Great Western Coffee Shop

I had a not to be repeated overcrowded trip from Bath to Weymouth last Monday Bank holiday morning on the 7th May just after 0900 on a very warm sunny day. Platform screen said train would be 5 car which of course it was not but a 166. Crush loaded from Yeovil onwards. At Maiden Newton guard suggested passengers got off to cool down and get fresh air as the up train was running very late on the single track. Centre car engine seemed to keep cutting out. Passenger comments made about GWR are not to be repeated but why do we have to have such ludicrous verbose on train announcements and to be told twice at every station that this is a GWR service. I think this really annoyed people and made GWR management sound like a bunch of losers. It is also worth mentioning that at Bath no trains were going through to Paddington but terminating at Reading due to driver shortages. My recent travels on GWR are to say the least appalling and I cannot see them improving.

Being full and standing from Yeovil on a sunny day has been an issue for years which is the main reason for running an extra Bristol-Weymouth train on Summer Saturdays. BR also used to run an extra service on Bank Holidays as well, something you can’t really expect a private operator to do in the hope the weather bucks the traditional bank holiday trend of being average or poor.

The good news for this line is once again SWR are running services between Yeovil and Weymouth on Summer Saturday’s providing much needed extra capacity. They didn’t operate last year because of the work taking place at Waterloo.