(where else does a train service terminate one stop short of a city - Salisbury)
Is this any more silly than just running a train from
WSB» to
WMN» , via
DMH» ; then reversing it and sending it off to Gt Malvern/Worcester - first stop DMH, followed by WSB !! 4 miles and 53 chains each way. Not going on to SAL does, at least, save a bit of diesel.
I have always thought that this was just a bizzare way of ticking boxes in the Franchise bid - or does it have some far deeper meaning ?
Several of the return workings from Warminster take considerable traffic - and there's a need to get the train to Warminster to start that journey. Would you believe that about half the passenger journeys at Dilton Marsh are on one of these trains from Warminster to Dilton Marsh. Into Warminster, these trains are underused because they're just 10 minutes after the Portsmouth; coming back they make a ice half hourly pattern.
I suspect that the southbound split of the service at Westbury is for operational reasons - no shunt siding at Warminster, just a crossover, so the Westbury stop (and service split) allows for staff breaks, and provides operational robustness on a train that's come all the way from Malvern.
Future plan ... run half hourly from Westbury and to Salisbury, back from there, and have a proper half hourly on that section. Works with rearranged diagrams rather than extra trains if you end-on join to the Salisbury to Romsey train with its 40 minute plus turn around at Salisbury
