Swindon <-> Westbury service updates and amendments, ongoing discussion - 2025

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Update at 07:39 from Journeycheck

Cancellations to services at Melksham
Due to a fault with the signalling system at Melksham all lines are closed.
Train services running through this station will be cancelled. Disruption is expected until 12:00 (4) 04/10.
Customer Advice
What has happened?
A signalling fault is preventing us from operating trains on the Melksham branch.

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What are we doing about it?
We have suspended our service between Swindon and Westbury via Melksham.
Network Rail are sending specialist teams but at this time there is no eta. (1)

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What are my options?
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Option 1: Use the National Rail Enquiries real-time journey planner to check if a journey by rail is currently possible. If you are at a station please check the live departure boards or speak to a member of station staff. (2)
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Option 2: If there are other rail companies or local public transport operators who may be able to help you make your journey, we will provide details here. (6)

Customers travelling between Westbury/Trowbridge and Chippenham/Swindon can circulate via Bath Spa in both directions to complete their journeys if they wish.
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Option 3: Replacement transport provided by taxis has been arranged to operate between Westbury and Chippenham calling at Trowbridge and Melksham in both directions.
This service is operated by Bath Taxis.

Replacement road transport may run later than the advertised train times owing to the additional time taken by road between stations and the time required for loading and unloading at each stop.

Pick up location for rail replacement services:

Westbury: Rail Bus stop adjacent to the ticket office.

Trowbridge: In the car park adjacent to Platform 1 (Booking Office side of Station)

Melksham: Station car park (3)

Chippenham: Short stay car park. Taxi Rank: Taxi rank is available at the station entrance if you require an accessible taxi please approach a member of staff.

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Option 4: Consider postponing your journey until our service returns to normal.
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Let us help you:
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If you're already travelling when disruption happens, we'll get you where you need to go. If you miss the last train of the day due to cancellation or because another train was delayed, we wont leave you stranded.
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If you require help, further information or would like to provide feedback, to help us improve in the future:
Speak to staff at the station or on the train (5). Use the Customer Help Point on the platform.
Message us on X @GWRHelp, Facebook Messenger @gwruk, Instagram @gwruk or WhatsApp 07890 608043. Our team is available daily between 07:00 and 19:00.
Call our Customer Support team on 03457 000 125, who are available between 06:00 and 23:00, or National Rail Enquiries on 03457 484 950, who are available 24 hours a day.
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Delay Repay:
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We are sorry for the delay to your journey. If you arrive at your destination 15 or more minutes late because your GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) train was delayed or cancelled, you can apply for Delay Repay compensation. Please keep your ticket and visit GWR.com/DelayRepay
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Further Information
An update will follow within the next 2 hours.
If you require further information please speak to our staff at the station or on the train, use the Customer Help Point, tweet us @GWRHelp or call National Rail Enquiries on 03457 484 950.

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

Better - much better - than no customer information, but discerning passengers may notice

(1) - Trains were cancelled from around 8 p.m. last night - and they are only just now sending teams to fix the issue??

(2) - There ARE no station staff to speak to at Melksham

(3) - So not at the rail replacement transport stop on Station Approach then?

(4) - And beyond - the first southbound train is now scheduled at 13:39 and passenger disruption carries on through the journey

(5) - Speak to staff on the train?   It's cancelled!!!

(6) - Err - so where are the details of bus service x34 which will provide an alternative Trowbridge - Melksham - Chippenham, or bus services 271 and 272 which will provide links to Bath Spa as a suitable alternative for passengers headed for Bath, Bristol and west thereof?

[Timmer]

Yesterday, I attended an online meeting with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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 find it hilarious at the same time pretty pathetic that stakeholders are invited to a meeting to discuss timetable changes but aren’t allowed to share the details with those they represent the travelling public who use the service. It’s also not as if the information isn’t already available through sites such as RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website).

[grahame]

Yesterday, I attended an online meeting with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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 find it hilarious at the same time pretty pathetic that stakeholders are invited to a meeting to discuss timetable changes but aren’t allowed to share the details with those they represent the travelling public who use the service. It’s also not as if the information isn’t already available through sites such as RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website).

Indeed. But I can and I am sharing public information which may have come onto my radar that is already in the public domain if you know where to look.   And I can tell you about questions that I have which were not answered such as "What to you consider to be a 'pretty good' performance?" and "What measures are in place with the new timetable to ensure resources including staff and trains are there to deliver it reliably, and what are your reliability targets for stations such as Melksham and Dilton Marsh as you do that planning?"

As a passenger, I am critical of the industry players (Great Western Railway, Network Rail, Department for Transport, Unions and Community Rail Partnership) for failing to provide a train service that people can rely on to run more or less to the published timetable.   All five of those elements have - in common - that their costs / staff / salaries are paid directly or indirectly by the Department for Transport, which is the judge and jury and holds the controlling strings.  This summer, I declined a suggestion that I might rejoin the board of the Community Rail Partnership, as the invite was made on the understanding that I would not be critical except at their board meetings.   I even have some concern at TravelWatch SouthWest, where the previous chair had to stand down because of a perceived conflict of interest, and our new chair sits on the GWR Advisory Board, and at Transport Focus and the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) which are arms length subsidiaries of - you guessed it - the Department for Transport, which is re-organising the industry and the moment and perhaps may organise them out of existence or into toothless entities like seems to have happened with community rail.

[bobm]

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

The latter pair have been re-instated.

[grahame]

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

The latter pair have been re-instated.

Update noted - thank you.  On past experience, that will mean that most of the passengers will have decided not to travel (I  am, personally, an example of that), but that the train will not show up in the cancellation stats.

[brooklea]

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

The latter pair have been re-instated.

Pedantically, only the last train appears to have been reinstated as a passenger-carrying service.

[Mark A]

**snip**
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.
**snip**

The railway seems to have lost the plot on this, treating passengers for infrequent services at the likes of Melksham, or infrequent through trains to the likes of Newquay and Pembroke Dock as somewhat disposable. (Where Didcot to Hereford lies on this spectrum I'm not sure, but the entire route seems to be on that spectrum).

It's valid to wonder to what extent this is self-inflicted vs that the fact that the region's railways are simply short of resources and investment. Either way, it's not a situation that should drag on for months let alone years, but Great British Railways being in the offing is an additional factor that is not helping - and in any case seems unlikely to offer a solution.

Mark

[grahame]

14:19 Westbury to Swindon due 15:01
14:19 Westbury to Swindon due 15:01 was terminated at Trowbridge.
It will no longer call at Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon.
This is due to a tree blocking the railway.

15:14 Swindon to Westbury due 15:58
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05
18:35 Westbury to Swindon due 19:17
19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29

19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29 will be cancelled.
This is due to a tree blocking the railway.

[grahame]

Well - there is the Tree 

And - oh look - GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), who have told us they will accept "via Melksham" tickets via Bath Spa in the event of a cancellation, have chosen NOT to offer that lower fare on their booking engine for such journeys.   Cheeky - "a tree's blocking the route we would normally take you, so well charge you an extra £3.40 unless you know how to work the system to get the lower fare". If people choose to go via Bath Spa, the higher fare is justified. If GWR withdraw the direct route, them it's not.

[ChrisB]

Do you know how complicated it is to change fares in the online system & TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)? A LOT longer than it takes to remove a tree from a railway line. And then change it back again. It's not just a line of code.

[grahame]

Do you know how complicated it is to change fares in the online system & TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)? A LOT longer than it takes to remove a tree from a railway line. And then change it back again. It's not just a line of code.

Do you know how complicated it was to write the code to allow trains to be pulled out of the system and added in - and that's happening on the fly because it was written.  I'm not suggesting a one off fix that has be be applied every time a change s made - I'm suggesting updating the code which makes it fit for the purpose of short notice train changes with short notice fare changes.   This is hardly the first time that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have cancelled trains through Melksham.

[ChrisB]

The whole system needs a rewrite....it's every station & potentially any service. And how far in advance to prevent the change on a train (sayu) 10 mins before? Realistically, it can't be done

[grahame]

18:35 Westbury to Swindon due 19:17
19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29

19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29 will be cancelled.
This is due to a tree blocking the railway earlier today.

So crew out of place / out of hours??

The whole system needs a rewrite ... Realistically, it can't be done

Realistically ... it won't be done.  You would be amazed what can be done with a little bit of code, especially when it can be applied over a complete network with a need for special code lines.

[grahame]

10:41 Westbury to Swindon due 11:23
10:41 Westbury to Swindon due 11:23 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

 

11:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:45
11:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 13:45 will be started from Westbury.
It will no longer call at Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

[bobm]

20:38 Westbury to Swindon due 21:23

20:38 Westbury to Swindon due 21:23 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16

21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.