Most of you will have seen my thread regarding my journey today between Southend Victoria and Frome. The journey I had booked however was rather unusual as it was routed via Melksham. At least that was certainly the plan.
The journey was as follows:
- 09:50 Southend Victoria - London Liverpool Street
- London Underground (
) - 11:45 London Paddington - Swindon
- 12:47 Swindon - Westbury via Melksham
- 14:37 Westbury - Frome arrive 14:50
The 11:45 I managed to make by the skin of my teeth. Having arrived at 11:37 the 11:45 had still not been issued a Platform. Not until 11:40 was it announced to be Platform 1 (The furtherest away so it was always going to be Platform 1...
)
Anyhow we pull out of London Paddington bang on time and then hit some grumpy signals in the Langley area. 125mph was brought to a standstill by a very hard brake application. In truth when things started flying off of tables, the carriage bouncing around and the smell of the brakes. I was fearing this was a 'one under'
No. Just grumpy signals. Grumpy enough to make us 19 minutes late out of Reading. Next stop was Swindon where we arrived at 12:58...
Missed the via Melksham train by 11 minutes. So despite the 11:45 being ontime leaving. 6 minutes change over time is looking like a bad idea if there isn't another service for at least an hour. I ended up staying on the train to Bristol Parkway, Changing into the 13:31 CrossCountry Service to Bristol Temple Meads. Then into the 13:49 to Frome (ironically the same train at 14:37 from Westbury
)
Made a nice tracker graph though
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(
Bristol Parkway - next trains)+and+
BRI» .png" alt="" border="0" />
*Waits for a smart arse to come along and tell me I could've caught the 13:00 (Delayed by 15 minutes) to Bath Spa and changed onto the 14:07 which is also the same train as the 13:49 from Bristol Temple Meads and the 14:37 from Westbury 
*
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