What changes could be made to services on the Waterloo–Reading line?

cc97 · 10 Jul 2026

Moderator note - split from:

May 2026 timetable

I was just looking for my daughter who wants to go from Hull to Manchester later this year and there don't appear to be any Hull to Manchester directs into September. I can see them throughout July and into August on RTT. Seem to stop 10th August and resume 7th September.

www.railforums.co.uk

JonathanH said:
A permanent change for greater connectivity. While it adds two minutes to the overall journey time, it may also reduce the length of journey for sone users.

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/timetables

I don't think this would be possible, I know they do it at peak times, but I think they should look at the possibility of making services from Waterloo to Aldershot via Ascot more of a permanent thing which would give Camberley and Bagshot better connections into Central London

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matthenj · 10 Jul 2026

cc97 said:
I don't think this would be possible, I know they do it at peak times, but I think they should look at the possibility of making services from Waterloo to Aldershot via Ascot more of a permanent thing which would give Camberley and Bagshot better connections into Central London

I'd rather they ran fast to Clapham from Virginia Water: get the service down to an hour from Reading.

Starmill · 10 Jul 2026

matthenj said:
I'd rather they ran fast to Clapham from Virginia Water: get the service down to an hour from Reading.

How? You'd run through the back of several other services ahead...

cduncan · 10 Jul 2026

Since the May timetable change. Used to be only Sundays when Reading services call at Vauxhall. Longcross does get served until around after 20:00 (every hour on Sundays)

Jimini · 11 Jul 2026

As a Fulham season ticket holder who lives in Reading, I'd love it if they'd add the Putney call to the other six days of the week aside from Sundays :lol:

Dstock7080 · 11 Jul 2026

Timetable No.4 still claims that 10.39 ex-Reading, 11.35 ex-Feltham does not call at Vauxhall (12.00):

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/-/media/files/plan-my-journey/timetables/may-2026/ptt04-may-2026.pdf

complaint to SWR didn’t gain any result.

jfollows · 11 Jul 2026

Dstock7080 said:
Timetable No.4 still claims that 10.39 ex-Reading, 11.35 ex-Feltham does not call at Vauxhall (12.00):

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/-/media/files/plan-my-journey/timetables/may-2026/ptt04-may-2026.pdf

complaint to SWR didn’t gain any result.

It’s not shown to call in the original working timetable either, https://www.networkrail.co.uk/industry-and-commercial/the-timetable/working-timetable/, but presumably this has been updated since it’s now shown to call in Realtime Trains. So presumably the SWR timetable was based on the original timetable.

43096 · 11 Jul 2026

Jimini said:
As a Fulham season ticket holder who lives in Reading, I'd love it if they'd add the Putney call to the other six days of the week aside from Sundays

Just no. The service has got slower and slower and slower over the years. The Vauxhall stop is unnecessary given the same or cross platform connections available at Clapham Jct.

Class15 · 11 Jul 2026

Starmill said:
How? You'd run through the back of several other services ahead...

Perhaps try and pick a perfect path along the Hounslow Loop?

JonathanH · 11 Jul 2026

Class15 said:
Perhaps try and pick a perfect path along the Hounslow Loop?

There isn't a 'perfect path' via either Richmond or Hounslow because of the need to accommodate stoppers and faster services on two track railways.

As it is, the move of the Windsor to xx03, and Reading to xx18 from Waterloo puts the two longer distance journeys at an even interval from Waterloo. Up Windsor and Reading services are also at even intervals between Clapham Junction and Waterloo

cle · 11 Jul 2026

matthenj said:
I'd rather they ran fast to Clapham from Virginia Water: get the service down to an hour from Reading.

You’d skip most of the ridership that way, and the viability.

sharpener · 11 Jul 2026

43096 said:
The Vauxhall stop is unnecessary given the same or cross platform connections available at Clapham Jct.

Convenient connection to the Victoria Line though, direct to KGX, we use it quite a lot.

Jimini · 11 Jul 2026

sharpener said:
Convenient connection to the Victoria Line though, direct to KGX, we use it quite a lot.

Very much agree with this.

My earlier comment about stopping at Putney was firmly with tongue in cheek though :lol:

(…although I do love it when we have Sunday home games!)

SWT_USER · 11 Jul 2026

JonathanH said:
There isn't a 'perfect path' via either Richmond or Hounslow because of the need to accommodate stoppers and faster services on two track railways.

As it is, the move of the Windsor to xx03, and Reading to xx18 from Waterloo puts the two longer distance journeys at an even interval from Waterloo. Up Windsor and Reading services are also at even intervals between Clapham Junction and Waterloo

Given the Hounslow loop service is half what it should be for the majority of the time it could definitely run fast via the loop, as the Weybridge service closely follows the Reading service from Virgina Water. Similarly going out of London the Reading service leaves just before the Weybridge.

Clearly this won't happen, and Richmond and Twickenham are too busy to skip anyway, apart from when Brentford are playing at home seemingly.

The Reading service is so slow now there is a good argument for stopping it at Ashford and Whitton to give those stations a better service too.

cle · 12 Jul 2026

It is definitely a semi fast service now. And basically a local service railway other than the Richmond-Clapham strait.

Once a fourth local is reinstated on the Hounslow loop, they should explore increasing the Windsor service that way to 4tph too - with a semi fast pattern.

matthenj · 12 Jul 2026

cle said:
You’d skip most of the ridership that way, and the viability.

But you’d offer a viable alternative to the overstretched Twyford -> Paddington service, potentially relieving the local issues re parking: whilst making the train more effective than driving. Currently, it’s quicker (and cheaper tbh) for me to drive to SE London and park, then use the direct train a 15 minute walk from my house. It’s beyond idiotic at this point.

There’s already a slow train to Virginia Water. The intermediate stations have a connection.

As it is, we’re in the situation where people are driving/getting lifts from Wokingham to the Paddington line and then jumping on the GWML - how is that good for either the environment or the local road network?

43096 · 12 Jul 2026

sharpener said:
Convenient connection to the Victoria Line though, direct to KGX, we use it quite a lot.

There is the alternative of Bakerloo from Waterloo to Oxford Circus, cross-platform to the Victoria line for that route. The Vauxhall stop is unneccessary.

cle · 13 Jul 2026

Potentially a few faster services (fast Staines - Clapham) via the Hounslow loop could work at peak times... ? While that route is so underserved.

The busiest station on the route is interestingly Kew Bridge, but at ~1.1m is not an essential call in itself. The rest are all sub 1m, even Hounslow and Brentford. They'd all benefit from another 2tph but hopefully these fasts could be pathed in. Wouldn't be much faster but might feel like a better experience for the outer folks. I think you'd need the Egham and Staines calls though.

JonathanH · 13 Jul 2026

cle said:
Potentially a few faster services (fast Staines - Clapham) via the Hounslow loop could work at peak times... ? While that route is so underserved.

I don't think 'fast via Hounslow' is really a thing, although I agree that the route was used in that way before 2004.

The Hounslow loop remains 4tph at peak times, with loop services having their performance dwell time there. Passing time from Barnes to Feltham Junction with stops at Richmond and Twickenham is 11 minutes.

To put a fast train around Hounslow, it needs to be ahead of the Weybridge at Barnes. Current departure time of that service is xx12, so needs to be passing about xx09. The departure time of the loop train at Hounslow going back towards London via Richmond is xx18, so a fast won't be through Hounslow until xx21 at the earliest. It basically might as well go via, and stop at, Richmond and Twickenham, or stop at Brentford.

cle · 13 Jul 2026

Could it not be held in the loop back towards Whitton - so that a Reading0bound service behind it could continue onwards?

4tph should not be the max capacity for that route either - ideally it could handle 8: 2 Reading and 2 Windsor as the non-locals.

JonathanH · 13 Jul 2026

cle said:
4tph should not be the max capacity for that route either - ideally it could handle 8: 2 Reading and 2 Windsor as the non-locals.

I didn't suggest that there was no path, just that it doesn't offer a 'fast' path. Any faster service using the Hounslow Loop might as well stop at Hounslow and Brentford, which did happen in the contra-flow direction in some pre-2020 timetables.

The Hounslow Loop sees a little bit of freight use west of Brentford. There is also the possibility of that Hounslow to Hendon West London Orbital service that has been discussed eventually uses some of the capacity - https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/west-london-orbital.

cle · 13 Jul 2026

cle said:
Wouldn't be much faster but might feel like a better experience for the outer folks.

I did say this, to be fair. Fast meaning no calls, vs actually much speedier. It's longer, curvier and with a slower line speed. But it might feel less of a cow train than the current service can do, and needs to be.

Dr_Intoxicated · 13 Jul 2026

Don't forget about stopping at Feltham it is the official connection from these lines to Heathrow.

Michaeco · 14 Jul 2026

For Heavens sake, why not stop all South Western Railway trains at all stations. They are slow enough already and compare unfavourably with trains that run west and north from London.

matthenj · 14 Jul 2026

Dr_Intoxicated said:
Don't forget about stopping at Feltham it is the official connection from these lines to Heathrow.

Why would that be needed for travellers from the Reading end?

Elizabeth line, Rail Air, Direct Bus from Bracknell. Get it skipped. Or change at Virginia Water.

Dstock7080 · 14 Jul 2026

43096 said:
There is the alternative of Bakerloo from Waterloo to Oxford Circus, cross-platform to the Victoria line for that route. The Vauxhall stop is unneccessary.

Not step-free, whereas Vauxhall is.

43096 · 14 Jul 2026

Dstock7080 said:
Not step-free, whereas Vauxhall is.

For that there is the alternative of cross-platform at Clapham Junction. Same number of changes.

Dr_Intoxicated · 14 Jul 2026

Michaeco said:
For Heavens sake, why not stop all South Western Railway trains at all stations. They are slow enough already and compare unfavourably with trains that run west and north from London.

Well I don't see why people nearer London should see their service halved to save a few minutes for the relatively few people who would be travelling from reading all the way to Waterloo

matthenj · 14 Jul 2026

There are 6 trains an hour from Feltham to Waterloo.

Reducing that to 5 would be no hardship, and is certainly not halving the service provision.

Farigiraf · 14 Jul 2026

Dr_Intoxicated said:
Well I don't see why people nearer London should see their service halved to save a few minutes for the relatively few people who would be travelling from reading all the way to Waterloo

While that is a valid point, the Waterloo-Reading service is really just a combination of a Wokingham-London commuter train and a Staines-Reading local train.

At the moment, because the direct train takes over an hour, commuters from Bracknell and Wokingham (of which there are many) drive to Elizabeth line stations instead. This isn't optimal, as roads get congested, Twyford car park fills up before the locals can make use of it, and high capacity SWR services aren't utilised to their full extent. In an ideal world, these towns would have fast services to London, and this is indeed what happens on 4-tracked mainlines.

However, a faster train isn't really possible on a 2-track railway where every intermediate station justifies at least a half-hourly service. So the stations closer to London, which have higher growth potential and fewer alternatives, get prioritised. It makes sense but isn't perfect - the same situation can be seen at Maidstone, Welwyn Garden City and Southend which have almost exclusively slow-ish local trains to London. The high frequency and high capacity compensates for the high journey times to some extent. That's what you get when you build what are effectively towns-turned-commuter suburbs over 20 miles out of the city.

What changes could be made to services on the Waterloo–Reading line?

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