A bit of a SWR oddity (buses running alongside trains)

[Kite159]

I was looking at RTT for ideas of something to do this coming Sunday and it seems SWR have replaced the Salisbury - Reading stopping service with buses between Salisbury & Basingstoke calling at all the stations with a separate shuttle between Basingstoke & Reading, but it seems the Waterloo - Exeter semi-fasts are still running as normal.

Later in the day when the Salisbury - Reading stoppers swap to running to Waterloo they are being run as trains (last bus being the 1544 Salisbury to Basingstoke with the 16:44 departure onwards being trains).

Realtime Trains | Departures from Andover all day on 04/04/2021

Train information at Andover all day on 04/04/2021. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I guess it's due to staff shortage in running buses for the stoppers whilst the semi-fasts carry on as normal?

(Just a bit annoying as it means if I wanted to travel to Salisbury/Basingstoke on Sunday it would be via a replacement bus)

(No mention of any engineering works on NRE which affects Salisbury - Basingstoke)

 

[Horizon22]

I was looking at RTT for ideas of something to do this coming Sunday and it seems SWR have replaced the Salisbury - Reading stopping service with buses between Salisbury & Basingstoke calling at all the stations with a separate shuttle between Basingstoke & Reading, but it seems the Waterloo - Exeter semi-fasts are still running as normal.

Later in the day when the Salisbury - Reading stoppers swap to running to Waterloo they are being run as trains (last bus being the 1544 Salisbury to Basingstoke with the 16:44 departure onwards being trains).

Realtime Trains | Departures from Andover all day on 04/04/2021

Train information at Andover all day on 04/04/2021. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I guess it's due to staff shortage in running buses for the stoppers whilst the semi-fasts carry on as normal?

(Just a bit annoying as it means if I wanted to travel to Salisbury/Basingstoke on Sunday it would be via a replacement bus)

(No mention of any engineering works on NRE which affects Salisbury - Basingstoke)

I can only assume a shortage of drivers with the Reading route knowledge available to work on Sunday? But seems odd they couldn't just run to Basingstoke instead, or the driver shortage really is worse and terminating at Basingstoke causes problems?

 

[30907]

(No mention of any engineering works on NRE which affects Salisbury - Basingstoke)

The NRE site has - in the section relating to Southampton

Additionally on Sunday, buses will replace trains between Basingstoke and Salisbury.

Even by NRE standards this is poor, and there is nothing on the SWR website about this.

My first reaction is that the WTT trains should have been deleted/altered, but I may be wrong. I suggest contacting SWR directly.

 

[Kite159]

The NRE site has - in the section relating to Southampton

Even by NRE standards this is poor, and there is nothing on the SWR website about this.

My first reaction is that the WTT trains should have been deleted/altered, but I may be wrong. I suggest contacting SWR directly.

That is just poor from NRE, why lump a mention in about the Salisbury - Basingstoke line for works in the Southampton area.