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If you have two available routes by train to your destination, would you take the first available train whichever route it took (same fare, your ticket valid by either route), or wait if necessary for a train on the route you prefer?

There are two rail routes from Bath Spa to Melksham - one with a change at Chippenham and the other with a change at Trowbridge.   The way it works out is that there's roughly an hourly service if you don't mind which route you go, but only a train every 2 hours if you'll only travel one way.    Very interesting information from a customer host at Bath Spa this morning telling me that "most customers ...." which was not what I expected.

Please click on one of the two options and vote - it'll be very informative to me in producing the next timetable / advise sheet for this journey.    Thanks.

Depends on the length of wait, but I would normally either aim for a specific train to go my way, or go either way. I wouldn't be waiting at the station more than 10mins, either way.

Depends on the quality of the "station waiting room". I'm quite partial to the one at Worcester Foregate Street that has several interesting ciders on, for example.

Crewkerne to Bristol Temple Meads is valid via Exeter or Salisbury. With the hourly service each way it means that you only have half an hour to wait. As such it does not matter which way you go. However it is tempting to do a circular journey.
Unfortunately, as was highlighted in another topic, there is no valid route via Yeovil Pen Mill.

I'd go for first available. In the case in question, it may be that some passengers would prefer to interchange at Chippenham than Trowbridge (step-free interchange, staffed platforms, reasonable waiting room), but I'm not sure what the comparative journey/waiting times are.

When I was at Bath Spa at 11:00, the next available service via Trowbridge was scheduled to take 59 minutes, and the next service via Chippenham was scheduled to take 30 minutes.  Trowbridge does involve crossing the footbridge, and the longer timing in this case was due to a wait at Trowbridge of 24 minutes, versus 10 at Chippenham, and to the Bath Spa to Trowbridge train being a stopper.

Having said which, I chose the first train (11:07) which was the one via Trowbridge - back to Melksham at 12:06, rather than waiting for the 12:43 via Chippenham which was back into Melksham at 13:13. 

I cant answer the poll as it is, too many variables.

Depends on the purposes of the trip?
is there anything around the origin I can kill time visiting or doing?
Is there a particular class of train? I'd wait a period of time to avoid a Voyager!
Get my enthusiast jacket on and do I want a particular route.

I imagine the vast majority will go on the one that gets them home first!

Me too.  ::)

All things being equal a working  train in the platform is worth 2 somewhere else.

Agreed.  However, the accessibility of more information on train that are not at the platform (ie via RTT) makes me more likely to trust the train that isn't there than in the past.

FOSS rover gets round the routing issue so you can go via pen mill ... also valid via salisbury, unfortunately not much use via Exeter unless you go for a bus trip between taunton and crewkerne

An observation from working on the woe line ... thinking logically you would imagine the initial question to be 'am i going the fastest route or the cheapest'

however in reality (and this could just be the preference of people from a certain area) the main questions seem to be: how many changes and is it a fast train or a stopper... now a couple of examples are the brighton and great malvern services from salisbury where certain people would rather have a much longer journey (usually on a clapped out 150) to avoid a change even if it means travelling at peak time.... the second example is the 'fast' services to waterloo that miss out the likes of whitchurch and overton... people will actually wait half an hour extra to get a train that is minutes quicker  ::)

I don't think you can apply logic here  ;D