One of my former colleagues did say to me why don't you help out?

Unfortunately I am rest day not available, out of competence and around 860 miles away.

Besides that I could assist.

 
Surely the predictive text on Grahame's phone would be saying 'Not very well' 

 

You *really* need to turn your predictive text off you know!

 

I will be very inserted to see how the Westbury - Swindon service fares during on these Saturdays - whether GWR choose to run extra trains for there special seasonal traffic, run trains for their loyal all-year-round customers on the nearby (but not through Bath itself) line, or succeeds in doing both. They should be able to do both as this is an annual thing and they've had plenty of time in the planning.

Looking back at the press release I read out of context and thought for a moment that we had a return of the pacers!

 

I concur, although in recent years the stalls/sheds have been a little less densely packed together in the open spaces around the Abbey allowing more space for the visitors to move about. 

Edit:  As a brief aside.  Cardiff lays on quite an impressive Christmas offering in addition to the market which has become a recent favourite with some of the wider family and it's a fairly short hop from Bristol.... especially Parkway station.  I'm in the process of sorting out a visit for half a dozen of us right now.

 
Thanks Grahame.  I'll look out for when these extra services show up on the journey planners or realtimetrains.  I'm going to Bath on Saturday 14th December, though not to visit the Christmas Market(way too crowded for me).  On the journey back, I'd prefer to get on one of the extra trains that either start at Bath, Chippenham/Swindon or Westbury, rather than one of the usual services from London Paddington or Portsmouth Harbour which will already have loads of passengers already on them travelling to Bristol or beyond.

But yes, with all this ongoing "shortage of train crew", all these extra trains/a train every 6 minutes may well not go as well as it should do!  I wouldn't be atall surprised if a number of them are cancelled.

 
It could all turn into a bit of a shed-show, by the sound of it…

 
The end of the press release does warn of services being revised because of crew availability:

I think it should say Saturdays as well going on the past few weeks and previous years when some Christmas market extras have been cancelled due to train crew shortages.

If you have to go to the Bath Christmas market, best go during the week. It’s awful at weekends and difficult to get anywhere near the sheds in some of the narrow streets.

 
Looking at the station boards at BTM last Saturday the question that has to be asked.

With what crew?

 
Press release from GWR

 
The last few years GWR have put on additional trains on SATURDAYS during the period the Bath Christmas Market is on.  As often as a train every 7 minutes last year apparrently! https://news.gwr.com/news/a-train-every-seven-minutes-for-bath-christmas-market

No news about this yet from GWR.  Though I guess they might still announce it within the next few days.  Though with the ongoing "shortage of train crew" I wouldn't be surprised if they don't put on these extra trains this year!