The dog ate my homework.....................

 
Well at least they have the weekend to decide which excuse to use on Monday.......

 

And today:

 

No - that's not an accidental re-post from yesterday (at least at my end).   Second day on the run ...

 
No comfort for those in Warminster but the 17:28 service will start at Westbury for Great Malvern.

 

And another one bites the dust ... another less than packed service, and yet the return working at 17:28 from Warminster loads well / an important commuter service.

 

Several of the return workings from Warminster take considerable traffic - and there's a need to get the train to Warminster to start that journey.  Would you believe that about half the passenger journeys at Dilton Marsh are on one of these trains from Warminster to Dilton Marsh.  Into Warminster, these trains are underused because they're just 10 minutes after the Portsmouth; coming back they make a ice half hourly pattern.

I suspect that the southbound split of the service at Westbury is for operational reasons - no shunt siding at Warminster, just a crossover, so the Westbury stop (and service split) allows for staff breaks, and provides operational robustness on a train that's come all the way from Malvern.

Future plan ... run half hourly from Westbury and to Salisbury, back from there, and have a proper half hourly on that section.  Works with rearranged diagrams rather than extra trains if you end-on join to the Salisbury to Romsey train with its 40 minute plus turn around at Salisbury

 

Is this any more silly than just running a train from WSB to WMN, via DMH; then reversing it and sending it off to Gt Malvern/Worcester - first stop DMH, followed by WSB !!  4 miles and 53 chains each way. Not going on to SAL does, at least, save a bit of diesel.
I have always thought that this was just a bizzare way of ticking boxes in the Franchise bid - or does it have some far deeper meaning ?

 

Shock, horror    - still dozens of seats for each passenger.   But it does get much busier elsewhere on its diagram.

There is a need to sort out the fill-in services between Westbury and Warminster (where else does a train service terminate one stop short of a city - Salisbury) and the January May 2019 timetable offers an opportunity.