They're aren't enough traincrew full stop.

There will be a large exodus of rail staff of all grades after the back pay is paid.

Time plus 20% for station staff or time plus 25% for traincrew will not get people to come to work on a Sunday when there's "easier" overtime in the week even if it's only flat rate as it is in ticket offices.

There are GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) managers systematically working trains on Sundays for years, wouldn't they be better served recruiting and training new staff ?

Your example about two train in three minutes yesterday to Gloucester though is only because of CrossCountry Plymouth to the north terminating short due to engineering works.

Watching this with interest.

To the person looking at commuting to and from Yate- the connections at Filton Abbey Wood are very close or just miss so not viable if you have to wait 29 minutes.

To the person asking for a 3 car Turbo- instead of the Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) to Filton trains being regularly cancelled as they were all week due to not enough units there's a Severn Beach and a Gloucester circuit cancelled to ensure the opening day of Ashley Down isn't disrupted.

Don't post here very often but a staff member has just told me that the branch is re-suspended UFN^▸ (Unpaid Fare Notice, or 'until further notice', depending on context ) after dislodged ballast was found by the checking train.

Looked in here to see what people knew about the current service cancellations.

I went up towards London last evening, my train was cancelled so I get half my single ticket price back for a half hour delay, came back today on time but I noted lots of cancellations on the journey checker.

Had a chat to the guard (no weekend first class upgrades were being collected so a slightly better seat was had gratis) and he said there was still a lot of annual leave needing to be taken by the end of the year, only a day can be carried forward to next year. so that was partly behind yesterdays cancellations. It seems some managers were begging drivers in particular to cancel leave in the autumn of this year and now they are running out of time to take it.

On the guards side, he said earlier in the pandemic leave had to be taken even if it meant sitting at home on lockdown, it couldn't be swapped to free weeks later in the year and that that hadn't gone down too well with some staff.

Seems that there are some covid cases and some people isolating but not a huge number but it's felt the company will use covid as an excuse for everything now. Very few of the trolley people are back yet and there's a worry for their jobs when the government get the pandemic and brexit closed off.

For some reason a 1311 ran BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI) but BTM is a commonly used alternative)) to Severn Beach, platform bloke was as surprised as I was.

Thank you @Grahame and @Broadgage for your welcome and engagement. No engagement from "the man" on the subject though, and latterly he says he only wants to talk trollies. 

Chatted to the nice trolley person this morning on my way to the big beer festival in London. While the train was stopped mind you, due to the pantograph being faulty, we went forward on diesel according to an announcement, they said many trollies are static due to staff ailments/restrictions or trolley defects. They recommended a cold drink vice the tea/coffee, water was not hot enough. It was a 9 car however so if you really were in need of the caffeine they'd text message the other host to bring you one down in a bag. Was that in the spec ?

Some staff are too good to the company it seems.

Well it is very strange then that on other web fora it has been admitted by well known insiders that the market research carried out that returned preference for trollies rather than buffets was carried out after the DFT^▸ (Department for Transport) signed off the trains.