05:17 Westbury to Swindon due 05:59
Facilities on the 05:17 Westbury to Swindon due 05:59.
Will be formed of 3 coaches instead of 2.
6 out of 7 (12 services) today with an extra carriage. 2 journeys unreported in the middle of the day (I wonder if a different set is used?) and 3 individual journeys remain suspended due to Coronavirus reductions.
Ironically perhaps, those suspended journeys are the ones that ran all through the dark days up to 2013 when we had two trains each way per day, "too early and too late" and whilst they form an important element of the ongoing service and their none-running leaves a hole, they are probably the easiest-lost services.
Note, please, if you are reading this at GWR▸ HQ▸ or at the DfT» , I write "easyEST lost" and not easily lost.
... the resultant gap from 17:36 to 20:45 in return trains at the end of a days' work from Swindon really needs to be plugged when you can. The 18:44 is the most missed of the three
... the loss of the final train up from Westbury at 19:35 is disappointing; not a busy train but a socially necessary one.
Should some bright person take the current 16:25 trip off Westbury and then replicate it at 18:25 (replacing the 18:39) and 20:25, returning as current at 17:36, 19:36 (but 19:16 preferable) and 21:36 (but 21:16 OR 22:36 both preferable), I think we would be close to the best one-train solution.
No - that is is not a hint. Yes - this is a hint. Still reading? The suggestion probably mucks up the Stroud Valley extras. The long-running 07:01 Westbury to Swindon arrived in Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa for start-or-work and the return 18:44 off Swindon started as an excellent return -from-work train from those places to Stroud, Kemble and Swindon. Up to 2013, as the only services off the TransWilts into Swindon these extras only had a very niche clientelle of people who wanted to spend 11 hours in Swindon. Post 2013, they have become useful trains for people who want to 9 or 10 hours in Swindon - up on an old train and back on a new, or vice versa.
Let's sort out the Stroud Valley commuters too. Re-instate our 07:01 off Westbury. Balance working back, the 18:44 off Swindon. Push back that 19:16 or 19:36 return from Swindon (above) to 20:06, and run the final round trip at 21:01 from Westbury and 22:36 from Swindon. All balances, neat job done. A single extra journey over the TransWilts, gaps filled. Mid evening curiosities cleared from Swindon to Gloucester / Cheltenham Spa.
With my crayon sharpened ... south of Westbury (where the original southbound services carried on to Southampton, but northbound only originated from Westbury!) there is ...
clear scope for a further post. Yes - looking at linking the services through to the Southampton area, and/or filling in to Dilton Marsh and Warminster, or to Frome. And - yes - with an hourly TransWilts service you will on pre-covid logic double the number of passengers; a two-hourly (or slightly worse) commuter service with journey times of perhaps 25 minutes is not THAT attractive; we see locally how robust passenger numbers are to repeated disruption, and that's because the user base is still thin, and self selected from the much larger potential pool who would use it if it were more frequent and generally trusted to run.
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