Great Western Coffee Shop

With various service changes between Christmas and the new year, are FGW required to run Monday to Friday service levels and timings next Tuesday and Wednesday, or is there some sort of dispensation / special arrangement for the period between Chrismas and the new year which allows them to reduce and / or retime services?

If I remeber rightly either a normal service or a weekend service is applicable during this period. It's pointless running a reduced service as the costs are tiny for running a service as the majority of the costs have to be paid anyway wether the trains run or not (drivers on duty, maintenance, leasing costs etc.). It also explains why a normal service usually runs on a bank holiday,

Thanks ... I'm seeing the *weekend* trains running on the TransWilts during next week which means that any commuters who are working this week don't have any services at all to use and will be having to make other arrangements.  Some other oddities too; on a line that's supposed to have 4 single journeys every day except Sunday when 2 are called for, we appear to have just one (southbound) on one day.  I'm wondering if the Saturday timigs happen to work in with a Monday to Friday timetable, should we be suggseting that an easy service enhancement would be to run the Monday to Friday PLUS the Saturday service on all six days, Monday to Saturday, in future?

The twixt Xmas/New Year timetables are I belive, posted on the FGW website.

The SLC doesn't apply this week, hence it's amendments.

Ah - thank you - that was the clarification I was looking for.

The FGW site says


"Amendment" means "will not run at all" in the case of the peak hour [as defined in the SLC] services on the TransWilts  :-\ - but that may yet be a positive step if it proves that both Monday-Friday AND Saturday timings can be supported within the normal timetable;  From Westbury at (approx) 07:05, 09:10, 14:45 and 19:35, from Swindon at 06:18, 15:00, 18:45 and 21:20 ... hmm - have to think that one through  ;)