I am assured that Melksham is getting just the same treatment as other places with train cancellations and indeed when I look at the graphics our web site produces, it looks as bad or worse elsewhere.

Problem is that "cancel one round trip every 2 hours" as a thinning out policy reduces services to Barnstaple, and via Stroud, to a service that runs every 2 hours.  Via Melksham, it eliminates the service; yesterday, (and that was a Saturday!), nothing called headed in the Westbury direction from 11:30 until 21:37, and in the Swindon direction from 10:08 until 14:47, and then again until 20:24.

Would a policy of "never have more than about an hour to wait if the train you want is cancelled" would be much more customer focused?   Should GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) be running a reduced weekend timetable?  Should they be declaring certain trains as "strategic" ones to maintain at-least-one-every-2-hours then running what they can of the rest?

Speaking with a key contact at GWR this week, I understand that GWR are not running a reduced timetable for a while if they can possibly avoid it, but that is a decision which has been a difficult one for them - no obvious choice as to whether to do that or not.  Sadly, I am not aware of any consultation with passengers in this significant decision.  Your views, please.

I'm reminded of Covid era timetabling where frequency across routes were slashed, but were still subject to cancellations for all the other usual reasons creating even larger gaps between services. I've reluctantly voted to leave things as they are, but fully understand that this unreliability is driving (literally) people away, especially at weekends.

It’s not that I want to see less trains running on weekends, I just want to see a timetable that is more reliable that matches the staff resources available until such time that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) have a enough staff to run the current timetable. It’s crystal clear at the moment that they don’t.

That's made me recall that another issue with Covid era timetabling (on rail and buses) is the services that disappeared and were never reinstated. If a temporary timetable is introduced there must be ways of ensuring that it's not the trojan horse for what is actually a spiral  of decline.

Mark

This. Drivers volunteer to work Sundays, so a reduced timetable still needs volunteers on the day.

Bringing Sundays into the working week is the only solution to guarantee staff on a Sunday

Indeed, but you'll still get cancellations when not enough do....

The voting by Coffee Shop forum members so far is interesting: if you haven't, please do vote!