Great Western Coffee Shop

Arriving at Swindon this evening expecting to catch the 1654 to Cheltenham (ex 1548 from Paddington) I was surprised to find the train pulling into platform 1 at 1645 rather early.

It transpires that the normal service at 1548 from London to Cheltenham was instead going to Cardiff with the Swindon to Cheltenham service being formed of an HST starting at Swindon. The loading on the service from Swindon was well down on normal levels as the through service on an ordinary Friday is normally standing room only at this time of day.

A review of Open Train Times showed that the set forming the service positioned as ECS from St Phillips Marsh with the balancing Cheltenham to Paddington terminating at Swindon t run as ECS back to Bristol.

So well done to FGW for providing a proper service today noting the 'bustitution' of the through services between Swindon and Cheltenham last Saturday. Or was it a case that there were no spare 150/153/158 units available or with the Franchise up for grabs they were trying to 'behave'?