Rumours are circulating (apparently based on article in Rail magazine) that Arriva owned Grand Central has applied for open access rights.

One is Waterloo, Salisbury, Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge, Bradford on Avon, Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads

Other is St Pancras, Luton Airport Parkway, Wellingborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Derby, Uttoxeter, Stoke on Trent, Congleton, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly.

Nothing yet on ORR, or Grand Central website.   Anyone know if this is genuine, and if so what is actually proposed.

Of course, SWR will no doubt object, even though they decided they didn't want the revenue from the Bristol route and dropped it about 3 years ago.  (I think DfT might have been behind cut, as didn't have to replace trains damaged in Salisbury Junction crash if cut Bristol and Brighton service)

Grand Central have 9 new tri-mode trains on order, but presumably could order more, or use displaced fleet in interim whilst waiting for more to be built.

 

Who ever decided on the cut was totally clueless. I seem to remember that "duplication" of existing (GWR) services was one of the reasons given to axe the SWR services. Since then, GWR have introduced something approaching a half hourly service between BRI and SAL. This appears to have been achieved by reducing the length of most of the CDF - PMH services (except on Sundays !!) and NOT running the additional trains during the busy morning and late afternoon peaks when they are actually needed the most !!!

 
I would expect a flurry of Open Access applications with 'nationalisation'. The various private companies would almost certainly want to maintain some form of rail revenue earnings

 
I can see grand union trying again with marchwood to southampton and Waterloo .

Pity tfw wont apply to run their.open acess Bristol tm services to Waterloo

 
Taken from another forum, so not copying it, but provisional timetable seems to be about every 2 hours

First train from Salisbury 07:31 to Bristol, arrives Bath 08:35, Bristol 08:54 to handy for local commuters
Then 08:11, 10:15 roughly every 2 hours from Waterloo,
last train from Waterloo 22:15 ends at Salisbury

Other direction 06:38 from Salisbury to Waterloo
From Bristol 07:36, 09:31 roughly every 2 hours to Waterloo
21:36 from Bristol ends at Salisbury

Looks like 3 train service with 8-10 minutes turnaround at Waterloo, and about 45 minutes turnaround at Bristol

2 trains appear to overnight at Salisbury and one at Bristol

From my local station Bradford on Avon, 2 hours 5 minutes to Waterloo, but just under 2 hours Waterloo - BoA.   So a fairly reasonable time to London if don't like changing at Westbury or Bath (although changing gives overall quicker journey).  For comparison the one direct GWR train from BoA to Paddington takes 2 hours