Yes, as you've said it's virtually impossible to quantify that as it's a moving target.

For example, an early afternoon train, say the 14:18 Westbury to Swindon, showing at 4:30am as cancelled but then reinstated at 7am is likely to have much less of a 'customer view figure' than if it was reinstated at 1pm.

I remain of the opinion that start-of-service early morning journeycheck entries should show 'may be cancelled' - with a note to say every effort is being made to run it and to check back later.  That could automatically change to 'will be cancelled' three hours before departing its origin station if it hasn't been reinstated by then as it's far less likely it will be.

 

Agree that figure though with at least two trains flagged up on journey planner / check stuff as cancelled which then actually ran, the customer view figure might be just under 95%.   This week WILL be more challenging - started with 2 cancellations due to "shortage of train crew" and with weather issues anticipated ...

 

96.6% ran again last week.

I'm sure this week will be much more challenging.

 

 


There ARE additional trains Westbury to Southampton and Swindon to Worcester.  What is lacking is any service a t all, or any customer advice for passengers travelling between Swindon and Westbury.   It may be "just one round trip", but it's all we have got - or to be accurate NOT got.

 

 

 

Looks like they've been reinstated.

 

 
It left Westbury 19 minutes late and then lost another 10 at Bradford Junction.  Finally arrived in Swindon 25 late.

 

 

Indeed - somewhat ironic that the extras were on sections of the route where there are alternatives.  Just saying.

 
Posted at the same time as those alterations were “additional” trains from Westbury to Southampton Central and Swindon to Worcester Foregate Street. 

So at least some commuters were served.

 

Oh dear ...



We are not the only ones ... Gunnislake also lost their first train and in our area also


No advice to passengers on Journeycheck as what they should do.  With the 06:29 southbound cancelled at Melksham, the next train is at 09:10 - ouch.   With the 07:21 in the other direction cancelled, the first train in the 08:02.   With both trains cancelled, connections to the Bristol travel-to-work area are blown.  Normal customer advice would be to catch the 271/272 bus to Manver Street in Bath and cross the road into Bath Spa station for an ongoing train, but road works in Bath have Manvers Street closed for the summer and autumn.

Cut and paste passenger advice (not given this time) suggests "Option 4 - consider postponing your journey" which just might be OK for the leisure market.  My personal suggestion would be the Bath bus and walk across the city for fit people, or perhaps the x34 to Trowbridge (Trinity Church for the station) or Chippenham (where the early and Sunday services call at the railway station).

 
Thanks for your update post here, chipbury. 

My understanding is that railway staff can merely lean on their truck - provided they are wearing hi-viz while doing so.

 
Yes it was the Limpley Stoke bridge again!  I cycled past at midday and there were 3 Network Rail people leaning on their truck.

 
...as is the 11:09 Gloucester - Weymouth, although currently showing as 'delayed' for Melksham (12:43, Chippenham 12:34 'information unavailable').

 
Ah: checking Google maps there's a road closure 'till 4 pm at Hawkeridge Road south of Trowbridge, so I thought it would be that rail overbridge.

Driving the road beneath Limpley Stoke a couple of days ago was an opportunity to check that, desplte the series of bridge strikes there - and Network Rail / Wiltshire County Council both being aware of issues with signage and vegetation overgrowth, nothing has been done to address either - and indeed, after the turn off the A36, the sole warning of the low bridge ahead, mounted low on a pole containing another road sign - the undergrowth has practically covered that one.

Mark

 
I can see the 10:23 Portsmouth - Cardiff service is now diverted via Melksham (12:28).

 

 

Indeed - and I have updated our own logging system to reflect / highlight the percentage running more strongly than the percentage cancelled.  Page from https://www.wellho.info/sh5.php



Still being aware that customers are being advised that there are cancellations but then trains run.  From my inbox from Saturday """  ... arrived back at Chippenham station at about 19:50 having cycled to Calne and back and swung by the Chippenham pride event.. to be told 'no trains'. Checked RTT and open train times and could see the 20.00 to Westbury sitting in P2 at Swindon. Crossed fingers and yes, it ran, quite busy too """ - fortunately a knoweldgable user.

 
Another decent week last week for Melksham, with one cancellation each way on the Saturday and Sunday giving a 96.6% reliability score from the Monday to Sunday.  100% of weekday services ran.

 
Guess what ...

16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34

 
Hold it!

 

In the old days was hand signalling, but in 2019 ESW (emergency special working) was created to get stranded trains past defective signals.   Not clear to me why this wasn't used to get people past the defective area.   

Stranding thousands of people for 2-4 hours should not really have been seen as a serious option by Control once they realised they couldn't source alternative road transport due to multiple events at Bath, and congested roads in the area meaning local buses weren't an alternative either. 

 
I don't know nearly enough about how train running is managed / what broke. One factor in this might be that in the fairly recent past, wasn't a mobile operations manager based at Bath Spa station, but either this post was removed elsewhere or abolished entirely?

Mark

 

Fixed it for you! 

 

Both dwarfed in significance by events at the Rec, where Exeter Chiefs secured a glorious victory over Bath, only for many of their fans to find that their journeys home were scuppered.

There's going to be some pretty chunky compensation claims going in...........on the upside it may help to pay for Twickenham next weekend! 

 
Just to add to that. If running slowly though the signals isn't possible, why are trains not running as far as the previous station and then returning, on all lines? At present, nobody can get from Bath to Bristol by train, and I very much doubt whether anyone can by bus either as the services would already have been packed. And yet this line, as far as I know, isn't where the signalling problem is.

 
I have heard that Bath Spa station has been shut. We were caught up by this problem as we were on the 17.00 train from Freshford to Bath which eventually ended up returning to Freshford. Certainly amongst the group I was with, many ended up walking back to Bath (about 7 or 8 miles along the canal). We rang for a taxi.

I cannot believe that GWR cannot run trains slowly past the signals that are causing the problem. They couldn't have picked a worse day for this to happen.

 

Yeah ...   From Wiltshire 999

 
Ouch, this has coincided with an open day at Bath University and an event at the racecourse.

Mark

 

Manvers Street (opposite) is.   Dorchester Street which leads past the bus station to Bath Spa railway station is basically a cut-de-sac at present.

In an emergency / with rail replacement buses they could be running from the bus station.  There are a number of free bays at the moment because of bus services cut back to the Hilton Hotel

 

Isn't the road outside Bath Spa shut too?

 

 

 

And I suspect this is the root cause ...

 
Thinking of through passengers... how much suppressed demand, do you think there is? ('Suppressed' as the timetable's not really an attractive offer to potential through passengers, and if, say, it went half-hourly, with one service as existing and the second one calling at say BoA, Trowbridge, Westbury and then through to Romsey & Southampton...).

(Apologies for the fantasy timetabling. My memories of the Cardiff - Waterloo services when they skipped both Westbury and Salisbury and ran Bath to Waterloo in 2h 10m are far too clear...)

Mark

 

Indeed - busy train in sections, though through passengers are rare as hen's teeth.    10 minutes at Westbury, and 14 minutes at Salisbury give people a change chance to use the station loos.


Edit note: Typo corrected, for clarity. CfN.

 
Long time to keep your legs crossed!

05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10
Facilities on the 05:11 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:10.

Toilet facilities are not available.

Disabled toilet facilities are not available.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 

Oh indeed. I'm always minded that what I see on wider travels may not reveal the trials and tribulations that come to the surface on social media and industry feeds in the UK.  And I am also very conscious that as a traveller out of the norm in Swizerland (as yesterday was) or today in Germany, I may well see some of the quiter trains.

My own statistical feed confirms the huge improvement last week compared to the week before on the TransWilts - sadly, the indusrty feed that I've captured and used for https://www.wellho.info/sh4.php shows a worse cancellation rate because the 20:22 "M" service flags cancelled and a "Z" extra service has been added; makes no difference to the public, and I am not going to risk a coding change from the ICE train I am on at the moment!   I would agree with quoting the running rate as being more positive; I would, though, argue that the rate should take account of trains declared as cancelled and later re-instated, especially those that are declared cancelled for quite a while anr re-instated late in the day. I haven't a clue how to take them into account in a reasonable, robust, automatic way though!

Where my comparison makes a difference, though, is in the service frequency that the Swiss train can run at, it seems, reasonably reliable, on a single track railway with long distance expresses sharing.   Through Melksham we have somewhere around 2 paths per hour, and Maiden Newton perhaps offers similar.  The departure board at Rheinfall shows 5 stopping paths, and in addition there were Zurich to Stuttgart expresses passing, and that is where the difference is massive.  If the infrastructure allowed it, and a single platform might still manage it, we would be looking at a 30 minute "Bath and Wiltshire Metro" service and in addition paths each way each hour for something else.  But it would be a fool's spec at the moment to try to schedule that without .... dynamic loops, crisp signals, trains that accelerate sharply, and perhaps flyovers / graded junctions where the London - Bristol and Cardiff - Portmouth main lines are joined.

 

Whilst you've been away, the TransWilts has been largely behaving itself well, so perhaps a German visitor to England may have formed a similar opinion?

Four cancellations on trains stopping at Melksham (and one delay of 50 minutes) on the 4th June, but otherwise everything ran last week to give a 96.6% reliability score, and with the previous four days to that also seeing no cancellations, that equates to 97.8% of trains running over the last 11 days.

Rather better than the Deutsche Bahn's cancellation rate on regional trains of 5%.  From an article last year:  https://www.thelocal.de/20250213/train-passengers-in-germany-see-rising-number-of-deutsche-bahn-cancellations

Note how I've deliberately listed the percentage of trains running as a 'reliability' score, because that looks better that saying 3.4% of trains were 'cancelled', and that I've only gone back 11 days because the previous three days during the heatwave and Bank Holiday weekend saw multiple cancellations.  I've also only listed trains calling at Melksham, with no mention of whether they started/terminated early and would be defined as a 'part cancellation' and in some cases might have affected passenger journeys just as much as a full cancellation would have.

Statistics, eh?  Gotta love 'em! 

 
Have you noticed scottish-borders-rail-style* dynamic loops that allow trains to pass without stopping, by the way?

Mark

* Dynamic loops aside, I believe the borders railway isn't blessed with a surfeit of 'ordinary' passing places and also the junction with the East Coast Main Line is poor quality until it's sorted.

 

I spent yesterday on local trains with a lot of single track sections on the border lands between Switzerland and Germany, and some of the lines include single track bits with some very long distance services.  I'm sure it can go belly up, but in my experiences on these lines that's not happened, and I asked myself what's different to the UK?

* There are frequent passing loops
* Passing loops and trains are modern unlike places like Yeovil and Maiden Newton
* Trains are electric and designed for local work - you fall over with the accelleration and accurate braking
* Schedules are generous enough to include time for "awkward" passenger stops and recovery
* Wide doors, mostly level access. generous corridors make for quick local access
* There's a "stop" button just like on buses for you to use if you want to get off at a halt
* Good notice of upcoming stations make sure than even new passengers are ready

From Rheinfall station yesterday:

As I arrived at the station, the 16:01 to Zurich was calling



The departure board then offered



A Zurich to Stuttgart express passed through



And all within quarter on an hour, my train arrived

 
Waiting for a diverted London Paddington to Penzance service to clear the single line at the Bradford Junction end.   In turn that had been delayed by a late running train up from Newquay.

 

 
Well it was on time when I caught it at Melksham at 12:23.   

 
12:07 Westbury to Swindon due 12:49
12:07 Westbury to Swindon due 12:49 will be starting late from Westbury.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 
The latter pair were re-instated.

However now...

 

 

Never seen a 4 carriage train on this service before yesterday, previous max was 3.



Edit note: Quote marks fixed. CfN.

 
Same today - perhaps the 2 are related?

 
...and not only that, the 6:46 Trowbridge-Bristol service was 4 carriages instead of the usual 2. Happy days

 
Arrived at the usual time, 6:27, so just a couple of extra minutes taking in the Melksham station scenery

 
There are some minor changes to TransWilts timings all day, all week this week.  Some mainline services also affected. 

 
Just noticed that tomorrow morning's 6:29 Melksham departure is 6:31. It was same as usual on Monday, haven't checked whether tomorrow is a one off.

 

 

 
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury.

This is due to a fault with the signalling system.

 

Interestingly, the final train of the day appears to have run, but that is indeed a formal acknowledgement.  I would tend to ask if GWR has bitten off more than it can chew with the extra trains running Bristol - Oxford and Par - Newquay for the last 10 days, and is prioritising those.  However, there were cancellations on both of those services as well yesterday.

Rolling stock and heat issues are getting a lot of the blame with it being the "hottest May on record" but I do note that it's a May record and not a year-round record, so is that something of a more generic excuse that about trains not coping with the new UK weather patterns?

Rather off "Melksham" I got a phone call from Keynsham yesterday, where passengers had been waiting "an hour and a half" for a train and "could not get through to National Enquires".  Old people and babies waiting ... no information about what was happening ... trains flashing through non-stop but nothing calling.   It would appear that after the 14:11 called (at 14:20), the 14:49 was cancelled (though Real Time Trains was just showing nothing for it while this was ongoing) and then the 15:11 had failed to show as well - in turned out that it had got stuck at Temple Meads for 25 minutes and then skipped stations including Keynsham ... presumably to make up time ... the next train due at 15:52 did eventually call, more or less on time.   Good illustration of the lack of customer support / information that reaches people as things go wrong.

This morning ...

 
That's actually a very formal acknowledgement of their failure to provide a rail service at Melksham.

 
Cancellations to services between Westbury and Swindon

Due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time between Westbury and Swindon fewer trains are able to run on the line.

Train services running through these stations have been cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice
Due to a shortage of trains this evening, we have unfortunately had to suspend our Westbury to Swindon service, meaning Melksham station will not be served.

 

 
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:46
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:46 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

 

 
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06

17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury due 20:06 will be cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

 

 

Not a bridge that's anywhere between Westbury and Swindon, mind you 

Double track the line again - like wot it was before - and no need to cancel trains!   I suggest this cancellation might be to give priority to other services.

 


Looks like it - just - made the connection at Chippenham into the Bristol train - the new one - from Oxford.

 
The 06:35 Salisbury to Worcester Foregate Street is running about 13 mins late, Melksham 07:21 -> 07:34.

 
Just heard its horn - showing as 06:57 at Melksham, should have been 06:29.

 

 
18:37 Westbury to Swindon due 19:21
18:37 Westbury to Swindon due 19:21 has been cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:46
20:06 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:46 will be started from Gloucester.
It will no longer call at Westbury, Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham, Swindon, Kemble, Stroud and Stonehouse.
This is due to a fault on this train.

20:12 Swindon to Westbury due 20:56
20:12 Swindon to Westbury due 20:56 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

 
...well, it was - now cancelled again because of a fault on the train.

 
Now running as normal.

 
14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:01
14:18 Westbury to Swindon due 15:01 will be terminated at Chippenham.
It will no longer call at Swindon.
It has been delayed at Westbury and is now 35 minutes late.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

15:14 Swindon to Westbury due 15:58
15:14 Swindon to Westbury due 15:58 will be started from Chippenham.
It will no longer call at Swindon.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

 
Oh dear ...

 

Wouldn't dream of it!

I don't think even you would attempt to polish that particular turd II, especially given performance today and over the last week or so! 

 

A slightly rushed post yesterday.  I meant to refer to the TransWilts year so far as upgraded from 'woeful' to 'poor', not GWR wide as I said - though that has also improved quite significantly with the cancellation percentage down 38% on last year...perhaps from 'atrocious' to 'woeful'?

As for the TransWilts, you can indeed use the word 'woeful' for a two consecutive trains cancelled scenario, much as you could use the word phrase 'very good' for the 21 day stretch early in the year (according to Graham's stats) where there were no cancellations at all at Melksham, and a 16 day period within that with no delays over 15 minutes.

So, for me, the year so far on the TransWilts has improved from 'Woeful' to 'Poor'...but that's only my description.  It would be interesting to hear Graham's thoughts on that.


I think it's largely due to a general improvement from Network Rail in terms of providing more reliable infrastructure in general.

Please don't paraphrase that into suggesting I am saying the infrastructure is reliable.

 

There was a discussion yesterday about "atrocious" and "poor" and how to qualify the performance.  And over the last 7 days now cancellation rates at Melksham are 16.1% (plus in my view trains cancelled but re-instated very late) but "Shortage of Train Crew" is now far less common.    Contrast, perhaps, to other services where today (a lovely Bank Holiday Monday) there are around 30 cancellations and short runs, the majority of which are attributed to lack of staff.   On that basis, GWR locally to us have been doing a little better - though train faults, signalling problems, and congestion have been unusually rampant and seem to have taken "a while" to fix ...

 

Arrived 08:11 - 1 minute late.  Top mark (nearest prediction) to Real Time Trains.  JourneyCheck - and it's a pattern woefully pessimistic which means that if someone turns up to catch the train at the time it predicts later on the journey, they will miss it!

 

15 late into Salisbury ... where the 12 minutes timetabled to be spent in the station is more than is needed, and so it left there just 3 minutes late. Scheduled into Southampton at 08:10. Journeycheck suggests 08:24, Real Time Trains suggests 08:12.    Personal educated guess - around a quarter past eight.   We could open a book and have great fun betting on the final arrival times of delayed trains, couldn't we?

 

Personally I would use a worse than poor description for things like 2 consecutive trains not running.   Woeful seems as good a word as any.

If > 3% cancellations, or less than two thirds on time, 19% not within 3 minutes, and what appears to be increasing numbers of short forms, can be described as upgraded from woeful to poor, is debatable in my mind

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2701.pdf

 

So what would you say GWR has done/is doing differently to upgrade performance from "woeful" to "poor"?

 
Very interesting stats, Graham.  Thanks for providing them so quickly.

I think that means that the TransWilts is now broadly in line with the rest of GWR in terms of cancellations, which is broadly in line with the rest of the country.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/newbury-weekly-news/20260514/281689736443730

So, GWR wide they're gone from a woeful position in 2025, to a poor but much better position in 2026.  Still much to be done, but encouraging nonetheless.

A disappointing couple of days, but given the heat arriving very suddenly after a period of low temperatures, and the fact it's a Bank Holiday weekend, that's probably not too surprising.  Expected, if not to be accepted.

 

And as soon as I write that, 4/14 = 28% ... seems to happen disproportionatly on nice sunny Bank Holiday weekends ...

 
20:38 Westbury to Swindon due 21:23
20:38 Westbury to Swindon due 21:23 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16
21:34 Swindon to Westbury due 22:16 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew

 

Last ...
7 days - 11.9%
14 days - 6.3%
28 days - 5.1%
56 days - 4.0%
112 days - 3.7%
From 1st January - 3.8%

I am wondering if the last - back to the 2025 sub-standard running rate - is a glitch or the system creaking again for the summer, and the jury is out on that. 

My monitoring URL is https://www.wellho.info/sh4.php?daze=56  (replace the final number with the number of days you want to look back)

Notes

* The stats given are actual running and , and my view is that once a train is cancelled and notified as such it should be included in the failures.  Four trains in the last seven days have been advertised as cancelled but have ended up running - not much good to passengers who have made other arrangements based on advice given, or been put off travelling.

* These are MELKSHAM calls - and where a train is terminated short, for example at Chippenham and it never reaches Chippenham, it shows up above as running AOK

* Where an alternative train makes a call at Melksham - this now sometimes happens when our train in cancelled to make way for a longer distance diverted service - it does not show up in the report / stats

We have already been informed of 2/14 (14%) cancellation rate for today ... let's see what the next week brings before we make any longer term judgement.

 

What's the TransWilts cancellation rate so far for the year?  Is it worse, the same, or better than the same point last year?  And is there any trend to the rate for each individual month, year on year?

 

Indeed - if you know to ask ... the industry systems that talk to passengers should as a matter or course (IMHO) suggest practical alternatives to tell people how they can make their journeys and not leave it up to the wannabe-passengers to say "oy!".  The systems for this have improved, but remain patchy as illustrated yesterday.

In the end, the final round trip train ran yesterday, and indeed the [Melksham time] 08:02 and 09:09 that were "cancelled" earlier in the week had been re-instated, giving a 11.8% cancellation rate for the last week.  There are two more cancellations already flagged up for today, so the stats in this report will get worse unless the cancellation are then reversed.

 
16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34
24/05/26 16:43 Frome to Swindon due 17:34 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon.
This is due to a shortage of train crew



17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55
24/05/26 17:44 Swindon to Salisbury due 18:55 will be cancelled.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

 
If all trains cancelled for the day, taxis will be provided. They can't leave you stranded

 
There are some repeats here - a growing list of cancellations.


Why should a signalling fault earlier today result in cancellations for the next six hours?

As I write, journey check says nothing about alternative arrangements - just offers delay/repay which is 'nice' but does not help you reach your objective of getting home

 

I am - relieved - that I did not go to Weymouth today.

 

 
Wednesday, the day of the WWRUG meeting in Trowbridge (for which the trains were unperturbed by that time) a friend had headed for Weymouth for the day. After a remarkably cool and blustery but enjoyable day by the sea, they headed back to the station to find the 17:28 back to Bristol cancelled (the next being 20:14). For some reason they were given the impression that travel via Southampton was out of the question. After a short bit of hanging around, put in a taxi, they "enjoyed" a somewhat edge of seat ride to Westbury, from where there were trains back to Bristol, and they were back only around 15 minutes late.

*Significant detail* - a number of passengers for the Bristol train had been relying on there being a loo on the train once they were at the station - and the station loos were found to be locked - however a member of staff on request unlocked the accessible loo there and the day was saved.

Mark

 

I was very concerned at an alert flashing up this morning and especially for the train that becomes the "Weymouth Wizard" from Swindon, but no worries - this is much more and informational alert than an "oh shit!".

Personally, I would love to "do" Weymouth today - except I am pacing myself; want to keep up on other things and not be tired for when I head out next week.

 

Adding up numbers from Wikipedia, GWR have 220 different trains that could be used to provide the service (the number does not include battery trains, purely electric units, or the sleepers)

 
Cancellations to services between Westbury and Swindon via Melksham

Due to a broken down train between Westbury and Swindon the line is closed. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Train services between Westbury and Swindon via Melksham will be cancelled.

Customer Advice
What has happened?
-
The train that operates our Westbury - Swindon services via Melksham has failed and there is no replacement train available. Melksham services are cancelled for the remainder of the day.