Great Western Coffee Shop

15:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 18:35
15:03 London Paddington to Plymouth due 18:35 will be delayed at Westbury.
This is due to the train departing late to maintain customer connections.

3 minute hold to connect out of a 10 minute late Portsmouth to Cardiff train.  Sensible as after 16:21, the next train to(wards) Plymouth is 18:21.    Was just 1 late by Exeter.

Looks like it wasn't held (or maybe didn't need to be after all), as only stopped at Westbury for one minute?

Maybe there was a VIM (Very Important Minister) on board, which meant that all the normal rules had to be put to one side when they realise what the rest of the travelling public have to put up with day in day out.

But I expect it would be a different matter if it was a Melksham service.  ;)

There have been some notably successful connections made over they years as well as a couple of REALLY abject failures that make the minister's wait look short - I can think of incidents that have been recalled on the forum at Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Westbury.  Most recent ones that I've been around for have been successes though. Big problem of late has been cancellation rates; every cancellation on a service that only runs every 2 hours is a problem (note to people in control - cancel a train that runs every two hours and it costs you £££ for buses or taxis, cancels a train that runs every 30 minutes and people wait without that road transport expense ;D )

According to RTT, it left 3 late having waited for the train from Bristol, running 15 late.

Well there's a lot of slack in the HSS timetable at the moment as IETs can make up a short hold, station pathing depending, so control might be a bit more willing.

Add the summer holidays with a lot of changes made at Westbury between north-south to east-west and vice versa, and a 2 hour wait means either busing or taxiing a lot of people.

Expect that to change again come the December timetable.

Indeed - although we grumble about current service robustness / reliability, there is potential for the December changes to compromise what standards we have at present on the altar of speed of journey.  GWR's "how do we make station stops quicker" question of late July rather indicates they are wise to this potential.

Still down 800001/800002, got a few in maintenance due to faults but a few in for the interior seating to be redone and the extra signage I believe.