2025 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury

[whole diary]

[grahame]

12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 13:01

12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 13:01 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

The change only happened last weekend!

So as of last night it was 50% of the days since the change that the peak evening train was declared cancelled then re-instated.  Unclever - very unclever.

Time flies - it's been two weeks not one, hasn't it, ChrisB?   And I fell for that without doing a fact check ... I have not looked back at the first week after the changes; that record commented on is for the second week as they should be bedding in.

[grahame]

... . I guess it works on paper. ...

I guess it does.  Problem is ... railways don't run on paper ... they run on people, and engineering, and trains and rails, all of which have less continuous availability than a sheet of paper which remains a miracle that can be written on and still read years later.

[grahame]

12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 13:01

12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 13:01 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

And six hours later ... the almost inevitable cancellation of the train in the return direction

13:13 Swindon to Westbury due 13:55

13:13 Swindon to Westbury due 13:55 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Last Updated:31/05/2025 09:39

[grahame]

14:05 Frome to Swindon due 14:58
15:44 Swindon to Frome due 16:38 
16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34 
17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55

17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.
Last Updated:01/06/2025 11:57

[grahame]

15:44 Swindon to Frome due 16:38

15:44 Swindon to Frome due 16:38 will be reinstated.
It will be started from Westbury.
It will no longer call at Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge.
This is due to a fault on this train.

1 cheer not 3. Not "reinstated" as far as passengers wishing to join at Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham or Trowbridge are concerned ...

Somewhat better news (2 cheers not 3) that the following return trip is no longer on the cancellation report, so id probably re-instated throughout.

[grahame]

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

[grahame]

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

Just noticed ...

06:50 Westbury to Weymouth due 08:25

06:50 Westbury to Weymouth due 08:25 will be reinstated.
It will be starting late from Westbury.
This is due to a fault on this train.

So is that 2 trains with faults at Westbury this morning, or a fault on the train planned to run to Weymouth and then a decision to use the one planned for the TransWilts service for the Weymouth instead?

[grahame]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:06
17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19

17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system

[grahame]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:06
17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19

17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system

Something looked odd here ... then I found it ... the fault isn't even on our line ...

Cancellations to services between Newbury and Westbury
Due to a fault with the signalling system between Newbury and Westbury all lines are blocked.
Train services running through these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 30 minutes or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

[bobm]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:06
17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19

17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:19 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system

With the power to the signalling at Newbury restored, the latter pair above have now been re-instated.

[grahame]

With the power to the signalling at Newbury restored, the latter pair above have now been re-instated.

but ... another two cancellation.  Not exactly customer friendly, is it?

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 was terminated at Swindon.
It will no longer call at Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06 will be started from Swindon.
It will no longer call at Westbury, Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

[grahame]

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:06 will be started from Swindon.
It will no longer call at Westbury, Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

It ran last night - we was on it - 3 carriage train, 10 in our carriage (so guessing around 30 in the train), 8 off and perhaps 2 or 3 on at Melksham (we were slow getting off so I may have missed 1 or 2. So that is  [32/10] which is not bad going for one of the very quietest trains of the day. 

This is the descendant of the 19:35 service from the bad old decade of "2 trains a day - too early and too late" when we were a line without a train - borrowing one from another line to run when it really wasn't much use there (either) ... and in those days we would have been lucky to see 5 people using the train.  How well we have come forward, even allowing for the flakiness and the 30 minute later running, timed (I suspect) to allow for the personal needs break of the crew arriving from Gloucester rather than to connect with the service from Salisbury of provide an evenly spaced service.

And this morning ...

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will be started from Westbury.
It will no longer call at Salisbury and Warminster.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

[TaplowGreen]

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will no longer call at Chippenham, Trowbridge and Dilton Marsh.
It will be starting late from Gloucester.
This is due to trespassers on the railway earlier today.

[grahame]

08:30 Basingstoke to Reading due 08:56
17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55

17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

You may wonder why I am quoting the Basingstoke service too - which is cancelled "due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time".   That's because these are the ONLY two trains across the whole of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) area which are cancelled at short notice this morning.  It is not unusual to see this sort of metric, where a very high proportion of cancellations are on our little line - from our 14 services out of around 2,000 that GWR should run.

Oh - and

16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34

16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

So that's a cancellation in all but name ...

2/14 is a 14.5% cancellation rate ...

[ChrisB]

A major signalling failure at BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) means nothing moving until around 1000