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I have no doubt that if the 230 were to fail during its trial and a spare train wasn't on hand, there would be much murmuring on here about how foolish it was to run a new and largely unproven train in service without a convenient backup.

This is unfortunately pretty par for the course when it comes to the Turbos. I've noticed it tends to be worse in the declassified first class sections. Hate to say it, but I would just put some headphones in and be glad the train is five carriages rather than two!

Not to take anything away from your overall point, but, is this true? I am sure I have hopped on 9 car services from Temple Meads platform 9/10 in the past, and all the platform faces are surely long enough. Indeed the briefest of looks shows a 9 car service booked to call there at...

I haven't noticed myself. The interior of the unrefurbished turbos tends to be very stuffy and the refurbs have done a world of good as far as my olfactory system is concerned; I'll have my nose peeled in the future though.

For all of the issues with the turbos, supply of charging outlets isn't really one of them. There's hardly a huge uptake in their use, partly because there are only a handful of proper tables per 166 at which anyone is likely to use a laptop.

You would have to consider that XC could make the same staff cost savings by reforming the voyagers into longer units. It would be interesting to see these options quantified; of course, they're all going to cost more than 'do nothing'.

If, in spite of the chronic overcrowding on their trains, XC can't get their hands on the 22x that will be going spare, what chance do they have of getting new 80x? Then again, before the pandemic, SWR managed to order brand new trains to replace brand new trains... so who knows?

Temple Meads certainly has a bit of a 'cobbled together' feel not unlike Perth. It's also strange (from a passenger perspective) that the 'flagship' London trains generally use the platforms that are the most remote, most narrow and have the fewest facilities. However, it is at least sensibly...

Yes.

Chippenham may not be the main attraction on that route, but it is a significant place. The only local service is the 1tp2h Swindon-Westbury, which wouldn't really cut it even if it became an hourly Swindon-Salisbury. Chippenham definitely justifies at least one IC call in each direction per hour.

That may be the case, but as I said in post 77 of this thread, there's just not many stops you'd want to drop. If Dilton Marsh could get a regular service (extension of the Swindon-Westbury to Salisbury) you could drop the occasional calls there. Hardly transformational. All of the regular stops...

You can have have a lovely tour of central southern England: Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Westbury North to East curve - Newbury - Reading West - South to West curve onto GWML and back to Swindon.

There are three tip-up seats in the 166s, which are adjacent-ish to the cycle area so frequently hosts cycles for which the designated area is often inadequate. Incidentally the 165s have twice the nominal cycle space as 166s which are also inadequate for reasons I can rant about in another...

What are these small stations? Aside from some peak services, Portsmouth trans don't call at Avoncliff, Freshford, Oldfield Park, or Keynsham, the latter two of which are arguably underserved anyway. Trowbridge is a sizeable place which absolutely deserves its stop. I'm sure you're not...

I am aware there are too few 158s, but 5 car formations do appear on the route and are welcome when they do. Very glad to hear new trains are being considered, I was under the impression nothing was to be done anytime soon. Whatever is ordered is probably also suitable for similar Cinderella...

5x158 works fine on the route and is probably more suitable than 165+166, but the slow end doors really do stuff up dwell times on shorter trains. A problem not exclusive to this route is that some passengers board, see the saloon is busy (but not full) and choose to stand in the vestibule, and...

Without wanting to go too off-topic, there are proposals to double the TransWilts between Thingley and Melksham which would allow for an hourly service, or indeed allow for any local service at all to run whilst diversions like this are in place. It's a well rehearsed point on these forums that...

5 coaches are far from guaranteed now! On Thursday, for example, the morning peak run into Bath and Bristol from Portsmouth was only 3.

I bet there are a handful of people travelling to/from Pewsey making connections at Westbury to e.g. Bath, Bristol, Southampton, Swindon...

That's very cheeky! If you're allowing that, then certainly Aberdeen - Inverness counts!