Great Western Coffee Shop

I admit it - I have a fascination with old timetables.  Quite a collection here, and at the model railway exhibition in Birmingham yesterday, I picked up another couple.   Including this fascinating (to me) 1000 page gem

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/cover_1966.jpg)

I used to have some lingering and have in the far off past actually collected them, in a cursory way. But recently I've been in a throw it out (repurpose) mood for most unused things. If I do find any, the OP is indeed welcome to them, but I doubt I have any now.

But I do like that example. The design makes it look more like 1916 than 1966. TBH that's a bit America all over.  :o

I have a small collection of BR(WR) timetables from the 1950s to mid 1970s, and they can be quite instructive.  They're all packed away at the moment.  One thing that I feel is striking, is that you could travel from Evesham to Paddington in less than two hours back in the early 1970s, in a comfortable seat on a train with a restaurant, or at least a buffet, car.  Can't do that now.

And, looking further back, you see places like Witney and Ross-on-Wye, sizeable settlements that are without rail services altogether.

Perhaps time to unpack them?  My 1974/5 timetable lists one through train taking exactly two hours per day, with 6 through trains per day in total.  From December 16th you'll be able to do it in less than two hours on 17 trains each day, quickest at 1h 39m, with 21 through trains per day.  The difference on a Sunday is even more stark with just three trains a day then, and a huge gap between 10:33 and 16:58, whereas from December it's 14 trains per day with six train alone plugging that gap.

Take your point regarding restaurants and buffets.  Times have changed...

Can any help me out here?

Circa 2005-2008?

The ECS to Hereford from St philips Marsh approx 04:00am.

Use to call at Abergavenny,can anyone post what years the ECS called at Abergavenny to pick up.

Thank you in advance.

It is NOT shown in my printed May to December 2007 ("final printed edition") of the National Rail timetable, and there is talk if it ending December 2008 at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3072.msg23621#msg23621 . I do remember it - could it really have been as short-lived as 1 year?

I remember it as being very short-lived. Hadn't realised it was as long ago as that.

Cheers Graham

It could have been just one year,any one have any pre May 2007 timetables hanging around?

Copies would suffice

Not shown in December 2005 toMay 2006 either - but then it wouldn't be as it wasn't started until December 2007. I am less sure of the finish date being December 2008; that's the implication from the thread I dug up here as the empties were planned to stabled overnight at the end of the Cotswold line, but if the storage tracks were anything like other rail projects and not finished on time, it could have run into 2009.