It seems likely that a lot of brown stuff is going to hit SWR's fan in the next few weeks. Their "get out of jail free" card, blaming everything on staff shortages due to omicron, won't work for much longer, and it will become obvious that SWR no longer has enough rolling stock to run the timetable which will be needed beyond the end of plan B restrictions.
In the last couple of years, they have scrapped the 442s, sent two-thirds of the 707s to South Eastern, off-hired the 456s, let 455s run out of maintenance hours, and started sending 458s away for reconfiguring. All that despite there being no sign of any of the 701s being ready to enter traffic.