, why did they force dealers to reduce the price of cars a few years ago to be the same as that of the Eupropean dealers, it was not a directive at the time.

 

I know we had to get to Cardiff to visit hubbies folks it was his mums birthday do.

Our cars were playing up as usual.

So we needed to travel from the midlands and back in the same night I called the coach companies no of them had a direct route so tried the trains the only one was £165 return for a family of 4 this is the coach price and the last train back is 11pm useless.

I called car rental places I managed to get a new Vectra for 24hrs for £35 something needs sorting with the public transport in this country it's so annoying.