PLANS to reintroduce direct rail services between Farnham and Guildford are moving full steam ahead, after the Department of Transport (DfT) awarded the Stagecoach South West Trains (SWT) franchise to First MTR South Western Trains Limited this week.

It came as a surprise on Monday, when the Government revealed that as from August 20 the South Western rail network will be run, for the next seven years, not by Stagecoach but by FirstGroup with MTR, a Chinese company which runs the Hong Kong Metro service.

The deal promises to deliver £1.2 billion of investment, with “better trains, more seats and quicker journeys,” designed to improve the customer experience.

And of particular interest to Farnham commuters are two elements of the First MTR announcement, namely the reintroduction of a regular Farnham to Guildford service and the promise to improve weekend services with more than 400 extra Sunday trains across the network.

If adopted, the new Alton to Guildford service would see a return to the original line service abandoned decades ago in favour of an interchange at Aldershot.

Journeys to Guildford currently take 27 minutes from Farnham with one change, but this could be cut by as much as 15 minutes with a direct service.

The Guildford service could one day be extended to Alton, but this would likely require the costly reintroduction of at least part of the double track between Alton and Farnham and is not currently on the table.

It comes after Surrey County Council proposed a new two trains-per-hour service between Farnham and Guildford, to compliment the existing services to London Waterloo, in its last Rail Strategy in 2013.

This was backed by local business leaders, buoyed by plans to link the Farnham line with new stations serving the Royal Surrey County Hospital and the Surrey Research Park, as well as Farnham MP Jeremy Hunt.

Responding to the First MTR announcement this week, Mr Hunt told The Herald: “A new Farnham to Guildford rail service is a big step forward and something I have been campaigning for over many years.

“But local people will also want to see real progress in expanding capacity on the core commuter routes to Waterloo which are all too often overcrowded and uncomfortable.

“I look forward to meeting Tim O’Toole, the chief executive of FirstGroup plc later in the year and I hope he understands that I will continue to be frank with him about service shortcomings as I was with his predecessors.”

In a statement FirstGroup also pledged to deliver “faster and more frequent services” by boosting peak seating provision and providing a new fleet of 90 trains by 30 per cent by December 2020, and cutting mainline journey times and providing more Sunday services to match weekday off-peak on most routes from December 2018.

In addition there is the promise of a new innovative customer app with mobile ticketing, better Wi-Fi speed and coverage, £90 million in station investment, and at least 1,500 new car parking spaces.

The DfT’s decision was met with “shock” by the Alton Line Users Association (ALUA), however, which expressed concern this week over the loss of incumbent franchisee Stagecoach.

Having experienced a “stable service” over the past 20 years courtesy of Stagecoach, ALUA is hoping that the new arrangement will not put the needs of the more lucrative lines above the Alton spur line which, for the past 13 years has been pressing for the reinstatement of a faster more efficient service.

The South Western network is one of the largest in the UK, encompassing routes connecting London Waterloo with Portsmouth, Weymouth, Exeter and Bristol.

While at the end of a spur line, the fear is locally that: “The Alton line will remain the poor relation to the more lucrative Southampton and Portsmouth lines.”

Speaking on behalf of ALUA, Alton commuter Graham Titterington said: “The change in the franchise is quite a shock to the rail system as the Stagecoach tenure at SWT is the only franchise that has lasted since rail privatisation started.

“Commuters will have mixed feelings as they have had plenty to complain about over the last 20 years, but Stagecoach has provided a stable service while handling a massive increase in usage.

“Many of the changes have been due to government policy or wider economic developments and so are likely to continue, whoever is in charge.

“More worrying are the track record of some First Group franchises such as Great Western and the threat of a government inspired directive to remove guards from trains as a condition of the new franchise.

“Passengers will also be looking for a simplification of the over complicated fares system, made worse by the recent restrictions on weekend travel using day return tickets.”