Great Western Coffee Shop

I have been looking at the (draft) Dec 19 timetables on RTT with my particular interest in Heart of Wessex services. I was expecting little change as predicted and that is largely the case. I have not yet looked at WSB connections.

Those party animals in Trowbridge, Westbury and Frome will now get more drinking time. The late service now leaves BRI at 23.45, FRO 00.45. Good in some respects, less so in others! SWI residents not too jealous please.

The more serious issue is the missing 20.21 WEY-BRI on Mo-Fr. I sincerely hope this is an error since otherwise we have a major service reduction. It does seem incredible that the last service will now apparently be at 17.23 which is slightly earlier than currently. Although not usually busy this service clearly provides a public good. Young people often travel Dorchester to Maiden Newton after a social night or study night. Travellers heading West will change at Castle Cary. I can and possibly will list more later.
 
I have congratulated GWR on running the current service at a reasonable time, allowing some evening activity in Weymouth, Dorchester or Yeovil. This is better than the BR post-Beeching offer which was at 19.33 in a loco-hauled mail train timing.

The other strange issue is that the three inbound evening trains to WEY, all still run apparently delivering an "extra" set to WEY.

The only mitigating factor is the late SWR service from Castle Cary  to WSB/SAL but this does not address the main market.

So many thanks to Timmer in another thread for waving the magic wand and reinstating the later Mo-Fr evening service WEY-BRI/GCR. I can assure everyone that this service was not in the RTT listing (along the route) last Sunday or early Monday evening. I looked several times.

The timing for this revised service at 20.15 is shown as a Class 150, not a 158 as current. So the journey is about 5 mins longer to WSB. Mind you the 158 timings nearly always get delayed now - for no apparent reason of hold-ups or excess passengers. As the departure is now closer to the previous arrival at 20.06, let us hope there is no waiting around for a delayed incomer just to give the WSB crew a lift back home. The 20.21/20.15 train is normally formed from the previous incoming unit.

The 2021 is formed off the previous but one ex Great Malvern.    The 1640 ex Gloucester is the previous one which shunts out of the way.    There are still many things to be tidied up regarding the December Timetable which cannot be reliably relied on until it has been released into the Journey Planner.

One thing which does not help with plans for a higher frequency on the HoW route is the fact that SWR also serve Yeovil Pen Mill, Castle Cary, Bruton, Frome and Westbury. There will be a couple of extra SWR services through those stations will be higher once the new timetable kicks in on 16th December. For comparison, on Mondays to Fridays:

20th November:
To Salisbury and / or Waterloo, via. Yeovil Jcn: 0541 (WL), 1238 (YJ), 1344 (WL), 1432 (YJ), 1544 (WL), 2030 (YJ), 2130 (YJ)
To Salisbury and / or Waterloo, via. Castle Cary: 0655 (WL), 1045 (WL), 1453 (WL), 1646 (WL), 1926 (WB)

16th December:
To Salisbury and / or Waterloo, via. Yeovil Jcn: 0541 (WL), 0711 (WL), 1238 (YJ), 1344 (WL), 1544 (WL), 1635 (YJ), 2030 (YJ)
To Salisbury and / or Waterloo, via. Castle Cary: 0655 (SY), 1045 (SY), 1450 (SY), 1646 (WL), 1926 (WB)

SY: To Salisbury | WB: To Westbury | WL: To Waterloo | YJ: To Yeovil Junction
1926 Yeovil Pen Mill - Westbury commences London Waterloo at 1650.

The new SWR timetable for Yeovil Pen Mill trips has 5 Waterloo journeys, so no change there, and 2 on Sundays (currently none).

Good that SWR are trying to fill the gaps left by GWR and providing some connections between Yeovil Junction and Yeovil Pen Mill.

Dave

I'm a bit puzzled as you say a couple of extra trips, but there seems to be exactly the same number shown, although at different times.

I agree that it's good that SWR is trying to fill some gaps, although if that prevents development of an hourly through service to Weymouth then I'm not sure it is for the greater good.  I wonder what the motives really are of SWR, maybe it's more to do with nibbling a bit of revenue from GWR through the fare allocation process (ORCATS?)

The SWR foray into GWR territory started a couple of years ago when the company converted ecs  into passenger workings. The ecstatics working had the advantage of keeping route knowledge of the train crews and presumably the change to passenger meant some additional income for minimal outlay.
From December SWR will have a crew base at Yeovil Junction and a couple of sets will stable there overnight.
As regards the hourly service to Weymouth, I am not sure if that would have materialised in the short term. One key limiter is the single line from Castle Cary to Weymouth.

The Wessex Route Study Final 210815 has this to say (p114)