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

[whole diary]

[brooklea]

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be cancelled.
This is due to a broken down train.

Updated to show now starting from Westbury.

[TaplowGreen]

16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:18
17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:18 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

18:35 Westbury to Swindon due 19:17
18:35 Westbury to Swindon due 19:17 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29
19:44 Swindon to Westbury due 20:29 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

[grahame]

16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05
16:27 Exeter St Davids to Penzance due 19:40
17:35 Swindon to Westbury due 18:18
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 shortage of train crew.

After a few better days, here we go (or don't go) again.   I wake to 4 cancellations, with no alternative travel plans offered or suggestsetd.   Two successive trains each way, leaving a six hour gap inn the schedule.  

I have left the 16:27 Exeter to Penzance in the whole GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) area cancellation list - the only other train they have cancelled in this period across their entire patch.   Next train Exeter to Penzance is at 17:14.      After the 16:23 from Westbury to Swindon, the next train is at 20:08.  The GWR website will offer you travel via Bath if you are going to Chippenham and beyond, for which their website cheekily charged £19.80 rather that £9.80 (single) and if you have mobility issues "
The lifts are out of order between platform 1 and the subway at Bath Spa station."

[grahame]

16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:05 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

Thank you for that string of reports and your consistent help - really useful.   I have woken and left my double post following yours, exceptionally, because it gave me a chance to explain the alternatives and what they mean - which GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) haven't done on JourneyCheck ...

I am in the Leekes superstore today and tomorrow with members of the Melksham Transport User Group handing out printed December to May timetables that came from the printers yesterday. I hope we have made a wise decision to encourage users along.

[Timmer]

After a few better days, here we go (or don't go) again.   I wake to 4 cancellations, with no alternative travel plans offered or suggestsetd.   Two successive trains each way, leaving a six hour gap inn the schedule.  

I have left the 16:27 Exeter to Penzance in the whole GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) area cancellation list - the only other train they have cancelled in this period across their entire patch.   Next train Exeter to Penzance is at 17:14.      After the 16:23 from Westbury to Swindon, the next train is at 20:08.  The GWR website will offer you travel via Bath if you are going to Chippenham and beyond, for which their website cheekily charged £19.80 rather that £9.80 (single) and if you have mobility issues "
The lifts are out of order between platform 1 and the subway at Bath Spa station."

Three words: Bath Christmas Market.

[grahame]

After a few better days, here we go (or don't go) again.   I wake to 4 cancellations, with no alternative travel plans offered or suggestsetd.   Two successive trains each way, leaving a six hour gap inn the schedule.  

Three words: Bath Christmas Market.

25 specials calling as Bath.  Wow ...  I have commented on that thread but it needs recoding here as a record of what GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) think of their bread and butter customers.

It strikes me that GWR have taken on more than they can reasonably have coped either - but then are they under an obligation of some sort to do so?    What they have absolutely got wrong is to sacrifice their everyday every week customers from Westbury to Swindon on the day..  I emphasise "on the day".  Had they announced changes well ahead of time - as they do with things like the Cheltenham Gold Cup or Glastonbury - there would have been some disappointment.  But to schedule it knowing all the extras were planned, build up passenger expectations and then crash out on the day - defies belief. What a ****up!

This is what JourneyCheck fed me earlier - cancellations as viewed across the whole GWR area

[grahame]

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

06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street due 09:47 will call additionally at Dilton Marsh.
This is due to the train making extra stops because a train was cancelled.

I would need to look at what it's replacing, but in the whole picture of things, it would be sensible for this train to routinely call at Dilton Marsh.

[grahame]

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be terminated at Warminster.
It will no longer call at Salisbury.
It is being delayed between Chippenham and Melksham.
This is due to a late running train being in front of this one.

6C54 - Oxford Banbury Road (Flhh) to Whatley Quarry F Liner Hh
due to pass Melksham at 18:36 but didn't pass until 19:16

[TaplowGreen]

I see GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are advertising an additional 21 services for Bath Christmas Market on Saturday.......I wonder if this will impact the Transwilts service?

[grahame]

I see GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are advertising an additional 21 services for Bath Christmas Market on Saturday.......I wonder if this will impact the Transwilts service?

So do I ...

[TaplowGreen]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

[grahame]

05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09

Facilities on the 05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09.
Toilet facilities are reduced.

Additional Facilities Information
No accessible toilet available.

[IndustryInsider]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

Both reinstated at 06:49.

[grahame]

14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00
14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:00 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
15:15 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

Both reinstated at 06:49.

Thank you - and noted ... we have been very concerned and noted trains cancelled and then re-instated in the past - indeed it happens most weeks.    From a very small sample of such cancelled-then-reinstated trains I have caught, passenger numbers can be decimated, though I don't have enough data to correlate the length of time a service was cancelled for with the passenger drops.     Good this came back so quickly - would be really useful if the green signal of a running train didn't get slammed back to a red one, with messages going out to tell people that it won't be running - rather with a "check back in two hours" message - sort of single yellow.

[grahame]

13:13 Swindon to Westbury due 13:55

13:13 Swindon to Westbury due 13:55 will be cancelled.
This is due to a tree blocking the railway.