Despite the 28-day strike ending at the start of the new year, South Western Railway (SWR) will continue to cause disruption to travellers for another four days to allow guards to update their safety procedures and prepare for engineering work across the weekend.

Further delays have been annouced by SWR this morning (January 2) due to a broken down train which closed all lines between Staines and Ascot throughout the day, which is predicted to cause disruptions until 7pm.

In addition to this, commuters between Ryde Pier Head and Shanklin are also delayed due to a crew member being taken ill which has stations between these areas to reduced their service until late this evening.    

A reduced weekday service will operate throughout the first week of January along with engineering work planned on 4 and 5 January, with revised timetables updated in earnest on January 6.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and SWR took strike throughout the entire month of December and caused the company to cancel more than 17,000 trains

This drastically affected all routes to and from mainline Waterloo, as well as which has disrupted major destinations including Basingstoke, Southampton and Winchester. 

One resident took to twitter to air his frustration with the poor rail lines available: “Why don’t #SouthWesternRailway care about people who work in Clapham Junction? There is no train stopping at Clapham Junction between 7.15 am to 9.10am.

“It’s becoming a big problem for customers who live in Basingstoke or Woking but work in Clapham. No train for two hours?”

If you need to check your rail services, use the journey planner on the SWR website at https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey.