Great Western Coffee Shop

Have heard that the Cardiff - Westbury services are to be cut from the December timetable change and will be replaced by a Cheltenham/Gloucester - Westbury service. The extended journeys from Great Malvern/Worcester will continue to Weymouth every two hours and there was even a suggestion that there would be a Great Malvern - Brighton service. Only a 'grapevine rumour' but the new timetable is due to go out for stakeholder consultation within the next 4 - 6 weeks.

Would make sense if they did that and make one of the two Cardiff-Bristol services that run every hour continue down to the Southwest. I dont think having two trains an hour from Cardiff-Westbury is of any use when the fast Portsmouth service catches up with the slow service. Better to create journey oportunities by having services from other parts of the region than just running the same services from the same places. Surely the loss of direct Cardiff-Southwest services has not been a good move so December would be a good time to fix this.

This was hinted at by Andrew Griffiths recently.

That's interesting, so the services from Cardiff will presumably go down to Taunton as before? Definitely a good idea. The timings would be better down towards Westbury, and I (and many others) have always wanted direct services from Bath to Cheltenham. It also helps pave the way for the CANBER proposals.

And Great Malvern to Brighton? Imagine how long the announcements would be at both ends! Although still not as long as the Penzance to Milford Haven ones. I hope that now the Brighton trains don't come from Cardiff, there's a chance these will stop at Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Freshford and Avoncliff again.

Does the stakeholder consultation mean the general travelling public will see this, or if not, how would we get to see it through a stakeholder?  Cheers!

Those calls were ommited because it made the train more wedged probabally

No, passengers are not considered to be "Stakeholders".  County Councils, the Government, and other railway bodies such as Network Rail and other TOCs who operate over the same lines will, no doubt, be sent copies of the draft timetable.  Form then is that some write back expressing their view and the consultation is complete.

There is of course the hope that FGW are feeling generous and post the draft timetable on their website in the not too distant future so we can all see whats being proposed but they not obligated to do this. Of course if it contains good news and an improvement on the poor timetable put forward last December, you would think they would want to get it out into the public domain and shout it from the rooftops that they have listened and improved and 'look how good we are' to counteract all the masses of bad press that have been heaped on them these past few months since the december timetable change.

They have been shouting certain elements from the rooftop already  ;)  and indeed have released (or shown) selected drafts to some parties. However, I have breaking news that at least one service that is in desparate need of repair after appalling treatment last December is not to be fixed, and I understand that the draft timetables as a whole will not be in the public domain for a while yet - "until it's too late to do anything about it" wrote one cynic to me

martyjon , does the rumour also include the return of direct Cardiff-Southwest services? Also , have you heard which services will be calling at Pilning from December 2007?

Hope so, the Timetable was so much better, as you don;t need to intergrate Bristol - WEymouths in, so there will be no need to have the Stopper 7 mins infront the fast by Trowbridge! s