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The Weymouth Wizard - Saturdays in August from Wiltshire

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2015-07-31 07:56:23 - Graham Ellis

The summer Saturday train service from Bristol and Bath to Weymouth has been strengthened over the past many years by an extra service, which is often run using extra stock that's not normally seen there, and the "Bucket and Spade special" has been popular and necessary to relieve overcrowding on the normally-short service trains. That's not to say it's always busy - far from it on "shoulder" weekends and weekends of poor weather.

Last year, the train was run with an "HST" - High Speed Train, and it's the same this year - except that for the five potentially busiest Saturdays, the line's shut for major engineering works near Bath, calls at Bath Spa station and Bradford-on-Avon cannot be made, and the train is diverted via Swindon and Chippenham, calling at those two stations (but missing Melksham, a town twice the size of Bradford-on-Avon) and travelling via the TransWilts line. Running the "Weymouth Wizard" even with the engineering works going on has been almost a point of honour for First Great Western, and we've been thrown a cross between a challenge and an opportunity to help get "bums on seats".

Fortunately, the product is an excellent one. 08:59 from Swindon, 09:14 from Chppenham to Weymouth at 11:45, returning at 17:38 and back home at around 8 p.m. All for £16.90 per adult or £8.45 per child. And Weymouth is an iconic and attractive destination.

First Great Western have the tools to reach their regular customers, and indeed have being doing so. Online journey planners offer the service, and posters are up at stations. But that doesn't reach the people who don't often use the train or have never done so. And that's where the Community Rail Partnership has stepped in, with some additional marketing - we've let the press and local radio know, and we've used selected social media too. Since tickets can be bought on the day, we can only take an educated guess at how we've done until tomorrow, and I'll be on the train to see what I can learn to help me tune the next 4 weeks.

Facebook advert for Melksham:

 
Facebook advert for Pewsey and Marlborough:

 
Facebook advert for Swindon and Chippenham;

 
First Great Western - at station advert

As there's a big "don't know" as to how we'll do tomorrow, I'll leave a follow up of that until after the event rather than sharing my guesses to day. I can promise a fun and different day tomorrow, and I look forward to catching up with at least some old friends.