* On 5th August, I wrote to customer services at First Great Western asking them to confirm that the 05:52 from Melksham to Swindon WOULD be running on Monday, 4th September after the 9 day bus replacement ... I'm hoping to be on the train and really don't want to get have a long journey up to Swindon by Bus

* On 15th August (10 days later, you note), they replied "For reference, unfortunately Customer Services are unable to give fare or timetable information, however you can obtain information about any rail journey in Great Britain by enquiring in person at railway station ticket offices, or by ringing National Rail Enquiries (24hrs) on 08457 48 49 50"

* As we don't have a ticket office here in Melksham, I called National Rail Enquiries and asked the gentleman who answered my call what the first train to leave Melksham after the stoppage would be.  Much to my surprise, he tells me that the first train to run will be at 05:52 on Monday, 11th September.  When I pressed him to ask about the 4th Septmeber, he confirmed that the trains resume on 11th ... that the service on 4th September will indeed be a bus.

Will the 68 trains scheduled from the 05:52 on 4th September to the 22:07 on 10th September be running?  I don't know!  I'm seriously concerned in any case ... if they are NOT running then that's a 16 day closure and not a nine day closure and, surely, my contacts should have told me that when I've made past enquiries.   And if they ARE running, it looks like the enquiry system is providing mis-information which is hardly going to encourage people onto the service.

I have the names / references from First and from National Rail enquiries; I'll be following this up with the appropriate First manager to see if I can find out what is really planned / happening ...

I'm thinking its probable that the service will be a train ... I'm just giving some weight to the enquiry service - the guy went away to 'double check' for me and seemed to know what he was on about ....

The mis-information seems almost routine ... I've just picked up a client off the 18:09 from Swindon (busy service - about 10 got off and there were quite a few on when it left too).    He travelled down on a connection from Didcot, and the FGW conductor told him that to get to Melksham he had to change at Bath.    Fortunately (a) my customer knows his geography and (b)  we had given him connection details ahead of time.