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Title: Connections To/From London Paddington @ Swindon Post by: thetrout on May 27, 2014, 20:37:11 Most of you will have seen my thread regarding my journey today between Southend Victoria and Frome. The journey I had booked however was rather unusual as it was routed via Melksham. At least that was certainly the plan.
The journey was as follows:
The 11:45 I managed to make by the skin of my teeth. Having arrived at 11:37 the 11:45 had still not been issued a Platform. Not until 11:40 was it announced to be Platform 1 (The furtherest away so it was always going to be Platform 1... :-\ :-X :-[ ) Anyhow we pull out of London Paddington bang on time and then hit some grumpy signals in the Langley area. 125mph was brought to a standstill by a very hard brake application. In truth when things started flying off of tables, the carriage bouncing around and the smell of the brakes. I was fearing this was a 'one under' :-[ No. Just grumpy signals. Grumpy enough to make us 19 minutes late out of Reading. Next stop was Swindon where we arrived at 12:58... >:( ::) :-X Missed the via Melksham train by 11 minutes. So despite the 11:45 being ontime leaving. 6 minutes change over time is looking like a bad idea if there isn't another service for at least an hour. I ended up staying on the train to Bristol Parkway, Changing into the 13:31 CrossCountry Service to Bristol Temple Meads. Then into the 13:49 to Frome (ironically the same train at 14:37 from Westbury ;D ::) ) Made a nice tracker graph though :D ;D ;) (https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-pYRjSA8fc80/U4To8A5lJTI/AAAAAAAAK5o/a-IYhK1AOzs/w1004-h370-no/HST+via+BPW+and+BRI.png) *Waits for a smart arse to come along and tell me I could've caught the 13:00 (Delayed by 15 minutes) to Bath Spa and changed onto the 14:07 which is also the same train as the 13:49 from Bristol Temple Meads and the 14:37 from Westbury :P* Title: Re: Connections To/From London Paddington @ Swindon Post by: grahame on May 27, 2014, 20:48:43 Missed the via Melksham train by 11 minutes. So despite the 11:45 being ontime leaving. 6 minutes change over time is looking like a bad idea if there isn't another service for at least an hour. Yes ... I really wish that advance ticket connections and recommended connections were 10 minutes minimum at Swindon. Just toooo many are missing This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |