Great Western Coffee Shop

OK, not strictly FGW, but as the Save Severn Tunnel Group (and sister group Bettertrains4Chepstow) have been campaigning for better services to the North and Bristol, it looks like the current ATW Maesteg - Gloucester service is being extended through to Cheltenham Spa from the December 07 TT change.  This is good news as it means passengers along the way can potentially change into long distance Cross Country services at Cheltenham without a change at Gloucester as well.  Something which makes sense is being implemented at last!   Well done ATW! 

Might be all tied up with the change over of the XC franchise to Arriva and the incorporation of the Nottingham - Cardiff services into the franchise from Central. It makes sense to extend the ATW services to Cheltenham which will give more connections to Birmingham and the North but are all Maesteg - Gloucester services extended or only those covering for a gap in the Arriva XC service from South Wales.

On the other hand I might be barking up the wrong tree entirely but Arriva Trains Wales and Arriva Cross Country, does it suggest some thing, two franchises within the same Holding Company working together to integrate their services for the benefit of their passengers.

Great news! But now I really think that there should be a 3rd (bay) platform built at Cheltenham Spa. Now there are so many terminating Southbound services there (Bristol-Cheltenham, Swindon/Paddington-Cheltenham and now Maesteg-Cheltenham) things might get crowded with just 2 platforms!

From December 2007 , one alternate FGW train will run to Worcester / Great Malvern and the other will terminate at Gloucester (rather than Cheltenham Spa.) This in turn means that the service from Yate / Cam & Dursley - Cheltenham will be reduced from hourly to 2 - hourly.

Well timmings would work, as they sit in Gloucester for a stupid amount of time, and the space is there at Cheltenham at the times it would be!

Graz.

You obviously are not familiar with the layout at Cheltenham. There are two turnback sidings immediately to the north of Cheltenham station which terminating trains stable in until the time to commence their next service. I think they are referred to as the Alstom sidings.

http://www.cheltenhamchamber.org.uk/OutlineDoc.pdf

The attached report produced by the Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce as an alternative to the Gloucester Parkway scheme provides an interesting take on how more trains could be accommodated at Cheltenham Spa Station by building two bay platforms on the trackbed of the Honeybourne line. Of course, the obvious step then would be to extend the line half a mile along the line to provide a service that reaches close to the heart of the town and shopping centre.   

Actually I am... I travelled there for over 3 years ;) and I did see on several occasions services that have been delayed by quite a bit, because of terminating trains 'using up' the platform while waiting for the signal to go into the sidings. It's also the case for trains in the sidings waiting for other delayed trains to leave the station, so they also become late. To me, a 3rd bay platform would make perfect sense, although the problem would be where it could go.

Anyway, it's a shame about the reduced service from Cheltenham Spa-Cam & Dursley and Yate, as many passengers from these stations were buying tickets to Cheltenham.

So there would be 2 stations? It's interesting, but the current station isn't too far away from the centre as it is and there are regular buses.

the extension of the maesteg - gloucester services to cheltenham IS happening from 9/12/07.