Given the storm Darragh forecast, Bath Christmas Market stalls aren't opening Saturday 7th December.

Mark

https://bathchristmasmarket.co.uk/

 

I did notice that the bus stop screens in Bath were announcing earlier this week that there would be "severe disruption on Saturday due to several major events".

 

At least Westbury station staff had the decency to annouce the provision of taxis for passengers requiring Melksham.

 

Good for them - one has to wonder as to whether there's some sort of sacrifice elsewhere

 
Checking all those extra services on realtimetrains, I see that most of them all ran today.  The only ones cancelled were those 1142 and 1641 Bristol-Cheltenham via Swindon services.  Not too bad really.  Went better than I expected it to.  Though we'll see what it's like on the next two Saturdays.

 
Bath Rugby at home to Exeter Chiefs on Saturday too (1745 ko) which I would imagine will put a fair bit of additional strain on local trains and facilities before and after the match.

 
I went there yesterday too. All pretty uneventful; trains were well-loaded but not overcrowded, and everything was more or less on time.

As to the Shed Show: too much mulled wine, not enough roast chestnuts in my opinion…

 
I did the Christmas Market on opening day yesterday 28th November.  Trains in the afternoon to Bath and back in the evening were not over full but it was not the weekend off course.  The Thursday "soft launch" seemed to be rather successful as it was busy but not unpleasantly so. 
The mulled wine vendors seemed to have significantly increased their prices this year but this perhaps is a not a subject worthy of exercising the great minds of the forum.

 
Looking through Realtimetrains for this Saturday, here are the additional services running.  The following two Saturdays may be the same, or may be slightly different.

Eastbound services
---------------------


0810 Bristol Temple Meads-Bath Spa
0924 Bristol Temple Meads-Westbury
1008 Bristol Temple Meads-Westbury
1039 Bristol Temple Meads-Swindon
1107 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
1142 Bristol Temple Meads to Cheltenham Spa via Swindon and Gloucester
1613 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
1641 Bristol Temple Meads to Cheltenham Spa via Swindon and Gloucester
1714 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
1742 Bristol Temple Meads to Swindon
1811 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
1835 Bristol Temple Meads to Swindon
1903 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
1932 Bristol Temple Meads to Swindon

Westbound services
----------------------

0840 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
0856 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
0934 Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads
1016 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1034 Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads
1103 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1133 Swindon to Weston-Super-Mare
1534 Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads
1602 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1707 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1717 Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads
1806 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1908 Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads

 
From RTT, 22 additional GWR services at Bath (BTH) this Saturday;

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:BTH/2024-11-30/0000-2359?stp=S&show=passenger&order=wtt&toc=GW

 

Manchester has been in the new over its handling of some aspects of their Christmas Market with people arriving at the main train stations turned round and put back onto outgoing trains.  From the Manchester Evening News


Could GWR be awaiting assurances about police behaviour.  What happens with penalty fares if the police escort people against their will  onto a train for which they don't have a ticket?

 
Wise.

 
Possibly not, until the staffing is found for certain

 
Just 2 days now before the launch of these extra services.  But they're still not loaded onto the journey planners and realtimetrains websites yet.  Are they not loaded on them until the actual days they're running?

 
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!