New rail operator South Central is cutting services because of a shortage of drivers and maintenance engineers.

The rail company, which took over from Connex at the end of August, is making the cuts in a revised winter timetable to be introduced from November 12.

The cuts involve 20 of its 1,750 daily services.

They include axing the Brighton to Gatwick leg of the through-route to Rugby and the popular 18.20 Brighton to Victoria fast service.

A Brighton commuters' spokeswoman said she hoped the cuts would not be a sign of more to come.

South Central, which is part of Govia and controls Thameslink services, said it hoped to restore the services when a new summer timetable was introduced in May but made no promises.

It employs 668 drivers and has pledged to spend an extra £2 million on boosting its driving force during the next year.

Its 78 trainee drivers were now going through an enhanced training programme.

By Christmas the company expected at least 35 of them to be available for full-time duties, with another 100 trainees employed by next March.

The additional trainees were being employed to meet staff turnover and to provide extra resources to improve train performance.

South Central said a lack of skilled maintenance workers meant more and more trains were breaking down, creating a backlog of work. To counter this, another 30 engineers would be employed and a new apprenticeship scheme implemented.

When the company took over the franchise on August 26, it pledged to improve performance.

Now it believes the timetable revision is the best option to maintain a reliable service with the resources available.

David Franks, managing director of South Central, said: "With the introduction of this timetable, our short-term goal is to get the services running more reliably. We understand this may cause some inconvenience to our passengers and we apologise for this.

"The alternative would have been continued passenger frustration with short-notice cancellations, a situation some of the customers I have met over the past two months would prefer not to encounter.

"We have put in place robust contingency plans to take account of any further difficulties over the coming months and have a reinstatement plan, which will be implemented in the new year as the situation improves."

Shelley Atlas, chairwoman of Brighton Line Commuters, said: "At least South Central are giving advance warning of the cuts.

"We hope it is not the thin end of the wedge but we realise they did inherit a lot of problems from Connex.

"Not having the Brighton section of the Rugby service will inconvenience some people but there are alternative services available. The ending of the 18.20 service will hit people who want to travel to London from Brighton early in the evening."

The majority of the cutbacks will affect Surrey Lines services between Tattenham Corner, Smitham and London.