Great Western Coffee Shop

Don't forget that next Sunday (13th) sees an hourly Swindon-Portsmouth/Brighton + a few Swindon-Weymouths via Melksham until late afternoon. These services will be all that Chippenham will see during that period. Anyone for a day return from Melksham to Hove??

They decided to stop them at Melksham did they!

Good idea by FGW rerouting Portsmouth/Brighton trians to Swindon so Bristol and Cardiff passengers won't have to travel by bus between Westbury-Bristol as in previous years when engineering work has taken place in the Bath area. Just a change at Swindon for a 125 to either Bristol or Newport and Cardiff. Simples.

This is the sort of engineering work re-routing we want to see where possible rather than resorting to buses all the time to cover trains which could be diverted or re-routed to another destination to connect with other services.

Hope the works don't overrun - Tornado is due through, Bristol to Salisbury, arr SAL at approx 1930.

I see a similar arrangement on the 20th September.

Salisbury folk might be interested in the ^4.50 advance single to Swindon available on those trains, which is cheaper than the cheapest fare from e.g Trowbridge (^9 2 singles vs. ^11.90 off-peak day return) as there are no advance tickets from Trow-Swindon. Cue another entry in the "Fares madness" section.

There is also supposed to be a 20% discount on admission to the STEAM museum if you buy this at the same time as your FGW ticket. Has to be from a staffed station...don't suppose SWT at Salisbury would be able to help with this, would they?

Aargh :o

I looked up the journey from Salisbury to Cardiff on 20th September. Sure enough, it gave five options routed via Swindon outward, and (for the time of day I requested) four return via Swindon.
So far so good....
BUT...according to www.nationalrail.co.uk ...
No return fares available
In spite of it being the same route for all 5 outward trains, four different Super off peak fares were quoted:-
^39.75, ^42.55, ^44.75, ^44.75, ^37.00 on the 10:30, 12:28,13:28,14:28 and 15:28 respectively;
The four journeys back via Swindon were quoted at ^21 for all of them (unspecified type of single)
ALL the above were tagged with "Multiple tickets required"

THEN to cap it all, there was a final journey back quoted:-
Cardiff (20:15) to Bristol TM (21:04)
Bristol (21:44) to Exeter SD (22:44)
Exeter (23:10) to Honiton (23:29)
Honiton (23:35) to Salisbury (02:08) by bus
And the fare for this marathon? ^25.50 anytime return - the only journey quoted with a through ticket

PS. I have just discovered that the variation in the outward prices is beacause, although the fare comes up as "Super off peak", it is in fact a combination of a SOP Sal-Swi plus an advance purchase Swi-Cdf - this becomes apparent as one moves towards the ticket purchase stage, although it refers to ticket 1 of 2 and 2 of 2, but lists 3 tickets  ::)

This must be because the route via swindon is not a valid route.  Obviously it will be valid on the day but no one has told the computer yet !

Trowbridge - Bristol TM (valid via Swindon) will therefore work out cheaper than a direct ticket to Swindon

^8 vs ^11.90

we have 18:41 to Portsmouth tonight

Indeed ... but a couple of cancellations too ...

20090920   16:08   Portsmouth Harbour   18:44   Swindon   complete cancellation, rolling stock issues, knock-on effect

20090920   19:16   Swindon   21:48   Portsmouth Harbour   short working, rolling stock issues, knock-on effect
Full report: "This train will be started from Westbury.It will no longer call at: Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge.This is due to an earlier train fault. Last Updated: 20/09/2009 19:05 "

I did, briefly, consider doing a publicity shout to get people on / off the train at Melksham during these two Sundays but, frankly, heard about them rather late and remained unclear as to whether they were calling at Melksham or not.   

When at the station the Thursday and Friday prior to the first weekend, there were no posters there saying about any extra services, so it looks like the TOC wasn't publicising any extra services for the town - though the posters may have gone up very late.   I haven't been up to Melksham station for a few days - my Saturday appointment in Bristol was sandwiched between other things I had to do, so a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. day was impractical and my preference for train had to give way to what was practical.

Driver received change of aspect, shaken up and taken off shift. Bound to cause a few problems.

OK ... and I do believe you ... and I know 'these things happen'.  That's why targets are set to be 99.5% rather than 100%.   It's a bit of a side issue, but the report said:

"This train has been cancelled.This is due to an earlier train fault. Last Updated: 20/09/2009 15:28 "

Now as a layman, I would have understood a "change of aspect"  in your context to mean that a signal that was green went to yellow or red, or a yellow one went to red, as the driver approached - i.e. became more restrictive.  How can a train fault cause that?

I'm not sure, only saying what i've been told by staff who were on the scene.

Thanks ... and I don't really think we need to persue an answer.   It's just that we get very sensitive when anything on the TransWilts gets cancelled as the service is so sparse anyway!  :D :-\ :o