Great Western Coffee Shop

A little bit of an experiment - looking to alert people reasonably well ahead of time about changes to our community rail service so they don't get lost in the swirl of other notes and notices.   Not full data, but "check on these dates".   Comments / thoughts welcome.  I have put this up on Facebook, wonder whether to make it a monthly thing - or if indeed GWR should / could provide something at the level - lots of data there, but perhaps a gap in looking a couple of months ahead for specific lines / services?

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eng_april_2018.jpg)

TransWilts - 1st to 27th April. On the circled dates, train services between Westbury and Swindon, via Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham will be varied due to planned engineering works. Where no suitable alternative to your usual train is offered, but there is a suitable service operating via Bath Spa, you can use that alternative via Bath. We have also confirmed that tickets routed "via Melksham" are valid on all direct trains using the line (subject to usual peak / off peak restrictions) whether or not the train calls at Melksham.

Sunday 8th April - there will be a service running about once an hour, all day, with all services calling at Trowbridge and Chippenham, and about a half of them callng at Melksham. Most of these trains will run beyond Westbury to / from Portsmouth Harbour. Please check train times - they will differ from normal call times.

Saturday 14th April - Trains will run about every 2 hours between Westbury and Chippenham, calling at Trowbridge and Melksham. Buses replace trains between Chippenham and Swindon

Sunday 15th April - Trains are replaced by buses from Westbury to Chippenham (calling at Trowbridge and Melksham) and between Chippenham and Swindon.

Monday 23rd to Thursday 26th April - morning and late afternoon peak trains will run (though some will be up to 20 minutes earlier - please check), with daytime trains replaced by buses. Due to buses being significanlty slower than trains, some bus sevices will leave earlier than the train they are replacing, and some will arrive later at their destination. This means that some services will not connect as they usually do. The line will also be used on these days for diverted trains between London and the West Country, some of which will stop at both Westbury and Swindon thus providing extra direct train services.

Similar changes to the ones from 23rd to 26th April are planned for Monday 14 to Thursday 17 May, Monday 4 to Thursday 7 June, Monday 9 to Thursday 12 July, Monday 16 July to Sunday 5 August, Tuesday 28 to Thursday 30 August, Monday 8 to Thursday 11 October and Monday 19 to Thursday 22 November. Dates and details are subject to change, and there are likely to be other engineering works after 27th April which also cause a change in train provision away from the published timetable.

Please see http://atrebatia.info/winter18_mkm_v1.pdf for the regular train service scheduled on none-engineering days.

Please check at http://www.gwr.com for deatils of your journey on days where engineering changes are planned.

For an immediate check on your day of travel, look at http://train.fyi - the TransWilts app, which has real time running information available to you.

GWR have improved the provision of advance notice of forthcoming major engineering works but are let down by Network Rail not providing the timetable.

For example: May Bank Holiday weekend there is major work affecting services to and from Paddington being diverted via the Chiltern Mainline line on Saturday and Monday with IC services running from Marylebone on Sunday. No sign of timetables for this weekend so you can't book tickets yet.

*which* May bank holiday? :-)

I would agree (GWR improvements on major engineering). What I have tried to do in the diagram is to include both "major" and "minor" on the same diary,  without the clutter of providing everything from Paddington to Penzance on a sheet, and looking forward rather than back.   All too often, I go down to Melksham Station and I find a 3 or 4 week engineering poster that's hard to follow, and included more data about what has happened at past weekends rather than what's coming up.  25% of the time it doesn't even tell you about that next weekend, and it's rare to find anything at the station about the actual times of trains and buses during the more minor changes.   On past form, there will be no notice on 8th, 14th or 15th April ... and from 23rd to 26th there will be a trains and replacement bus sheet - but it will be operationally rather than customer biased. In other words, the most common journey from Melksham is to Swindon, but the buses only run to Chippenham and there's no indication of what time the connecting train gets you to Swindon.   More importantly, in the reverse direction nothing tells you what time train you need to catch from Swindon to connect with the bus at Chippenham to get you home.

Note - "on past form" ... we have asked for the replacement timetables to include:
a) the trains that connect with buses to make up the complete journey
b) none-stop Westbury to Swindon services as well as local trains / buses.
I am forever optimistic ... really shouldn't be hard! ;)

Early May Bank Holiday