Great Western Coffee Shop

Or rather "what's my station"

On Tuedsay, 30th December, FGW is running two services each way.  There are trains at 10:30 in the morning and 17:30 in the evening to xxxx, and they leave there on their return journeys at 11:12 and 18:45.

For regular readers, the question may be a blindingly obvious one.  So when someone has answered, is any one brave enough to add a suggestion as to what customer requirements of passenger flows these timings are intended to service?

That must be Melksham!!

Probably intended for leisure travellers to Swindon?  Shoppers?

Yes, of course you have the place right.  The 18:45 back is mighty late for shoppers or leisure people - it's the normal commuter train return time ... late for that, but the morning working is a nonsensical balance.

The best explanation I could could come up with is that the "customer" is the DfT, and the requirement it meets is the SLC ... doing it as cheaply as possible by running the services at times that a unit happens to be spare at Westbury for a couple of hours in the morning and evening.

But I love the 17:30 to Swindon.  Please, Mr FGW can you add that permanently to the timetable, together with a matching arrival at about 09:30?  ;D (In fact this (http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/tp.html) would be nice!)

That is true!

Perhaps the units that work the Melksham line are the the units that are used for peak services in to/from Westbury-BTM in the mornings/evenings!  Therefore, FGW decide to run them from Westbury-Swindon during off peak hours to give them something to do!!

Obviously during peak times, FGW cannot spare no units at all for poor old Melksham!!

You don't realise how true that is.

Outside the Christmas period, there's no train on the TransWilts from 07:48 (when the early morning round trip has been completed and the unit taks off to do a peak hour run from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltentam) and 18:45 (when the unit can be spared once again off the Cheltenham and Gloucester to Swindon service after the peak).   Times like 06:15 from Swindon and 20:20 in to Swindon (those are the other two Swindon times) have been described as "marginal time" to me - by a respected manager at FGW.

But I do take comfort from the fact that Newquay, which had a similarly missing peak service has just regained its ... so there's hope for us.

At least you passengers from the forgotten land get the benefit of a Gloucester crew on most of the few services that do call at... where was that again? :-X