I will write an epistle tomorrow - it's too late tonight! 

This conundrum gets more interesting the more I look into the clues available on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website).

Both Bath and Swindon have an overnight service in the small hours of Monday 19th, but all the others are going eastbound. This is the only westbound train that night outside of normal timetabled hours.  There is some logic in this, because I suspect that more people will be wanting to go to London on the day of the funeral rather than leaving it. But if both stations are open to the public it sees odd that this one is the only one with unadvertised stops. To my mind, if you are planning to stop a train then you may as well advertise it and possibly pick up some trade from it

In all my years of being interested in and working for the railway, I have never understood the logic or reasons behind unadvertised stops. Now might be a good time to ask those insiders on the group about it because it seems relevant next week.

One of the overnight extras between Paddington and Bristol on Monday morning leaves at 0134. Its first stop is Didcot at 0209 (set down only), then carries on to Bristol with unadvertised stop at Swindon and Bath, arriving at Bristol at 0300. This stop is also unadvertised

I see it is running with headcode 1Z70 which might indicate something, rather than the usual 1Cxx

If it was supposed to be a fast just to Didcot only and then on ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) to Bristol I could understand that, but it presumably would run as a class 5 train beyond Didcot

Can anybody shed some light on the matter?

Talking about people in their right minds, what sort of person believes an internet post from 11 years ago to be gospel, but doesn't believe the sign currently in the car park?

I re-read your original post this morning and it reminded me of an experience I had when I was a Formal Complaints officer. The sentence that jumped out was:

“You have already caused confusion with one recent user of the car park.”

Now you may already know your correspondent, but I wondered why whoever it was involved a third party rather than contact you directly; means of contacting you are available on the Coffee Shop website even for non-members.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the “already confused” individual is your correspondent him/herself

The issue I was reminded of was someone who got into a taxi in central Chippenham, wanting to go to Parklands, Malmesbury Road. He asked the taxi driver to be taken to “Parklands, Malmesbury.”
The trouble was, there is a Parklands in Malmesbury and the driver took him there

The guy then concluded that it was the Housing Association’s fault because they had two places with the same name.

In my reply I pointed out that many places have “duplicate names” such as High Street, Station Road etc, and the root of the problem was him giving the taxi driver inadequate instructions. The complaint was not upheld.

The link between the two stories that I saw was two individuals who had both made a mistake and were trying to find somebody else to blame for it

My initial thoughts are that your correspondent had taken pedantry to new depths

An archive is, by its very nature, a collection of historical documents, a modern day online history book. By definition it describes things at the time they were written about, and not the present day

Nobody in their right mind would, for example, argue that a rider should appear in a book about Oliver Cromwell to say that England is no longer a republic

You think up your own examples!

It is of course possible to get back from Marlborough by other bus services with t least two changes.

If you wanted to go back to Bath, the quickest way would be bus to Swindon and train home

As regards a "group trip" I was thinking this morning of suggesting next Friday, but in view of today's momentous events it might be better left foir a further week or two as people may have other things to do

Perhaps some of us who live in the area could pick a day to use the X76 and confuse the hell out of the driver!

I'd be up for it! 

That's an interesting case, because that service runs to and from the Royal United Hospital in Bath, and was presumably set up with hospital visiting in mind.

Whilst I am not aware of any "small print" that makes the bus exclusively for RUH passengers, itt may well be with some drivers the mindset that it is. And of course there is always the possibility that the bus takes so few passengers the driver could get into the mindset that he/she is working an "ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock)"

It's certainly worth clarifying with the operator

Luxury...

She's two years younger than my eldest son...

No.  She's hedging her bets just in case Nicola Sturgeon gets her way... 

Long experience as told me to take little notice of whatpoliticians say but form a judgement after seeing what they actually do

I am therefore reserving judgement at the moment

I do have  hunch though that the Conservaative party membership may have just increased Labour's chances of mwnning the next GE. But then, my hunches are often of as much value as politician's words...

The difficulty in looking at this in terms of Lacock Halt and the frequency of the X34 bus may only address part of the issue. There is no guarantee that all employees want to get to or from Melksham or Chippenham, or indeed even a majority of them.

Lacock is a predominantly rural area; Semington is on the southern edge of the urban area of Melksham. Employees may well be coming from Calne or Devizes or Trowbridge or Bradford on Avon or Corsham, or anywhere in between as well as perhaps places further away. Some of those journeys would be nigh on impossible to carry out with public transport.

One of the employers in Lacock, Stonegate Farms, provide their own staff transport, and I wonder whether this might be more appropriate in these cases.

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for the delay in replying but somehow I missed your post when it was on my “unread posts” list

I appreciate that perhaps few passengers want to know the details of reasons for grain failures, and I also appreciate that it is not practically possible to give chapter and verse on an information display screens.

But I do not apologise for the tone of my last post. The service, or lack of it, on the direct Westbury to Swindon service is absolutely appalling and should not be tolerated. What Graham describes is not a fluke; not a one-off; it is happening time and time again on this line and nothing whatsoever appears to be being done about it.

Somebody needs to call GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) out about it but nobody seems to be doing that, or even if they are their comments are falling on deaf ears

To labour a well-know quotation, to cancel one train could be seen as misfortune; to cancel two smacks of carelessness...

And carelessness it is. It is clear that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) couldn’t care less about maintaining their ADVERTISED service on this line.

As I see it, their task is to run the service they advertise unless exceptional circumstances arise. Put simply, if they can’t or won’t run their advertised services them they shouldn’t be advertising it in the first place. I do not see this as a big ask.

The “exceptional circumstances” claimed are too vague to draw conclusions. What, for example, does “fault on the train” mean? Has a wheel fallen off or the engine blown up? Or is it a sticky flush handle in the toilet? Some “faults on the train” may require it being immediately taken out of service; others may not

“Safety inspection of the track.” I believe I am right in saying that I have seen operatives working alongside a live running line recently, so how bad does the potential fault need to be to cancel a train? And in my – ok – armchair and perhaps naive view, if it was a serious fault them there would have been a need for an occupation and a number of trains would have been cancelled. If it wasn’t a serious fault, can trains no longer proceed at caution and at walking pace if necessary?

The less said about “problem under investigation” the better. It is absolutely pointless to put that out as an excuse – it conveys no meaningful information whatsoever, and reminds me in a way of those people who say “xxx is there for a reason” you know” without actually specifying what that reason is. Perhaps it’s because the reason ain’t a very good one...

So, in answer to your 3 quations:


1 No
2 No
3 I haven’t got a clue. I’m increasingly surprised that anybody is still using Melksham station at all with GWR’s couldn’t-care-less attitude to the commitments that it itself has made