Great Western Coffee Shop

The TransWilts line is a "great" way to send London to the West Country expresses when the Berks and Hants is closed.
The Berks and Hants will be closed an absurd amount during this year as Network Rail electrify the eastern bit.
So we will see lots of very long trains racing through our overcrowded little backwater. There's no rule that says that diverted trains have to give way to the normal traffic of the district and I'm afraid so ...
* Peak services will continue to run, though times vary a little - SOME EARLIER
* Buses run off peak, though service is reduced from normal train level (9 per day) to SLC level (8 per day) combined.

First dates - 12th to 15th March 2018.  Lots of other dates   >:(

Leaflet - including date forward and train / bus timetable for the first week - http://atrebatia.info/newnews.pdf

Facebook post of 3 hours ago - https://www.facebook.com/TransWilts/posts/1320475601385812 - has already reached over 1000 people, and the .pdf leaflet has been downloaded over 500 times.  Wow - just shows the power of our Facebook page.   Pity that a few people have used the thread to grumble about the line being shut today because of "severe weather" but I suppose it was a good day to launch the leaflet and bury the news of the upcoming service problems in the noise about the current problems.  [color=maroon]No - it was not done intentionally - the decision to shout out about the changes that start in 8 days time from today was made a while back; online today, Pewsey Station first thing tomorrow, and the TransWilts services on Tuesday morning.[/color]

Gotta love it ... first day of Newbury blockade and the 07:04 Westbury to Swindon has been scheduled 20 minutes earlier ... lots of publicity to get people to the station early and then ...


So that ran at - err - the time it would normally run after all!   :o

Don't know what the investigation will find but...

The empty train left Salisbury 12 minutes late.

Once it did reach Westbury it was further delayed while the Frome to Cardiff service went out in front of it 7 minutes late.  The Frome service had arrived on time so not sure if it was delayed awaiting a crew change.

Meanwhile the re-timed 07:21 left at 07:28.

So that's just 5 minutes ahead of the normal time of 07:33 ...

The empty stock (5M03) was delayed leaving Salisbury as one of the engines on the SWR hire-in unit wouldn't start.

At Westbury, there is a diagramming error where the retimed train (2M03) is booked to depart in the middle of the driver's rest break! Unless the crew diagrams are hastily amended, the train will be leaving Westbury late.

The next service (2M04) was late leaving Westbury sidings. I suspect this was a result of the rostered night shunt driver not signing class 166, with the rostered morning driver having to prepare their own set, delaying its departure.

Not a good start to the week!

The term you are looking for is SNAFU.

By the way, and for the benefit of all of our readers, that term (together with many others) is defined in the Coffee Shop forum's acronyms & abbreviations page (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html) (link in the header at the top of each page).  ;)