Great Western Coffee Shop

Hello.  I'm new to this forum so apologies if this question is inappropriate, or if I've put it in the wrong place, please tell me where it should be!  I'd like some information on the train service from Chippenham to London.  I'm thinking of moving to the Chippenham area and I would need to commute into London 3 or 4 days a week.  On paper the service doesn't look too bad, but I know there are some issues around reliability etc.

I'd be very grateful for advice from anyone who uses this service regularly on what it is generally like in practice.  It would be really useful to know how reliable it is, what are the chances of getting a seat at peak times, etc - and any other handy tips would be very gratefully received.  Basically what I want to know is whether commuting from there is relatively easy or should I forget it!

Thanks a lot for your help!

Hello, Jane, and welcome to the Coffee Shop forum!  :)

I don't do that journey more than about once a month, so I'm really not able to answer in detail - but my limited experience is that the service is actually not too bad?

However, I'm sure our members will be happy to provide further comments!  ;)

These may include some who would like to see a particular service connect into it more often....

Can't help that much as I tend to use the service on weekends; although I have been significantly delayed several times when travelling via Chippenham, this has almost invariably been on a SUnday morning and caused by Saturday night engineering work over running.

Looking at the completely bald statistics, 87.7% of FGW high-speed services for the last year arrived at their eventual destination within 10 minutes of right-time, with 99.4% of advertised trains running (these are the so-called "moving annual average" scores, as displayed on FGW's website on 16 Jan 09). For the most recent four-week period shown (4 weeks from 08 Dec 08), 91.1% of high-speed services arrived within 10 minutes of time and 99.6% of advertised services ran.

There is the odd West DMU service between Chippenham and Swindon which is absolutely superb.  I have heard that the High Speed lot also do a service along that stretch of track which may even end up in Paddington.  I expect that isn't too bad either. HTH ;D

Half hourly seems ok to me ;)

Not forgetting the fast 0705 to Paddington. I do believe we used to have a member who commuted between Chippenham and London.

Alternatively, you could try this blog for some background....
http://firstlatewestern.blogspot.com/

It hasnt been updated for a while though, which could well say something in itself.

Hi, Jane.  Exactly the right place to post, and sort of question. Welcome.

I am an irregular Chippenham - London traveller, and when I do use the service it's from Chippenham in the morning and back in the evening, so my experience may help.  Please note ... views expressed may be personal ones.

The trains - almost without exceptions, "125"s - 7 or 8 passenger coaches, circa 30 years old, but refurbished over the last couple of years so that they don't look that old.  Lovely ride, and for the 80 minute journey or so they're comfortable enough but the seats are a bit hard if you use one of the same trains for a longer journey. Not many tables, and close pitched (I'm talking standard class, in which I usually travel).

You should get a seat from Chippenham every morning, but the train will full up and probably be pretty packed by the time it gets to London.  On the way back, it's pot luck in the peak as to whether of not you'll get a seat at Paddington, but I can't imagine you having to stand all the way.

Buy-on-the-day fares, if you go in the peak time, are very expensive indeed - but a weekly season ticket  is (as I recall) worth buying even if you are just going for 3 days as it's less that 2.5 times the cost of a return ticket.

Reliability;  from my experience travelling FGW can be eventful compared to travelling with other train operators (it could, of course, be that you simply want to avoid trains I'm on as they have astonishing bad luck). However, what's a few minutes delay, or the occasional wait 30 minutes for the next train?  If you ever 'do' weekends, replacement of train by buses at Chippenham seems to happen more than at almost any other station I could name.

Car parking ... the South side car park (the one I use) empties on to a single road into the town centre and it can take an age to get clear.   When I can, I use the train (06:30 and 19:01 daily) or bus (evening service only) for my own onward journey to Melksham.

And can I finish with a good word for the privately run station cafe, for the architecture as it's NOT a bus shelter on a platform job, and for the very helpful and very cheerful staff.

Not so good tonight. Two consecutive trains from London diverted and not calling at Swindon or Chippenham, and the next one is currently at least 30 mins late. I'm not looking forward to seeing how full it is!

Heres the reason why from FGW Website:

I do Chippenham to London once or twice a week. My poor wife did it as her daily commute for 18 months a few years back. It's no worse than any other journey to be honest. Right now I am on a Paddington - Swansea service which has 4 trains worth of people on it and I'm only going to get as far as Swindon where I will have to figure out how to do the rest of the journey. This is not unusual - I mean significant delays between London and the South West. It is also grievously expensive - my peak single ticket is ^64 tonight which is frankly outrageous. Enjoy!

Not sure why you were charged peak fare when restrictions have been lifted.
Unless you bought the peak one from a machine.
Be worth sending into customer services to get a partial refund on it or just get compensation for delay on it. (if compensation available)

I do Chippenham to London and back at peak times once or twice a week on average. I'd say it was an extremely reliable service - I'm not sure of the exact figures, but I've only been late for meetings in London a couple of times in the past 12 months, and then only by half an hour or so. I can't comment on seat availability in standard as I am fortunate enough to travel first class - it's often pretty full in there, but it's rare to see anyone standing.

Bear in mind you can make a significant financial saving by buying separate tickets from Chippenham to Didcot and Didcot to Paddington rather than straight through. I think an open peak time first class return is around ^190 now, compared to ^140 or so by splitting it at Didcot.

Parking is increasingly an issue at Chippenham. Get there any time after 8:30 and you're looking at the far end of each car park, meaning you need to allow an extra few minutes to reach the platforms. There's no point turning up between the hours of 11am and 1pm from Monday to Thursday and looking for a space nowadays, as you simply won't get one. Fridays are usually OK though. Incidentally, the car park at the back of the station is 20p a day cheaper than the one at the front - I have no idea why.

The one significantly major flaw with Chippenham is that there is no disabled access to trains, so if you are in any way mobility impaired, then forget it and move somewhere else.

My personal recommendation incidentally if you are moving to the area is to look for houses in and around Melksham. That way you are roughly half way between Chippenham and Westbury, which both have direct services to Paddington, so you get a choice if there's delays on one line or the other. Parking at Westbury is half the price of Chippenham. Also, let's think positive: the train service in Melksham itself has to eventually improve on what it is at the moment, so on days when you can't or don't want to drive at all, you will hopefully someday have the option of travelling from there.

Are you sure? If you go to the booking office side of the station, the staff will take you across the track at the barrow crossing at the west end of the platforms. At least, they used to...

 Split tickets  chippenham to didcot, didcot to paaddington are only valid on trains that actually STOP at Didcot

They still will. I witnessed the very undignified sight of staff helping two extremely elderly people to shuffle the 200 yards or so down the unused platform, across the tracks, and back up again to the first class section of the "up" platform, in the rain, a few weeks ago, amidst much tutting and shaking of heads from the other waiting passengers.

It was more like 1978 than 2008. Like I said, if you are in any way mobility impaired - forget Chippenham.

I fail to see the problem ???

Chippenham is on the list for lifts to be added (but not for a few years), and in the meantime, it's not a major hassle to cross the track. Certainly better than having no mobility-impaired access full stop, isn't it?

Indeed, FGW are gradually improving mobility, Taunton and Westbury have been fitted with lifts since the franchise started, no doubt other places too.

Thanks everyone for your comments - they're very helpful.  It sounds as though the service isn't too bad, but I'm horrified at the fares!   :o  I need to sit down and do a few sums to work out whether I can afford it! 

Jane

Well, I'm glad I was proved right, in predicting that our members would be able to help out, Jane!

It would be great if you could let us know what you decide, too: if you're looking at specific journeys or fares (including quite legitimate splitting), I'm sure we can offer further suggestions.

Good luck, C.  ;)

At the suggestion of a very helpful contributor to this forum, I split my Nailsea to Swindon season at Chippenham and saved myself around 5% (^250).  So it's worth trying the various permutations.

What do you do when Box tunnel is shut and everything goes via Hullavington out of interest?

Good point. I would show both my tickets, and if a TM insisted in selling me a new ticket I would reluctantly do so. If it was a scheduled service diverted then I very much doubt they would. (Indeed they were diverting via Hullavington last week and Bristol to Chippenham passengers were being told to travel to Swindon and then travel back from there, in which case my ticket was valid.) 

Even if I did have to buy a new ticket, it would have to happen a lot of times in a year for me to be worse off. And most days my ticket isn't checked anyway, but that's another story.