07:45 Westbury to Swindon due 08:28
07:45 Westbury to Swindon due 08:28 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system
08:44 Swindon to Westbury due 09:25
08:44 Swindon to Westbury due 09:25 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system.
09:52 Westbury to Swindon due 10:36
09:52 Westbury to Swindon due 10:36 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system
11:05 Swindon to Westbury due 11:48
11:05 Swindon to Westbury due 11:48 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system
There goes my day trip to Southampton.
I do not personally mind - in fact it gives me the opportunity to write up a "snottygram" to
GWR▸ , escalating to the senior managers there, to Transport Focus, to our
MP▸ , and to the Secretary of State for Transport about the appalling ongoing record of the (lack of) train service on this line. I understand that things go wrong from time to time - but not to the extent of loosing 1 train in 9 which has happened for the last 12 weeks (as part to an ongoing saga). On a "Jazz service" as it used to be called - with a train every 20 minutes - cancellation of 1 in 9 and a wait for half an hour sometimes is no big deal. Where it's successive services with a train every 120 minutes, it's a failure to provide a useable train service. It hurts the users (or, rather, the wannabe users) and it hurts the economy of the are it (fails to) serve. My train in not leaving at 08:02 today (a late start for a train service anyway) - if I were to carry on with my plans, it would leave at 12:33.
It's normally regarded as good business practice to provide an alternative for your customers. What are GWR offering?
Further Information
If you arrive at your destination 15 or more minutes late because your GWR train was delayed or cancelled, you can claim Delay Repay compensation. Please keep your ticket and visit GWR.com/DelayRepay
Money back. I don't want my money back. I want the product you are contracted to provide and if you cannot provide that product, an alternative that delivers what I want. I am due into Southampton Airport at 10:35. Being there at 14:35 is no good. In the olden days, a signalling failure (today's reason) would result in a pilotman being provided to take the train safely through. In more recent times, a reil replacement bus would be provided. You are not doing so (or if you are or plan to, you are not telling us about it). You might also have provided advice about tickets and travel being accepted on local buses, and details of them. You haven't done that. You are not looking after your customers.
Yesterday, I attended an online meeting with GWR on timetabling across their central area. We were told, and agreed, that it was a confidential session and I am not at liberty to disclose here in public the content. I am, however, at my wit's end and I will disclose that GWR's [name redacted] described their performance over the Bristol travel-to-work area this summer as "Pretty good". And when I raised the issue of the services to, from and though Melksham the meeting chair asked that we take the discussion offline and have a separate meeting; he told us his MD would be concerned, and he had no answer when I pointed out that such a meeting had been previously promised but not followed up on, and that in any case people need trains (or buses) to travel on, and an apology and repayment doesn't get them to where they need to go. The timetable planning lady was talking about the timetable from December, and I asked her what plans were being made for the timetable to be realistic and not a work of hope and fiction, and the question was not answered.
I am not looking for perfection. Far from it. I am just asking at this stage for a level playing field. I looked at the last 12 weeks and find 11% cancellation and compared it to Yatton - a station chosen at random because I'm going there in a fortnight. They have had 4% cancellation - 1 train in 25 not 1 in 9 - and that on a service that runs every 30 minutes. I look at their weekend record and it's 7% cancellation - that's 1 train in 14, compared to the "horrendous" - not my word but from an industry contact off the record 33% weekend cancellation here in Melksham - 1 train in 3.
All I am asking for at this stage is a level playing field on reliability - that cancellation rates at Melksham are fair and square with cancellation rates across the Bristol travel-to-work area. I am not even asking for a timetable appropriate for our town of one train each way every hour for our town (population 25,000) which is bettered at every other town around; that can (and should) come later. Please, GWR and your masters, and colleagues in Network Rail, in HMG and in the rail unions, provide us with a level playing field on delivering published performance.
P.S. Things will always go wrong from time to time. Please do not answer the base issue of general lack of reliability which has been hurting all day on many, many days with an explanation of what is wrong today. Please answer with solutions that address the ongoing issues on the ground, and which you can (and will) carry though to providing a level playing field.
GWR's train changes this morning. Red = cancelled; pink = different train length to that planned
Cancellation rates ON THE DAY at towns across Wiltshire
Effect of cancellations rates, factoring in population served and timetabled gap between trains
It should be noted that there are two stations in Yeovil and these stats are only for the one GWR serve at Pen Mill.
Looking for a level playing fieldEdit (at 06:45, 04.10.2025) to add -
Industrty feed via West Wilts Rail User Group - station departure boards this morning for Melksham and Warminster showing the very different levels of service planned in the first place, and then actually being operated. Warminster is another Wiltshire market town - similar in size to Melksham - if anything slightly smaller.
further edit purely to correct punctation and spellings
Click on the map to explore geographics
