South Western Railway has now confirmed its new timetable for May 2023 and will be in operation from Monday the 22nd of May. A small number of changes have been made to the timetable and passengers are advised to check the travel plans ahead of making their journey to ensure they are aware of them.

Changes to services are as follows:

Supporting performance of trains used by school students in the Weybridge and Chertsey areas:

• The 07.23 London Waterloo to Alton service will run at 07.20
• The 07.20 London Waterloo to Woking service will run at 07.17
• The 07.17 London Waterloo to Chessington South will run at 07.20
• The 08.03 Weybridge to London Waterloo will run at 08.02

To improve connections in Lymington for ferries heading to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wights:

• The 09.29 Brockenhurst to Lymington Pier will run at 09.42
• The 09.44 Lymington Pier to Brockenhurst will run at 09.57

To support services to the Portsmouth Direct line between Portsmouth Harbour and London Waterloo via Guildford:

• The 06.15 Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo will run at 06.10

To improve services between Westbury and Yeovil Pen Mill, and to better support Great Western Railway‘s new timetable for its Bristol Temple Meads to Weymouth route:

• The 11.37 Basingstoke to Yeovil Junction via Westbury will run at 11.38 and will terminate at Salisbury
• A new service, the 12.51 Salisbury to Yeovil Junction via Westbury will be introduced

The new timetable will meet demand and therefore capacity requirements as customer numbers have now been recorded at 78% of pre-pandemic levels. Peak travel times are also achieving 61% of pre-pandemic levels which is currently lower than the network’s available capacity.

Steve Tyler, Performance and Planning Director for South Western Railway said: “We are confident that our service levels match demand on the network, but have monitored changes in customer flows and made some minor changes to our timetable.

“While the majority of our timetable is the same as the one in place, we have made alterations to improve performance and provide better onward travel, such as in Lymington where our services will offer better connectivity with ferries to the Isle of Wight.

“Our advice to customers is to check before travelling as those changes mean a small number of services will depart slightly earlier, or later, than the December 2022 timetable.”