No extra weekend train carriages for Surbiton - just yet!

South West Trains have said that they have 'no immediate plans' to increase the number of weekend carriages for Surbiton trains, but there is a chance of an increase in the future.

Surbitonpeople has been pestering South West Trains for more carriages on weekend trains from Surbiton stations for some time now.  It's certainly not been easy communicating with the train company who have been both slow to reply and dismissive of our point of view.  However, with the help of Surbiton's GLA representative Tony Arbour, they have at last responded with a full explanation and have even indicated that things could improve in the future.

We of course realise that trains are too crowded during weekdays, but South West Trains always state that there is only so much capacity on the limited number of tracks into Waterloo.  Without specialist knowledge, it's quite frankly difficult to argue the point.  However, we have always thought that we should at least be able to be guaranteed a seat during the weekend.  But that's rarely the case when half of the carriages are axed during the weekend.

South West Trains explained to us that much of the heavily used rolling stock needs to be serviced during the weekends, so that it's ready in time for the weekday peaks.  They also state that some of the rolling stock is moved around the area to help when large localised events take place.  These are of course good reasons, but we aren't completely convinced.

Despite the generally negative reply, there is some hope.  Apparently the Train Planning Manager has been made aware of our and Tony Arbour's concerns.  The good news is that is under the new scheme currently being evaluated by the Department for Transport, they hope to be able to increase the amount of carriages by 25% in the near future.  So there's no need to break out the champagne just yet, but at least we have some hope heading into 2012.