Great Western Coffee Shop

Whilst looking at the new Winter timetable I noticed that it's pretty much exactly the same as the current Summer timetable.  But one service I did note that is interesting is the 1659 Taunton-London Paddington services on Sundays from 20th February through to 27th March.

Upon Departing Bristol Temple Meads at 1800, the service then calls at Bath Spa(departing 1813) then non-stop through to Reading and London Paddington.   Does this service run via the main normal route(via Chippenham and Swindon) or via the Trowbridge & Newbury?

This service starts back at Taunton at 1659. It's not timetabled to stop anywhere between Bath and Reading. It could be that because it connects with a bus from Exeter that connects with the 1230 XC service from Penzance to Exeter (1432 dep Plymouth) that this service is expected to be very busy so FGW have eliminated the Chippenham, Swindon and Didcot stops on this service. The timings of the XC service from Cornwall/Devon would be peak Sunday afternoon for those travelling from the SW to be back in London mid evening.

I could be totally wrong and someone in the know can give a more official reason as to why this train doesn't stop between Bath and Reading between these two dates.

Currently runs as a Paignton - Paddington, departing Bristol at 1800. Ran via Westbury etc yesterday.

What's the timings non stop from Bath to Reading?

I bet it's not 40 minutes as the HSTs used to do when first introduced,.

I rather suspect an HST wouldn't be able to do Bath - Reading via Westbury in 40 minutes ;)

...and when demand was nothing like it is now so they didn't have huge numbers of passengers waiting to board at Chippenham and Swindon. I know it would be nice to live in a world where everyone had a direct, non-stop train from their origina to their destination but the additional stops on most HST services now are a necessity given the traffic from those intermediate stations which would otherwise be left standing on the platform and clogging up other trains that are already busy. BR would have done exactly the same thing, I'll wager - there's absolutely no commercial sense in running the odd train half-empty just so you can advertise some headline fast journey time between two stations that in reality only happens once daily!

The timings between Bath and Reading are depart Bath 1813 and depart Reading 1918.  That's an hour and 5 minutes.   Definitely more than adequate, plenty of recovery time in there.

Makes a pleasant change though, Bath-Reading non-stop via the normal main route, making for a more relaxing journey rather than stopping every 10-15 minutes.   A rarity for a FGW scheduled service between Bristol and London nowadays.

If such a service ran earlier in the day, I'd travel on it just for the sheer novelty of it.  I can't actually ever remember travelling along that line and the train running non-stop through Swindon!  EDIT: Actually yes I can, just on one occasion though.  Back in early 2008 on a Sunday evening, the 2024 from Bristol-London Paddington.  Bristol-Reading non-stop!

...which is a via Westbury timing. Are you really sure it's taking the direct route via Swindon? Have to say it strikes me that this is slightly unlikely, since there's no earthly reason to take that route on a Sunday evening and miss out Swindon, Chippenham and Didcot. I've used that train many, many times in the past from Bristol and Bath to get back to Oxford, and although it's generally busy I've never had trouble finding a seat.

So either that train runs via the B&H for some reason or it's going to be sitting in Reading clogging up a platform "waiting time" for several minutes if it took the direct route. Unless that stop's shown as "s", of course, in which case it could leave early.

It would seem very odd to route it via Westbury when there appears to be no planned engineering work between Bath and Reading between 20th Feb and 27th March. 1 hour and 5 minutes is a sort of halfway house timing. Normal Bath - Reading with Chippenham, Swindon stops is around 55-57 minutes. The current diverted weekend services are doing Bath - Reading via B&H in, on average, 1 hour 14 mins with a best of 1 hour 6 mins for the last train up on a Sunday.

Also the service appears in Table 135 of the National Rail Timetable for Sundays 20th Feb - 27th March, but doesn't appear in Table 125 for that date period. For all other Sundays it calls at Chippenham and Swindon and is shown in Table 125 as well as 135.

Curiouser and curiouser.....

True, but it seems equally odd to route it via Swindon and run it fast from Bath to Reading but allow ten minutes longer than for a stopping train! And that this apparently only applies for a few weeks next winter/spring. The whole thing seems weird. The only thought I had is that it might be intended to keep train crews' route knowledge up to date for the B&H diversionary route but that doesn't seem like it would be the full explanation.

BTW, those longer timings for the B&H-diverted trains may be dependent on whatever the HST is following between Bath and Westbury, given a clear run I think I've been via that route between Bath and Reading before in not much more than an hour, certainly we pitched up at Reading somewhat early and had to wait 5 minutes or more for a platform.

Baffled...

I think it's likely that the service will run via the normal route.  As mentioned it would be odd running via the alternate route when all other services run via the normal route during this period.  And FGW have simply eliminated the usual Chippenham, Swindon, and Didcot stops of this service for the reasons Timmer mentioned, the train is expected to be very busy.

Whilst a journey of 1 hour 5 minutes from Bath(1 hour 18 minutes from Bristol) to Reading seems a little slow for a non-stop run, when I got on the 2024 service on that Sunday evening back in March 2008 the service ran non-stop to Reading from Bristol with an advertised 1 hour 16 minutes journey time.  I remember it running at high speeds through to Chippenham and Swindon, after Swindon it ran at a more relaxed speed through to Reading.  There was a signal stop or two after Didcot, as the service must have caught up with a service in front(probably a service from Cheltenham).

I really don't buy this argument - as I've already said, I've used this service endless times in the past when it's started from Paignton or Plymouth during the summer. Sure it's busy, but no worse than the other services running around on a Sunday evening and capacity has not been a critical issue - I've never had a reservation and always been able to get a seat either regardless of whether I was travelling from Bath or Bristol. This service is apparently starting from Taunton in February. I suppose there might be a massive increase in demand caused as a knock-on by engineering work affecting XC down in the south west, but that's hardly a compelling reason to run the service fast between Bath and Reading is it? But like I said, it's not been impossibly busy during the summer in past years when starting back from further south west so I remain mystified.

Well if you're that mystified I guess you could allways just email First Great Western and ask why this service is not stopping at Chippenham and Swindon during this period.  Me, I just find it interesting that in the generic style timetables we get nowadays(compared to the old days) we're actually getting a service that runs non-stop through Chippenham and Swindon!

With the timetabled journey time of 1 hour 5 minutes also, I expect this will probably be via the main route.  As usually journeys via the T & N line tend to be timetabled as between 1 hour 10 to 1 hour 20 minutes between Bath and Reading.

Perhaps if someone here does get on this service, they could tell us which route the service takes.

I've just looked at 20th Feb and I am getting this:

TAUNTON.       16:59
BRIDGWATER.   17:10   17:11
HIGHBRIDGE   17:17   17:18
WESTON SUPR MARE   17:28   17:29
YATTON   17:39   17:40
NAILSEA & BWELL   17:46   17:47
BRISTOL TEMPLE M   17:58   18:04
SWINDON (WILTS).   18:38   18:44
DIDCOT PARKWAY   19:01   19:02
READING.   19:15   19:17
LONDON PADDINGTN   19:49   
First Great Western
Runs on Sunday 20 February only.

Hmmm ...  ???

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/TTs%20Dec%20'10/GW10D_TT01_WEB_(1).pdf

According to the PDF timetable for that period, there are no stops at Chippenham, Swindon, and Didcot Parkway on this service.  Unless it's a mistake.

Booking engines also showing it skipping Bath and Chippenham, but calling Swindon and Didcot.

just received my printed copy of the timetable and that also shows non-stop Bth to Reading