South Western Railway (Or is that now Great British Railways | South Western) are re-doing their whole timetable for December 2027 and are looking for inputs from knowledgable parties (Stakeholders) to help inform them.

1. One of their (SWR / GBR|SW) current services runs from Salisbury to Waterloo Station in London, with calls / onward connections at Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Woking for trains to destinations in South London, Kent, Surrey and East Sussex

2. Great Western Railway (to become Great British Railways | Great Western in December) now run services on the "Bristol Metro" from Bristol as far as Salisbury, serving Bristol, Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bath Spa, Freshford, Avoncliff, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, and Warminster along the way.

3. The SWR services are run using class 158 (and 159) trains, and the GWR services often are class 158 - they are run from a pool of class 158, 165 and 166 trains. SWR terminate in Salisbury's platforms from the east, and GWR services terminate - often at the same platforms - from the West.

4. My "Rumour Mill" suggests that Grand Central (an Arriva owned Open Access operator) have applied for rights to run a Waterloo, Salisbury, Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge, Bradford on Avon, Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads service.  Which rather confirms a view in the industry that there is a demand for such a service worth backing up by serious investment, and that (under Open Access license terms) it is not "primarily abstractive" of traffic of other services, and that there is capacity for it.

5. The distance between London Waterloo and London Paddington where current Bristol and Bath to London services go is about 4 miles (6.4 km), putting them into different walking and cycling catchments.  London is a huge city and onward public transport from both is good, but underground and bus are daunting / difficult for many occasional passengers.

6. Suggestion - why not join up the Bristol -> Salisbury and the Salisbury -> Waterloo service from December 2027? Trains arriving in Salisbury from the west already join on to extra carriages before they continue to London, and 2 or 3 carriage trains of class 158/159 from Bristol (there are already a couple from Westbury) could do that, up as far as 8 or 9 carriage trains onwards

*** To be noted amongst the major benefits:
* A whole raft of popular new / restored service for which there is significant identified demand.
* Economic benefit of through London services from Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge and Dilton Marsh
* Operational improvement - efficiency at Salisbury
* An easy early win for Great British Railways

*** Previous services along the length of this corridor

Through services on this route ran preCovid and I summarised why they should remain - to no immediate avail - documented at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/16-reasons-continue-through-trains-london-graham-ellis/ and http://waterloo.savethetrain.org.uk (link is an old one - http not https!). Here are some updated / comments on issues at the time

* We had two operators under commercial contract from Bristol and Bath to London, and our dominant operator to Paddington wanted rid of the competition which undercut them, all be it with a less frequent and slower service.  They would now be complementary services

* As SWR and GWR were separate organisations, each needed their own drivers and route knowledge for the Bristol service for SWR crews was hard and expensive to maintain.  Under GBR, all staff are under the same banner and would be changed along the way.

* Train paths were being cleared for MetroWest between Bristol and Bath (Bathampton). Fair enough - those paths have been taken up by the MetroWest service which is the very service we are asking to link on to Waterloo. No problem any more

* HMG were looking to save money by thinning out services in the postCovid era.  But we are back up to 1.83 billion journeys a year (to March 2026) versus 0.99 billion journeys which was the latest data when the previous service was cut.  The strongest regrowth, you will note, is in the occasional traveller / leisure / personal business (such as students to/from Uni) markets which are the very market that this service will address.

 
This one did not fit neatly into any of our line boards - which rather confirms that it would be a useful new service.

There's. a photocall from our MP (Brian Mathew) and the mayor of Bradford-on-Avon (Sam Blackwell) who asks

 
The Grand Central Waterloo-Bristol rumour's now the subject of an article in Rail magazine. (Subscription required).

Mark

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/grand-central-planning-new-london-routes-from-manchester-and-bristol