Great Western Coffee Shop

The Heart of Wessex line has been one of the hardest hit in GWR 'land' - down to just three trains a day.   Early plans for next week were for that to be unchanged - however, a late change (shown in bold) has added an extra Monday to Friday service.

From WESTBURY next week at 06:52, 09:32, 15:33 and 18:32
From WEYMOUTH at 06:44, 08:49, 11:11 and 17:23

For academic interest, service appears to be running without Weymouth crew - empty trains from Westbury at 05:10 and from Weymouth at 20:20

Despite the call to avoid public transport, is there a chance the 8.40 Bristol-Weymouth and the 17.28 return journey could be rather busy tomorrow?

Dorset Council, have said, please do not visit, nothing is open, other than food shops, the public toilets are generaly closed too, best you could do is a chip takeaway, then use the 165 toilet, realy hope they put an HST on, oh hang on, they are rushing to scrap those at Eastleigh as we type.
Dorset resident.

By keeping public toilets closed you are creating another health hazard. If people do visit, and this applies to other places as well as Weymouth, where are they expected to go?

I don’t think saying the toilets are closed is going to put many people off, especially if next weekend’s bank holiday weekend follows the same weather pattern as the previous two.

Reminds me of many years ago when Tenby used to lock the Public Conveniences at 17:00, even in the summer season. The local bobby then spent the evening going round booking people who had been caught short (not just enebriated squaddies).

Why don't they keep the seats and put them into the 165/166s - 4 abreast ?  Much more civilised and doing a bit for "social distancing" !

The service, since reconfigured, has seen ecs from Westbury first thing and to Westbury last thing in the day. I am not sure if Weymouth have a GWR crew based there any more.

The late additions are services that were in the pre-virus WTT hence the use of the 2Oxx and the 2Vxx codes rather than the 2Zxx codes

My understanding is that Westbury crews are normally conveyed by taxi to/from Weymouth at the beginning and end of service. Probably not practical at the moment

The last I heard Weymouth had a very small number of GWR Guards.   The Westbury driver of the last one down at night stays down there, does any shunting required and works the first one back up in the morning.    Any others are taxied.

As a male of "a certain age" who is rapidly turning into a clone of Private Godfrey from Dad's Army, it would certainly put me off.

Nuff said I think... ;)

Probably a story for another day but the first time I met Graham was outside the toilets at Weymouth station!

That's probably not saying as much as some members may think ... as the toilets are just off the main flow route of returning day trippers headed from the beach, the bus from Portland, the harbour, Nothe Fort, shops, pier, funfairs, chippies, amusement arcades, pubs and other things Weymouth has to offer at normal times ... and just before those people fan out for the SWT (as it was) train for Waterloo, the Steam special for Bristol, or the FGW train which is dividing at Westbury for Cheltenham Spa via Swindon and for Bristol with instructions like "you need the front of the rear section" .  Oh - and no station staff to help.   Fun memories!

Out of curiosity, I noticed that the ecs from Westbury to Weymouth was running as 3V72 rather than its normal 5V71. It was under a very short train plan and ran earlier. It is the difference between class 3 and 5 that I am trying to understand.

A class 3 ECS is on its way to work a passenger service (class 1 or 2) with a shortish interval between the ECS arriving at destination and the passenger train leaving.

Many thanks