The novel experience of a direct train from Frome (pictured) to Swindon. The 1404 via Melksham.
Not ... quite ... as novel as you may think
20 years ago, the service on the TransWilts was a daily commuter train into Swindon and back out - I'm not at home at the moment to give you exact timings - but it started from Frome in the morning. And indeed when Wessex trains added services in 2001, one of them remained this through train from Frome which ran until December 2006.
The logic of the service in BigNoseMac's picture is to fill a hole in Frome services and I'm delighted to see it. I would also like to see the current 07:48 from Melksham start back at Frome, and the 18:03 carry on to Frome, though this latter would require the unit change on the line to always be done at that time of day, with a slight overlap.
During the day, the logical extension of the TransWilts is actually from Westbury south via Warminster - providing the second train in the hour on Westbury - Warminster which is the only section of Cardiff / Portsmouth to be only hourly served by regular trains. That will add some other Westbury terminators which logically extend to Frome or even to Yeovil. All this, of course, is in the hands of timetable planners,
FGW▸ and
SWT▸ with their proposed Salisbury to Yeovil via Frome runs, and timetable recasts around the ripples of electrification and cascades.
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