South West Trains

South West Trains (SWT) is the trading name of Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited, a train operating company in the United Kingdom operating passenger services in south west London, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon and Somerset. Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited is part of the Stagecoach Group who also own East Midlands Trains, operators of East Midlands franchise.

History
South West Trains was formed in 1994 following the creation of shadow franchises, publicly owned Train Operating Companies, prior to the privatisation of British Rail. South West Trains operated services in the former British Rail Southern Region's South Western division and some extending into the Western Region. On 4 February 1996 Stagecoach took control of the franchise for an initial period of seven years and continued to use the South West Trains name. South West Trains and Great Western Trains were the first privately operated railway franchises. Initially Stagecoach encountered difficulty in running the franchise after seeking cost reductions which included a reduction in the number of drivers which resulted in the cancellation of up to 39 trains a day throughout February and March 1997. As a result Stagecoach was fined £250,000 twice for non-compliance with the published timetable. Following these problems and resulting bad publicity the company settled down and made a number of service, reliability and punctuality improvements and ordered a number of new trains.

Towards the end of the initial franchise period Stagecoach was announced as the preferred bidder for the renewal of the South West Trains franchise. Following this announcement from the Government Stagecoach placed a £1 billion order with Siemens Transportation Systems for new Desiro trains and associated services. At the time it was the the largest single order from a UK train operator. The original order consisted of one hundred 4 coach class 450 units, thirty two 5 coach class 450 units and forty five 5 coach class 444 units (at a total cost of £640 million) and a contract for service and maintenance of the fleet. Stagecoach was then awarded a franchise extension of four years. Despite the capacity improvements the new trains would bring the order for the 5 coach class 450 units was cancelled as the Strategic Rail Authority was not prepared to pay for the required improvements to the suburban railway infrastructure to allow 10 car trains. South West Trains instead was to receive an additional ten 4 coach 450 units with the rest of the order becoming thirty 4 coach class 350 for West Coast mainline services. The new fleet of trains allowed the company to withdraw its 4-CEP, 4-BEP, 4-VEP and 4-CIG slam door units from mainline service, only two 3-CIG remained for the Lymington Branch and one 4-VEP for special occasions.

On 22 September 2006 Stagecoach won the right to operate the new South Western franchise which includes South West Trains and Island Line for a period of 10 years. This new franchise began on 4 February 2007.

Services
The majority of South West Trains services operate either to or from London Waterloo station.

Main Line Services
South Western Mainline
 * London Waterloo - Woking - Basingstoke - Winchester - Southampton Central - Brockenhurst - Bournemouth - Poole - Weymouth.

West of England Mainline
 * London Waterloo - Woking - Basingstoke - Andover - Salisbury - Yeovil Junction - Exeter Central.

Portsmouth Direct Line
 * London Waterloo - Woking - Guildford - Haslemere - Portsmouth and Southsea - Portsmouth Harbour.

Suburban services
South West Trains operate a large number of suburban services service the south west of Greater London and the surrounding area. Suburban services include:-


 * London Waterloo to Reading
 * London Waterloo to Windsor and Eton Riverside
 * London Waterloo to Shepperton
 * London Waterloo to Chessington
 * London Waterloo to Dorking
 * London Waterloo to Hampton Court
 * London Waterloo to Ascot
 * London Waterloo to Wimbledon and Surbiton
 * London Waterloo to Weybridge
 * London Waterloo to Alton

Local Services
In addition to its mainline and suburban services South West Trains operates a number of service not originating in London. These include:-


 * Southampton Central to Portsmouth Harbour
 * Salisbury to Romsey via Southampton Central
 * Brockenhurst to Lymington Pier

Rolling Stock

 * 1) Currently under going refurbishment.
 * 2) Used on the Lymington to Brockenhurst as part of the heritage line.
 * 3) Formerly Class 450/1
 * 4) Formerly Class 121

Liveries
Following their initial taking over of the South West Trains franchise Stagecoach began to repaint its rolling stock into an adaptation of the Network SouthEast livery. This involved adding a orange stripe beneath the existing red stripe and repainting the blue stripe a lighter shade. This livery was applied to most class 455 units along with most of the slam door fleet. The first unit to receive this livery was Wessex Electric number 442402 with was painted for the launch of franchise in 1996.

From 1998 the Wessex Electric fleet began to emerge in a new livery consisting of red and orange 'swooshes' on the ends of the unit with blue lover body with orange stripe with the majority of the body painted white with red door surrounds. This would later become known as 'express' livery and is applied to rolling stock used for long distance services. It is also applied to the class 458 units as they were completed before the decision was made to have have different liveries for different services and because South West Trains did not feel it was appropriate to spend money on repainting the units.

Class 450 units are painted in a blue livery with red and orange 'swooshes'. The blue livery is intended to identify outer suburban and local services though the class 450's operate on a variety of services including inner suburban and long distance. 450/5 High Capacity Desiros remain in blue livery despite their inner-suburban field of operation, this is because South West Trains did not feel it was appropriate to spend money on repainting the units. The class 73's and class 960 are also painted in this livery.

Class 455 units are painted in a red livery with blue and orange 'swooshes'. This livery is for inner suburban units.

The 3-CIG wear heritage liveries, one in British Rail blue and grey, the other in Southern Region green.