TransWilts (including Melksham) - train service update for the rest of 2024

1. A Summer Saturday through train from Melksham to Weymouth is timetabled to run from 8th June 2024 to 7th September 2024 (inclusive) dates, "like last year" - news from GWR^▸ at their briefing to community reps on 14th March. Early timetables show it as leaving Melksham at 09:10 and getting to Weymouth at 11:08, returning at 19:32, and getting to Melksham at 21:33.

2. Other train services at Melksham are "unchanged" and in the current economic and rail climate, that is a cause for relief and perhaps even celebration. However, please read on.

3. About six months ago, I put in a report to GWR suggesting certain train time changes by no more than 4 minutes to improve connections at Trowbridge and Chippenham for passengers to and from Bath and Bristol. In answer to a question yesterday I was told that these had been impossible to do because of their effect on other trains - HOWEVER I note that from June the 06:36 from Melksham now leaves at 06:32, and connects at Trowbridge to reach Bristol Temple Meads at 07:28 rather than 07:48. I need to take a fuller look back at my requests for other connection changes; data recently received from industry sources show that Bristol Temple Mads is the third most popular destination from Melksham by train, after Swindon and Chippenham. I am writing this on a train so can't spread out all my papers!

4. There are some more general timetable changes, effecting Westbury and Swindon in particular, with a few extra trains. I asked about whether GWR had the staff to run these reliably particularly (for example) because we have had a couple of cancellation this week due to staff shortage. I was informed that this week has been especially tight because of extra crews needed for Cheltenham (Gold Cup) trains. I'm not totally convinced - there seems to be a wide variety of short term reasons given for long term reliability issues.

5. From the close of service on Christmas Eve (24th December 2024), Westbury will be closed for engineering works for 30 days. I asked about services from Trowbridge to both Bristol and Swindon and was assured that trains from Bristol and from Swindon WILL continue to run, terminating there and with ongoing buses to Warminster and to Frome for continuing services. Train times may vary (not a surprise - there are limited platforms at Trowbridge); it's a big relief that GWR aren't running buses all the way from Westbury to Bath and to Chippenham.

These are "first notifications" - more to follow, no doubt.