Cheltenham to London commuters face longer waits from April

“I do the same when travelling to London, I always drive to Swindon and get on from there. I never understood the long wait at Gloucester, and now the wait at Gloucester is going to be even longer I can appreciate people's frustration.”

“I work in London but get the train in from Kingham, near Stow on the Wold. A weekly ticket is at least £100 cheaper than the Cheltenham to London option, there are no irritating changes at Swindon and I can do it door to door in 2 hours (Paddington) which is also less time than the Cheltenham option.”

“@GrumblingNorah - I found that if you can, drive to Swindon station and catch the train to paddington from there. The advantages are that it actually is quicker to get to swindon by car from Cheltenham than it is by train, especially in the morning. Also the return trains from Paddington are every 15 minutes so not only do you reduce your journey time, but also it makes it easier to plan how how to get back. (Of course this advise only works if you have a car). I used to travel to London from Cheltenham every week and I found going from Swindon, significantly improved my commute and day.”

“@GrumblingNorah - I found that if you can, drive to Swindon station and catch the train to paddington from there. The advantages are that it actually is quicker to get to swindon by car from Cheltenham than it is by train, especially in the morning. Also the return trains from Paddington are every 15 minutes so not only do you reduce your journey time, but also it makes it easier to plan how how to get back. (Of course this advise only works if you have a car). I used to travel to London from Cheltenham every week and I found going from Swindon, significantly improved my commute and day.”

“You don't have to go to London every single day to be 'a commuter'. And sometimes there's no choice if you want to keep your job.

I work in Birmingham (in itself £4,300 a year season ticket, even though it's only a 40 minute journey and one stop), then go on average once a week to London on work business. The latter journey is evil enough at the best of times; if you leave Paddington on the 1548 you get back to Cheltenham about 1805, which is such a waste of time - leave mid-afternoon and get home at teatime on a train that's invariably packed to the gunnels and often lacks heating, catering or both. There's no room to work unless you go first class, and it was always the 9 minute delay at Gloucester only one stop from home while the train turned round that was the killer. Adding all this extra time just makes me despair.

And yes, my travelling is unfortunately necessary to my job (I wish I could get a job locally, but there's a thing called the Recession..), and yes, I am completely bitter about the state of the train service. It's my 2013 resolution to bring them down in some way.”

“thomas1996 - lots of people do it, but I would expect fewer do it every day. Depends on the job. If you're making £400,000 a year, and your company picks up the tab...”

“Does this apply on all services from London to Cheltenham ?
Why the 21 minute wait at Gloucester - does the service not go through to Cheltenham ?
Leave London 12 minutes earlier - on which service,or all of them ?
May I suggest that if you are doing an article you supply all the information needed and not just the parts that make it appear as an attack on the railway service. Badly written and badly researched - just what we expect from this site really.”

“How can people afford to commute to from Cheltenham to London these days?
Must cost around £10,000 a year and think of the time wasted commuting for 5-6 hours a day!”