Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, today welcomed new, South West Trains franchise holders, FirstGroup and MTR.
Stagecoach Group, which has run the service since privatisation in 1996, lost the franchise to the consortium after their bid was unsuccessful.
Drax, who has long campaigned for a faster service from Weymouth to London, said that he would welcome the new investment required of the new, FirstGroup/MTR operators, but that “it should not be restricted to suburban services around London.”
“The new operators are promising a transformation of the network, which, judging from passenger group complaints about reliability and seating space, was sorely needed.”
“All I would ask is that the entire length of the routes are examined. There is a viable plan to cut at least 30 minutes of the journey time from Waterloo to Weymouth by running the line via Salisbury. This requires a modest amount of investment and would bring maximum dividends. The Government, the Local Enterprise Partnership and Dorset County Council are all looking at the opportunities this would bring to South Dorset and I have written today to the new train operator to lobby for this essential improvement and also for new investment in Weymouth station itself.”