How rail chiefs hope to make line more reliable after 'appalling' summer

For passengers travelling on South Western Rail (SWR) across the south-west of England, this summer's extreme weather has caused major delays and disruption.

SWR's popular service between Exeter in Devon and London, which thousands of people use every day, has been cut to two-hourly rather than every hour amid the track becoming unstable in hot, dry weather.

The service, which runs through Somerset and Wiltshire, has also been forced to run at reduced speeds. This has caused some long delays to journeys.

Salisbury to Exeter Rail User Group (SERUG) said the line's "timekeeping has been appalling" over the last six weeks, with a survey revealing 90% of trains were arriving late at Crewkerne in Somerset in July.

Passengers have also complained that when outside temperatures rise above 26C (78.8F), the trains' aircon stops working, which has caused "anxiety" and unsafe conditions.

SWR's managing director, Lawrence Bowman, has now promised sweeping changes to boost reliability - but will they work and what do passengers think of the plans?

Parts of the SWR network are built on clay embankments that normally hold a large amount of water.

These can suffer from soil moisture deficit when it dries out during periods of prolonged dry weather and becomes uneven, meaning that speed restrictions need to be put in place to ensure trains can travel on them safely.

"We're in unprecedented times for national infrastructure and the railway really isn't an exception to that," said Lawrence Bowman, SWR's managing director.

Similar measures were put in place last year and were only lifted in November.

Some of the challenges within the area date back to the Beeching cuts when some double track sections of the line were reduced to single track in the 1960s.

This is especially prevalent between Salisbury and Exeter and, coupled with speed restrictions, can cause increasing delays as trains also wait for their turn to pass along the single-track sections.

SWR say that "every available train" is currently being used and that some services are operating with more carriages than usual.

However, SWR's fleet is ageing and some of the existing rolling stock is in need of maintenance.

Bowman says there have been some "short term challenges with rolling stock availability," and that this is exacerbated by slower supply chains that especially affect engines and wheel sets.

Work is already under way to improve sections of the track that are badly affected.

"We've removed hundreds of trees, we've dropped ballast to give stabilisation to the track and we've been working really hard to keep the track in shape," said Bowman.

SWR has also set up a stakeholder advisory board, which includes local councils, tourism bodies and developers to help make the case for bringing in some improved rolling stock.

Bowman says the stakeholders will also look at areas where the track can be improved to help reduce delays and can lobby for investment in the railway line as "one voice" in the longer term.

They are also in the process of "doing an overhaul programme" on their rolling stock but Bowman says there "are no easy fixes".

The company is also working with Southampton University to look at innovative ways to keep the infrastructure resilient to climate change.

Bowman said his team is "working relentlessly, day in day out, to get the timetable restored as quickly as possible".

Until then, SWR chiefs say they will be putting on additional rail replacement bus services once the school year starts.

However, when the timetables were switched to every two hours in 2025, again due to extreme heat, the hourly service was not restored until November.

Bowman says a longer term ambition is to seek more investment in the line, but concedes that any major funding would have to come from central government.

He believes that the growing popularity of the line and housing developments around it mean there is a viable economic case to be made for funding improvements to the tracks and signalling infrastructure.

Some passengers have experienced uncomfortable journeys this summer due to the lack of air conditioning on some trains.

Stephen Low from Sidmouth said the temperature inside the carriage reached 36.2C (97.1F) while travelling from Basingstoke to Honiton during a heatwave on 25 May.

"It was stifling and the oxygen levels were very low, which made my wife quite anxious," he said.

"It was about two hours and 20 minutes at that temperature. It was quite frightening."

Nick Hurrell, secretary of SERUG, an independent passenger campaign group, said he has also been on a number of trains where the air conditioning did not work.

"It doesn't work when it's over about 25C (77F), 26C (78.8F) outside temperature," he said.

"And that's because they're diesel trains and the aircon simply can't cope to run diesel engines as well as aircon."

A spokesperson from SWR said the effectiveness of its air conditioning systems has been affected by the extreme heat.

"These trains, and their air conditioning systems, were designed around 40 years ago, and were not designed for the extreme temperatures we are seeing now," they said.

"The trains we operate between London Waterloo and Exeter St Davids are going through a refurbishment programme and, as part of that, we will make improvements to the air conditioning systems, however, we cannot change the systems' fundamental design capability."

Hurrell added that "timekeeping has been appalling in the last six weeks".

"We ran a survey talking to passengers and looking at the data we get from the rail companies and 90% of the trains were arriving late at Crewkerne throughout July and early August," he said.

Hurrell said the group hope their survey will help highlight the need for new railway stock and improved infrastructure.

Follow BBC Somerset on Facebook and X. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.