Meet the Manager

Our previous Meet the Manager sessions

On 21st of July from 16:00-19:00 we were at London Waterloo for our latest Meet the Manager pop up event. It was the first event attended by our new Managing Director Lawrence Bowman and was a great opportunity for him and our Senior Leadership team to speak with our customers face-to-face.

Waterloo’s Frequently Asked Questions

We understand that not all our customers are able to attend our in-person events. To ensure you don't miss out on valuable information, we've compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions from our recent event - along with our responses below:

Arterio latest

We are sorry that the Arterio rollout is taking longer than previously expected; however, from Monday 21st of July there will be more than 160 services a day operated by Arterios, on our routes to Dorking, Guildford, Hampton Court, Kingston, Reading, Shepperton, Twickenham and Windsor & Eton Riverside. In the coming weeks, more and more services will be operated by Arterio.

We now have a way forward that will see increasing numbers of customers enjoying increased capacity and comfort of the Arterios through the rest of 2025 and beyond.

Air conditioning on trains

We are sorry that the conditions on our trains have been uncomfortable lately due to the very warm weather.

The air conditioning systems on our Desiro and Class 158/9 trains were designed before the conditions we are seeing now. As a result, very high temperatures can sometimes reduce their effectiveness.

We are making every effort to ensure these systems work to the best of their abilities in hot temperatures, providing consistent maintenance and ensuring our colleagues know how to deal with any problems that may occur. We are also trialling how to vent trains before they enter service, to ensure the air conditioning works effectively.

Our Class 455 trains were not built with air conditioning. We are gradually replacing these trains with our new Arterio trains, which have very effective air conditioning systems.

Quiet Coaches on Our Trains

At Southwestern Railway, we aim to provide a comfortable and enjoyable journey for all our passengers. On many of our services, we offer a designated Quiet Coach – a space intended for those who prefer a calmer environment to relax, read, or work quietly.

However, we’d like our customers to be aware of the following:

• Not all trains have a Quiet Coach. The availability of Quiet Coaches depends on the type of train operating the service.
• During busy periods, particularly at peak times, maintaining a consistently quiet environment in these coaches may not always be possible due to higher passenger volumes.
• Our on-board staff are not able to enforce Quiet Coach rules. While we encourage passengers to respect the purpose of these spaces, staff cannot compel customers to remain silent or relocate.

We kindly ask all customers seated in a Quiet Coach to be considerate of others by keeping noise to a minimum and using devices discreetly.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in helping us make rail travel more enjoyable for everyone.

Ticket Prices

Fares rose by 4.6% in March. Annual fare increases are set by the Department for Transport. The money that customers pay for tickets will be used to fund important improvements, with the aim of providing a more reliable and sustainable service.

Capacity and Driver Availability

As we introduce the Arterio fleet into service, we are experiencing occasional challenges with both train and driver availability on our network. While we have sufficient of both to run the planned service, we don’t have significant numbers of spares to provide resilience when we have high levels of sickness and unplanned absence or faults on our trains.

This can lead to some short notice changes to services and crowding on some morning peak suburban services on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. We are doing everything we can to reduce the impact including:

• Increasing our engineering capacity to be able to keep more of our existing fleet in service every day
• Moving carriages from quieter services across our network to strengthen our busiest services
• Changing calling patterns and timetables to best meet demand
• Reintroducing our refurbished 458 trains onto suburban routes to strengthen capacity
• Exploring options to speed up the introduction of our Arterio fleet

Customers are advised to check our “How busy is my train tool” to find quieter times to travel if they can.

Information during disruption

We are constantly looking at how to improve the ways in which we provide information to customers, particularly during disruption.

We have developed a Customer Information Strategy to improve how we get information to customers, how it’s presented, and how we use the channels that present the information, from announcements at stations to social media.

We have recently completed a trial of initiatives at London Waterloo. This includes changes to the way in which we present the estimated times of arrivals for delayed services, changes to the way we present train information during major disruption and, based on customer feedback, changes to information provided over PA systems.