It's been suggested that more people would use the trains if they were more reliable (i.e. not cancelled as often as they are), but we've had no statistics avaibable to us to challenge what Wessex Trains have told us that our route is no more nor no less reliable then others.  That's changed - Ive been monitoring the live train departure boards for every departure in the last tow weeks.

Of 100 weekday trains, 8 were definitely cancelled and a further 4 weren't reported on the system and probably didn't run.  That means that only between 88% and 92% of the services ran over the two week period.

Of the 20 "commuter" trains (07:45 to Swindon, 18:09 return), 4 were definitely cancelled and a further one wasn't reported. That means that only 75% to 80% of the commuter services ran over the two week period.

Typical reliability statistics across Wessex trains show between 98.5% and 99.5% of trains running.

My rolling update of train running is here

Oops - my electronic check of the timetables didn't take into account the clocks going forward so my Monday and Tuesday data from this week is patchy. "No report" frankly means "I don't know - I didn't check" for those two days.  The cancellation is genuine, though, and the matching train the other way probably didn't run either ...

http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/fulltime.html