| 1 hour 20 minute gap at Warminster in the peak ... Posted by grahame at 22:26, 30th March 2026 |     |
3 trains an hour from Westbury to Bristol and yet south thereof ... the long gap of 1hr 20mins in the northbound service from Warminster between 0740 and 0900.
Last week I saw the impact of this for myself. I caught that 0740 from Westbury at 0800 and it was about 70% full on arrival at Westbury (3 cars). I think that was because there is such a long gap that people from stations south of westbury are leaving earlier than they need to. Needless to say by the time we got to Bristol there wasn’t room for a hamster
I think you see the effect of the majority of traffic at that time being into the major centres such as Southampton and Bristol. The trains that are spread out at 30 minute or hour intervals during the middle of the day are much more bunched in the peak - 06:55, 07:24, 07:40 then the gap to 09:00
You see the same and sometimes worse on the buses, which in the peak tines also run slower because of congestion and because of passenger numbers that make loading with ticket validation slower.
