Additional late night service from Paddington to the South West

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the First Great Western press release:

Additional late night service from Paddington to the South West

First Great Western is pleased to announce that starting on Monday we will be adding a 21.35 weekday service from London Paddington to the South West.

The extra service will call at Reading, 22.01; Taunton, 23.20; Tiverton Parkway, 23.33 and Exeter St Davids at 23.51, with a connecting executive coach service from Tiverton Parkway to Plymouth and Cornwall.

Alison Seabeck MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Plymouth said: "I am delighted First Great Western have listened to concerns raised from people in Plymouth. Putting on this additional train shows Plymouth is open for business and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) deserve credit for acting to support the City."

Coaches, which will be for customers from the 21.35 only, will leave from Tiverton Parkway at 23.40 calling at:
^        Plymouth at 00.55
^        Bodmin Parkway at 01.45
^        Bodmin Town Centre at 01.55
^        Truro at 02.35
^        Penzance at 03.25
There will also be a direct coach between Exeter St Davids and Newton Abbot, departing 23.59 and arriving at 00.30.

FGW General Manager West David Crome said: "I am delighted that we can offer this additional service, allowing customers to travel from London to the South West late into the evening while the sleeper service is unable to operate. The sleeper will be back once Network Rail completes the work at Dawlish and until then we will do everything we can to minimise disruption to our customers' journeys."

[Pb_devon]

Alison Seabeck is MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Plymouth Moor View. Other MPs in Plymouth are available.

[broadgage]

Sounds a good idea.

Dont understand the bit about the coaches only being for pasengers from the 21-35 train though.
Surely if some one has a full fare open ticket, or a season ticket, valid for the journey then they can use any train, or presumably any rail replacement bus.

What if someone wants to travel from Tiverton to Penzance ? can they not buy a rail ticket and board the bus, despite not having alighted from the 21-35.

[John R]

Possibly so they can assess the number of passengers each night and get the right number of coaches in place. But it does feel wrong.

[bobm]

I suspect getting on at Tiverton would not be a problem, but in Cornwall the bus might miss out, say, Bodmin if no one on board wanted to get off there.

[ChrisB]

Indeed, the coaches will be set-down only.

Liked the sleeper, can you stay on the coach until 0700 at PNZ? :-)