Great Western Coffee Shop

Summer Saturdays from now until September. One through trip from Salisbury to Corfe Castle followed by a couple of shuttles to Wareham and back then the last trip back to Salisbury. Not bad value at £10 day return SAL-CFC


http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/news/detail/new-trains-to-corfe-castle-from-across-dorset-somerset-and-wiltshire-this-summer

Already under discussion here:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19851.0

Although I do think the existing topic should be on this board. The service has far more miles on SWR metals than Heart of Wessex. Mods?

Indeed ... but it covers a high higher percentage of the Heart of Wessex route miles than I does of SWR route miles  ;D ;D .   Difficult call. On a train - will take a look later.

After further thought, inclined to leave.  Three way choice
- Heart of Wessex
- SWR
- Heritage lines
almost as bad as trying to decide where to post Westbury station topics  :D

* SWR is a fairly general one covering a very large area, whereas HoW is more specific and this train is a bigger deal there
* Our main purpose on the forum is GWR, and HoW is a GWR topic - so it's mainstream
* Supporting and promoting something going on on a Community Rail line

No wrong and right - but them's my reasonings!

Sort of understood.  ;)

However the Heart of Wessex CRP aren't supporting or promoting the service and it doesn't use any of the line between Bristol TM and Yeovil Pen Mill.

That's a bit strange bearing in mind how busy the line is on Summer Saturdays between Yeovil and Weymouth. You would think they'd want to promote these extra trains to relieve the ones coming from the Bristol direction.

The current and excellent HoW promotion and timetable leaflet does now include all the SWR services operating along parts of the HoW route. These include the Summer Saturday services, some of which extend to/from Corfe Castle. It seems quite likely that the Corfe service was a late addition and appeared after the printing deadline.

This leaflet does only cover the core BRI/WSB to WEY (via YVP) services and can probably do no more for space and design reasons. My comment is that it does not include the additional services available at FRO (or indeed CLC and YVP-YVJ etc). Such services at FRO are more relevant to HoW and I have made some simple suggestions for improvement next time round but without changing the basic aim and design.

Unsurprisingly this service and the Weymouth to Yeovil shuttle service won’t be running this Saturday.

It also looks unlikely it will run at all on Saturdays throughout August due to strike action unless a deal can be reached. It is due to finish running early September so there could only be one further opportunity to use this service before the summer is out.

This will also put pressure on already busy GWR services between Yeovil and Weymouth on Saturdays.

Why can't the Dartmouth Steam Railway do this,  would be ideal to have a HST down to Kingswear from Paddington, especially during the Regatta.