Why does this page exist?

This page is brought to you by the Save the Train team who are campaigning for the restoration and retention of an appropriate train service linking the major population centres of Wiltshire - Swindon, Salisbury, Trowbridge, Chippenham and Melksham.

When First took over in April, 2006 we had a service of 10 trains a day and usage was growing rapidly. We now have just two round trips a day - from Swindon at 06:18 and 18:45, frequent cancellations, and a buy-on-the-day return fare from Melksham to London is no longer available for under 50 pounds - it will cost you over 100 pounds.

We're told that we have an excellent case for improvements - but all we get at each December timetable change is drafts and discussions that proposed something that is a step forward, and a FINAL timetable imposed that is - well - crap, and even that isn't run reliably!

The blame doesn't lie only with FGW, and we do have some optimism - expand the story ... here

Here are some of the recent / current problems over the FGW area as a whole:


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In order to keep up to date on train reliability, the Save the Train team has learned how to monitor performance ... and the techniques we use for Melksham (population 24,000 - train service cut to 2 a day each way by First) can be applied elsewhere too. We do hope to improve the reporting and statistics from this page in the near future - at the moment, use it with care as we have a few details to resolve and in any case we can only be as good as our sources.

In the table above, we report on 0 different service(s).

FGW run about 8500 (guessing - does anyone have an accurate number?) service a week - the figure was 9079 before their Dec '06 cuts - so if we report incidents effecting 50 services over a 2 day period on this page, we're looking at around 2% of services - i.e. 98% are running as normal or were cancelled with more than 24 hours notice so don't actually count as cancelled!
Seven services of the type that don't show up on this page. Line closed from Swindon to Kemble on weekend of 12th / 13th Jan 2008. So 4 TransWilts trains replaced by buses (Why? - Swindon to Kemble is a different line grouped with ours by First as an operational convenience!) and 3 working short. Not a single train running as timetabled!

For further information on First Great Western services, visit their official site. There's also a discussion forum run by passengers (and wannabe passenger).

For contact information, see the Save the Train web site or email the site admin.

This is a test page ONLY and it will tend to present optimistic figures that are showing a brighter picture than really exists.
Known issues:
Only limited status conditions are monitored
Some trains that run past midnight are double-reported
"Planned Cancellations" notified 24 hours ahaed are NOT shown
Failures on route do NOT show

Information from public sources presented by the Save the Train Campaign