Great Western Coffee Shop

i have just moved to Dorchester having lived in paddington since 2007...

i often now use the weymouth-bristol train from dorchester west to castle cary then change to an HST to paddington but
sadly so few of these local trains connect well with the London services...or the PLY/PNZ ones too!
sometimes a wait of well over an hour and that makes it unusable.

when it does connect even with the change at castle cary or westbury the FGW service straight into paddington is far nicer then SWT's offerings into waterloo for me. (i use 1st class)

it would be nice if the weymouth-bristol trains were an hourly schedule then perhaps that will attract more passengers to use the line rather then now with the odd timed services and sometimes overcrowded trains when you least expect it.

the line reminds me of something like the long lamented somerset and Dorset which if it was still open now from Bournemouth to bath & Bristol would be hugely popular....please can we have more trains and not let it be an old tired out relation?

There ARE plans to make the Weymouth line an hourly route (Mon-Sat). The ITT for the abandoned Great Western franchise contest included it as a priced option. Now that we are getting a management contract instead I would have thought it might happen sooner rather than later.

As part of CP5 Network Rail is committed to clearing and making alteration to numerous routes on the Western region  for class 165/166 trains including the Weymouth line, so I predict good times ahead for the route.

WOW, that is MUCH more than i was expecting, cheers...also hopefully they will look closely at the HST connections at Castle Cary and Westbury if possible !