Great Western Coffee Shop

I've been looking at what services Dilton Marsh would be left with if the Westbury - Southampton service was NOT replaced by something else in this December.   Bleak indeed ...

http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/diltonmarsh.html?printer=1 (http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/diltonmarsh.html?printer=1)

I popped down to Dilton Marsh this morning to learn a little about the station there, service usage, etc, having been told that Dilton Marsh and its future service after December (when the Westbury - Southampton service is trimmed back to Salisbury and passed over to SWT) may be associated with any future service running from Swindon to Westbury and beyond.

Prior homework (see http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/diltonmarsh.html (http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/diltonmarsh.html) showed a current service of 12 Northbound and 9 southbound, with 6 in each direction being potentially cut when the "shuttle" goes.  Of course, retimings / extra stops in other trains might be substituted ...

Anyway - my report

06:27 (Northbound) 2 Joined, 20 already on train.  "Regularly up to 8 people - this is a slack morning. Prior to December there were around 12 to 15 people joining each day, but now it's not practical to get back and we have to wait an hour at Westbury, or get a lift".

07:08 (Southbound) 2 Joined, and I can't report number on train. "Use to be about half a dozen".  School children to Salisbury, seen onto train by mums. Quite a chat - "the government tells us we can choose schools, then makes it impractical for us to get the children to any school but the local one".   Also noted - a
gap in the Southbound tiemtable between this train and the 08:09 - formerly used by lots of schoolchildren.

07:27 (Northbound) CANCELLED

07:46 (Northbound) 4 Joined, 1 left train.  "Used to be much busier". "Problem is getting home in the evening.

08:09 (Southbound).   I was unable to wait around for this train as it was reported 14 minutes late on the speaker box.  1 person was waiting on the platform when I left, and a train (Portsmouth bound) went through at around 08:07 but didn't stop.

So - I managed to see three trains out of the five ...