Great Western Coffee Shop

Today the stock that runs the Minehead - Bristol Fri, Sat and Mon summer specials was undertaking a special from Minehead - Weymouth and return organised by Hertfordshire Railtours and operated by Victa Westlink. the operator of the Minehead - Bristol Specials.


This is the text of an email posted on a gen site ;-

Hertfordshire have bailed out FGW tonight. The 18:00 Weymouth - Bristol formed of 158798 and 158866 is late (Despite both units being sat in the sidings since 13:00!)
They arrived into the platforms at Weymouth at 18:15!!! (Reason unknown).
The Fgw 18:00 late departure will be full and standing, so Hertfordshire have taken up to 60 extra passengers, to bail FGW out and fill extra seats!
The tour will be making additional stops at Maiden Newton, Yeovil Pen Mill and Castle Cary on the way back.
But just what FGW will have done if this Tour wasn't in town remains to be seen!!!!?

Go to Plymouth and Cornwal threads for another classic today.

Good on the Railtour folks for helping out.  The age of chivalry is not dead (not dead elsewhere, either - I could quote a whole raft of railway incidents, with just a few black spots).

I wondered about a trip to Weymouth again today and thought ... "Nah .....". 

As mentioned before, I do hope FGW take a good look at the running of extra trains on the Bristol-Weymouth next summer to counter what at times has become a farcical lack of capacity when the sun has come out. Either that or hiring a loco and coaches to run on scheduled services 7 days a week as Sundays have now become just like any other in terms of passenger numbers.

I undertand that the second half of Sunday isn't now "just like" but it has actually become the busiest half day of the week for long distance travel - 15% of journeys, whereas the average half day by definition would have about 7.142% of journeys.