Great Western Coffee Shop

Engineering works have closed Westbury station up to and including 23rd January, and most of our trains are replaced by buses for the duration. On a beautiful day today, I took a trip to Westbury to see at first hand how it was working, and to refresh my picture library for 2025.

Well - it got me there and worked as it was designed to do, but it makes me very thankful for the much faster and smoother journeys by rail, and having a loo available along the way.   The coach seats were more comfortable than the seats on the train, and the seat pitch felt luxurious.

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I'm actually MUCH preferring the rail replacement bus. There seems to be much less chance of last minute cancellations to services to and from Melksham. Timings might be a little bit erratic but at least there's a service. Bus crews actually turn up for duty, amazingly enough. Buses leaving Chippenham seem to be much less prone to suddenly veer off at Thingley and go straight to Trowbridge via Bathampton, Freshford, Bradford on Avon etc. missing out Melksham altogether. Buses leaving Westbury don't suddenly dump passengers at an unstaffed Trowbridge station and instruct them to find taxis or alternative buses to Melksham because they are now apparently heading for Chippenham via Bradford on Avon, Freshford, Bathampton etc.

We travelled from Salisbury to Bristol on Sunday afternoon, taking the rail replacement service from Salisbury to Trowbridge. Everything worked well and ran to time (the coach making quite prolonged stops at Warminster and Westbury), and the train at Trowbridge was waiting at the platform, ready for us to board when the coach arrived. Since we had many bags, I was relieved that the vehicle was a coach, with a luggage compartment under the seats, rather than a bus.

The 4 vehicles my employer are supplying from down here in Devon for this rail replacement do have toilets! You just got unlucky having one without a loo I guess

Maybe - or maybe I didn't look enough.  Whole variety of coaches at Trowbridge and I suspect the one with loos may have been in use on the longer (Salisbury) runs.

Last time I got on a rail replacement service at Westbury it was a very comfortable executive coach whose day job was as Taunton Town FC's team transport.

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Were you expected to jog up & down and sign autographs after disembarking?  :)

The white Truronian Mercedes in your photo doesn’t have a toilet.

Ours are the blue Megabus branded Interdecks. Toilet is located on the middle stair case. 

I thought I'd try the replacement Melksham-Chippenham 0650 bus this morning instead of the Faresaver 271 bus service. And I'm converted :)

It was a couple of minutes late, and made an unscheduled stop shortly after turning onto the A350 to let out the couple of lads who had thought they were going to Trowbridge :) (scheduled for 0701)

But it still got to Chippenham over 5 minutes early, which meant I could catch the 0711 Penzance service instead of the 0734 Weston I was expecting to wait for (and would normally catch, if lucky). And the nice and comfy Beeline coach was virtually empty, unlike the packed 271.

Any chance the engineering work will overrun? :)

We should really look to getting the train service RIGHT - running, and suffiicinlty on time to make connections.

I note that the bus at 06:50 these weeks is half an hour earlier from Melksham than the normal 07:21 train ... that's an extra 30 minutes on your day.

Yes - I meant to mention that, and it is definitely a drawback. But I'm an early bird, and would be very happy (and surprised :) ) if the 07:21 train was brought forward enough to make catching the 07:11 at Chippenham reasonably likely, or at least make the 07:34 a safe bet instead of what is currently an outside chance (the official connection is the 08:09).

Here is the official set of connections from Melksham to Bristol Temple Meads once the trains are running again

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Onto that official timing I have added in red:
The 07:21 will get you to Bristol at 08:03 if you manage a short connection at Chippenham (33 minutes faster)
The 09:10 will get you to Bristol at 09:53 if you manage a short connection at Trowbridge  (36 minuted faster)

We have asked GWR about a one minute change on the 07:21's connection and even though it was shown to work during engineering changes, we have been denied the change because it would delay more important flows by 1 minute.   The 09:10's connection is more problematic needing a couple of minutes change to a train which would upset things on congested lines.

GWR do listen - and that green time I have added to the diagram is an example of that.  The 06:32 used to run a couple of minutes later and just failed to connect at Trowbridge.   The journey is now shorter, giving you a 20 minute gain into Bristol.

Yes, thanks - those look like the pre-engineering work times. I've been commuting between Melksham and Bristol by train (mostly) for over 5 years now.


Well... it was possible if both trains were on time, even with the pedestrian bridge crossing; I managed it a few times :) (although the 07:21 is my usual)


Yep, although it means leaving the house 45 mins earlier so I don't do it often.

The 0650 rep-bus was a bit later this morning and didn't make it to Chippenham in time to catch the 0711 Penzance service. No great loss however as the latter has been cancelled 'because of passengers causing a disturbance on the train' :o

Means the 0734 Weston is going to be packed though...

Ha - actually it's not too bad, as it's in reverse formation so there's plenty of room at the back where first class would be normally :)

Passengers causing a disturbance that early in the morning. I wonder what that was all about?

Passenger probably joined the train in London having bought a peak fare return to Brisol at £257.00 (second classs) only to find when they got on the train that there were plenty of seats and it certainly wasn't peak travel time.  A request to the Train Manager to refund the difference - an off peak return is £100.10 - was pollielty refused and the customer felt cheated and made that know ...

I'd be surprised if alcohol wasn't involved...

Two got off and four got on the 14:12 coach at Melksham heading towards Trowbridge today.    Driver was ensuring people were heading in the right direction as they boarded.

Half a dozen got off at Trowbridge.

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Roughly what I might have expected, with rail replacement buses carrying only a fraction of what the trains normally carry.  An known the the 272,272 and 273 buses (as well as the x34 which was the only one originally planned) are accepting rail tickets that will b depressing RRB numbers all th more.

It was delayed by 20 mins at Reading and there appears to have taken an alternative route between Wootton basset junction and Bristol east junction. It arrived into bristol 14 1/4 mins late, the sceptic in me suspects the diversion was pre planned!

It was shown on journey check

Just had to buy a bus ticket on the 1715 Bath-Melksham 271 - driver wouldn't accept my Bristol-Melksham train ticket. Said it was only valid on the X34 :)

I've emailed Faresaver - they ('Natasha') have been very helpful so far.

At Melksham Station:

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Oh I knew I was right, but unfortunately hadn't bothered to prepare anything to back up my request. In future I will have that nice picture ready on my phone to present to the driver - it's easier to read than the GWR website text.

Even without engineering works, there are times that terms, conditions, routings, etc, are too complex for all the staff providing services or checking tickets to have the knoweledge they need to get it right every time.   If doing somethingI know to be unusual, I tend to print out evidence ahead of time though in practise rarely have to use it.

The 271 from Bath is hardly "unusual" - it's emblazoned all over the station ...

The original engineering alternatives planned for the current closure did not include the 271/2/3. It was added later at my suggstion to Great Western Railway, who said "we will ask Faresaver and add it if it doesn't cost too much" and then it got added ... how this came about suggests that it has been commercially negotiated between First (GWR) and Faresaver, and that Faresaver are happy (or at least satisfied) with the commercial terms on it.

Faresaver are sending me a single fare voucher in the post, although perhaps I should ask for a return as compensation for all the trauma I've suffered :) (They also offered a bank transfer, but I said I didn't mind, and the voucher is their preferred option.)

For the absence of doubt "Sheepbingo" is me ( grahame ).  It is a testing account which I have and use when needed to test that the security settings on the Coffee Shop are working correctly, and in this case I accidentally posted from it.  Our terms of reference prohibit second accounts without good reason - there is a good reason in this case and there are or have been just a couple of other exceptional reasons.

I suspect GWR have ongoing arrangements with some bus operators. The moment the trains go down they send passengers straight to us before we know anything at the depot. we have a GWR ticket button on our bus ticket machines to press to ensure correct remuneration.

Evidence would suggest to me that there are organisation-wide relationships with the geographically widespread bus operators which can be activated by something as simple as a phone call.    Where bus services are provided by a smaller local operator, I suspect they don't have all those arrangements in place.   And Faresaver services are all over quite a small area:

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Arrangements that can be switched on "at a phone call" along a flow with major rail traffic is also a mixed blessing to the bus company.   Take the 231 and (now) x31 from Chippenham to Bath.  Railway gets closed ... and you have 2 or 3 buses an hour suddenly asked to take the traffic off several 9 or 10 carriages trains per hour which a lot of people join at Chippenham headed west.  Result - full buses, regulars turned away ...