hello, this is my first post so sorry if i appear slightly ignorant, but i'm really intrigued to know why the reading to brighton service was withdrawn, and when it was withdrawn. having read various responses from SWT, what i have understood so far is that the service was withdrawn because the new SWT franchise with meant that they were no longer contractually obliged to run this service. fair enough, but then why isn't someone else running it? my understanding was always that network rail were responsible for all train services in the uk and that the train companies could bid for the routes that they wanted to operate. so have i got this wrong? because surely if SWT's new franchise meant they no longer had to operate it, another company would have to. another article i read somewhere seemed to be suggesting that it was withdrawn because people were not using it to go all the way from reading to brighton and were just using it for "local journeys" :-|.... but why is that a problem? so long as people pay for their tickets, does it really matter wether they stay on the train all the way? i mean people never stay on the SWT stopping services all the way from southampton to waterloo, they are just used for local stations, as people from southampton can get fast trains to waterloo. can anyone in the know shed some ligt on this for me, i need your help here, as i'm really confused about the whole thing. the withdrawl of the service is a nightmare for me, i used to go from reading to chichester, but now have to go via southampton to do this which takes twice the time and is really congested. also, i thought SWT were saying their services were over-used, they say that and then go and get ride of an hourly service which, from what i could see was very well used