Great Western Coffee Shop

It's true, the National Rail website says so. Screenshot below.

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/vBzrQyMm/nr-website-montpelier-wallington-payg-info.jpg)

I'll try it next time I go to town!

Could it be the one in Southern France?

I'm hoping it isn't as I've just bought a London zones 1-6 day travelcard from there...

Mark

That is spelt Montpellier rather than Montpelier.

and pronounced so differently,as my French teacher keeps telling me.

Oui.

Ok, so, for today's trip, and what might by the DfT be called a 'Minimum viable ticket' travelcard in hand, I headed for the 07:35 from Bath Spa to Salisbury.

At the station, the train was up as the 7:35 to Westbury rather than Portsmouth, and in due course there was an announcement that there was a tree on the line between there and Salisbury but not a lot by way of advice for onward travel.

GWR twitter feed had the disruption from this lasting till the end of the day - good that they're starting with a worst case scenario and then pulling it in as the issue is solved - but this wasn't encouraging as the advice from station staff was of the form 'Go to Westbury and catch the following train to Salisbury'. Fielding a question, they advised that ticket acceptance wasn't in place via Reading.

After watching the tail lights of the 7:35 to Westbury disappear round the bend, the 7:43 to Paddington came in, rather full, 50% of the morning peak trains being cancelled. It looked as though it was going to be an issue to find the train manager as the service was, unannounced, in reverse formation, but found they were and thankfully had no issue with taking me to Reading on their traind - and the SWR train manager there has no issue with taking me on to Waterloo so thankfully I'm not even going to be particularly behind time.

So, pragmatism / front-line staff empowered to make decisions saves the day.

Mark

Update on the tree: it was removed in time to let the 8:38 from Bath through to Portsmouth, out of which connections to Waterloo are not brilliant offering an arrival time there of mid-day.

Mark

Looking back at yesterday's travel, the SWR train from Reading started out from there very quiet, picked up people and became busy on its way up, I left it at Clapham Junction - one of the effects of the industrial action was that all the information screens were stating 'Refer to timetables' and not many people travelling.

My destination being a bus ride from at least four stations on different lines, the travelcard allowed flexibility and it was a relief not to have been a couple of hours behind time. There's a whole discussion to be had on the ticketing for this of course, the travelcard option not being available from Bath at all I think (and the industry having recently attempted to dump it entirely).

The return trip started with a short leg on a train to St Albans from Carshalton, where there wasn't so much as a gap between platform and train, more of a void.

The 8:20 Exeter train from Waterloo, 6 carriages, terminating at Honiton with a rail replacement bus from there. Busy as it left Waterloo, many off at Woking so quieter after that, still a fair few off at Salisbury where three  carriages were dropped too.

This train has a 20 minute connection into a GWR service that arrives from the direction of Westbury around 10, which it did, in service, but I think no passengers aboard - and I was the only person waiting for it, Salisbury's large station being devoid of other passengers.

On 'Cross Salisbury' travel, not sure what it's like at other time of day, and a single snapshot is anecdote not data,  it might be that in the evening the cutbacks to the rail services there and then the year or so of very poor timetabled connections have just about slain what traffic there was. The connections are now much better than they were but the trains look to be carrying a lot of fresh air, something that could be addressed by marketing.

Off we went, the GWR train heading for Bristol. Just a couple of people boarding at Warminster, a few more at Westbury and then as many as 20 perhaps at Trowbridge.

Approaching Bath Spa, the usual *very*  upbeat recorded announcement that announces the extensive connections available by bus from the nearby bus station - but - the train arriving into Bath at 11:15pm, a quarter of an hour after the last bus local to me, and around thirty seconds before the departure of four or five 'Last buses' for various longer distance distance destinations - a couple of passengers did immediately dash for the bus station and were held up by the sight of this convoy of five or so buses as they departed across the pelican crossing at its exit (none of which stop at the Manvers Street stop opposite the station). Taxis available but I walked.

Mark

Not much of a discussion - they *are* available from Bath in both 1st & STD, peak, off-peak & even Super off-peak (in STD at least). All checkable on Brfares.com