Idea West of England

[TheGrandWazoo]

Taking in consideration of the villages which don't have a railway station between Sailsbury and Bath, surely there's got to be some demand of a couple of journeys per Sunday. The idea of extending it to Bristol would allow those villages direct access to a city for shopping.


I have to be careful what I say next as I know of a lass who lives there, it has to be said but Westbury on a Saturday is nearly as dead as Gainsborough on the same day. Went to Trow on the same day and the place was brimming with life.

Trowbridge brimming with life...on a Sunday!

As I've said, there has not been a Sunday service on that route save for a summer X99 that acted as a feeder into summer runs from Swanage to Weymouth/Swanage/New Forest since deregulation. There are many laudable examples of where you could run Sunday services. You may get the odd passenger but they'll never be commercial.

In fact, you could argue that there are better examples of services that run Mon to Sat that have no Sunday service e.g. Chippenham to Frome or Devizes to Salisbury where there is little or no parallel rail service. Sadly, the truth is that there is the very real threat that several of the existing services may well cease to exist in a few months time.

As for running to Bristol, that's what the train is for (unless you're a pensioner who wants to travel for nothing) . The X4 used to run from Salisbury to Bristol - however, it was destroyed by poor punctuality from having to cross Bath and then get into Bristol and that was >20 years ago. I'd hate to think how unreliable it would be now. Also, it's already more than 2 hours from Codford (mid point on the Wylye Valley) to Bath - do you really think that people are going to spend 3 hours (at least) travelling to Bristol?

 

[Marc]

In fact, you could argue that there are better examples of services that run Mon to Sat that have no Sunday service e.g. Chippenham to Frome or Devizes to Salisbury where there is little or no parallel rail service. Sadly, the truth is that there is the very real threat that several of the existing services may well cease to exist in a few months time.

x34/234 and wilts and dorset 2 were never likely to work on a sunday though - wd2 barely carrys anyone during the week.

not all sunday routes are a dead loss - sunday 267 now commercial started life as heavilty subsidised 767.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

x34/234 and wilts and dorset 2 were never likely to work on a sunday though - wd2 barely carrys anyone during the week.

not all sunday routes are a dead loss - sunday 267 now commercial started life as heavilty subsidised 767.

Yes but the 265 is actually subsidised on a Sunday between Trowbridge and Warminster currently and it doesn't carry very many It also fairly marginal during the week west of Warminster, hence why W&D pulled off the route and why it was a WC tender.

Also, you may scoff at the 234/X34 - only a year ago (or so), it had an evening service; something that the 265 west of Trowbridge doesn't have

If you look at the Somerset Sunday services, there was a great splurge of cash that led to Sunday services being introduced and some have stuck:

• 21 Taunton to Burnham, 22 Taunton to Wellington - introduced and still operating
• 28 Taunton to Minehead, 376 Bristol to Street - enhanced from 3/4 journey to hourly and still operating

However, look at the number that were introduced but are no longer running

• 958 Yeovil to Wincanton
• 977 Yeovil to Wells
• 954 Taunton to Somerton (and they tried that one again two years ago commercially
• 901 Yeovil to Shepton
• 992 Taunton to Tiverton
• 961 Yeovil to Chard
• 969 Bath to Glastonbury to Bridgwater
• 929 Taunton to Wells
• 931 Taunton to Chard
• 914 Bridgwater to Minehead

Those routes may (and did) carry a few passengers but they were never commercial.

In Wiltshire, if the funding goes for Sunday routes, I suspect that the 49 may survive and the 55 may too. However, I think the 271 might be cut back to Bath - Melksham, and the 265 Bath to Trowbridge, and the 5 Swindon to Salisbury may be lost altogether (though the 8 will continue to do Salisbury to Amesbury)