Good News For Portsmouth Rail Commuters

Further boost for passengers as South West Trains secures additional carriages.

South West Trains passengers are set to benefit from a further boost to their service.

Passengers will see more seats provided on a number of morning and evening peak services to and from London Waterloo through the introduction of 48 extra carriages creating an additional 2,400 extra seats every day. 

The extra carriages will mean five, six and eight car trains can be lengthened to run as eight, nine, 10 and 12-car services, providing the following enhancement:

* Six longer mainline trains from Salisbury, Yeovil Junction, Basingstoke, Portsmouth Harbour (via Eastleigh) and Alton to London Waterloo

Tim Shoveller, Managing Director for South West Trains, said: "Our network is one of the busiest in Europe and we carry around 300,000 passengers to and from London Waterloo, the UK's busiest railway station, every day.

"The number of passengers we are attracting to our rail services has doubled in the past 15 years. 

Both South West Trains and the Department for Transport recognise our shared responsibility to tackle overcrowding and look at ways of providing extra capacity and more seats for the 200 million customers who travel on our network every year.

"We have already confirmed the introduction of 60 additional carriages, which will be introduced from May next year, and today's announcement that we have successfully secured a further 48 carriages will provide another huge boost to South West Trains' passengers."