22 Mar 2008 - SouthWestTrains

South West trains will be withdrawing services west of Exeter from the end of next year. This has been planned because once improvements have been made to the line east of Honiton to Salisbury a new  hourly service to Waterloo will commence. This will require extra rolling stock which will partly compensated for by turning trains back at Exeter.

The absence of SWT services west of Exeter will have serious consequences for Ivybridge as we will lose 4 services per day.  Also other places along the line will lose services, eg. Dawlish,Teignmouth,Torquay, Paignton, Newton Abbot, Totnes and Plymouth.

The DfT must be lobbied hard for replacements to these lost services and provide the necessary funds for either FGW to provide these lost services or allow SWT to invest in extra rolling stock to provide both the hourly service to Waterloo from Exeter and to continue with the good service they supply west of Exeter.

Negotiations are already under way between the DfT and Devon County Council and other Rail user's organisations. We hope that they will come to a satisfactory conclusion.