Caroline Dinenage - Off the Fence - Frustration at increasing rail delays and a bad wifi signal

Did you know that last month was the one year anniversary of South Western Railway’s nationalisation?

I’m a regular user of SWR services for my commute to Parliament. Like other train passengers, I depend upon the service being reliable and on-time. Recently I’ve noticed that my journeys are increasingly delayed. Sometimes services are cancelled altogether. And don’t get me started on the wifi!

Even though a wireless connection is something of a necessity in the modern world, for South Western, that’s also proving a challenge.

It turns out, this isn’t just me becoming a grumpy, middle aged woman. The data shows a worsening picture too, especially since nationalisation. The irony that the first train to run after South Western entered public hands was a Rail Replacement Bus can’t have been lost on passengers.

But over the year that followed, the number of services not arriving on time increased, and the number of cancellations did too, by 6%. You can now expect one in every three journeys to be late.

I’ve written to South Western and they agreed that the service was “not where we want it to be”. They say improvements will come as they upgrade signalling infrastructure, recruit more drivers and refresh the timetable.

They pointed out that Ofcom recognised South Western for their onboard connectivity, (which begs the question how appalling it must be on other services), yet admit that coverage is patchy across large sections of the Portsmouth Mainline. We need more mobile phone masts along that route.

So, I have called for a debate in Parliament on South Western’s performance. This week in Parliament Labour will pass legislation to nationalise our ‘Great British Railways’. For those who see nationalisation as a silver bullet, South Western’s performance over the past year is a warning that, in reality, things may be anything other than ‘great’.

The result is that some of the most agile current operators, like Lumo, who can boast far better punctuality than South Western, risk being frozen out, whilst no government targets have been set for GBR, which is now both an operator and a regulator.

Meanwhile, will the Government accept a Conservative proposal to enshrine veterans’ right to a railcard in law? Some people on Facebook pointed out that the Government has said it has “no plans to remove the veterans railcard”.

Call me a cynic, but 16 years as an MP has taught me “no plans” today doesn’t mean “no plans” in the future. If the Government really doesn’t want to remove the discount scheme, they could demonstrate it by putting it into the legislation.