Train passengers travelling from Bristol to Lydney in the evening face an hour’s wait at Severn Tunnel Junction because a connecting service leaves a minute earlier as part of a timetable change.

A recently-introduced timetable has seen new services, from Cardiff, stopping at Lydney meaning there are now two trains an hour from 6am until 7pm. 

However the 8.09pm Transport for Wales train from Cardiff has been axed forcing anyone wanting travel to the Forest to wait until 9.09pm for the next train. 

A provisional timetable for December 2024 has shown that 9.09pm service, will also be removed, but Cross Country trains leaving Cardiff at 8.55pm and 9.45pm will call at all stops on the line, rather than travelling straight through from Newport to Gloucester as at present. 

However Mr Inskip, who has been involved in local rail campaign groups more than 20 years ago, said the 8.55pm service, which departs Cardiff ten minutes earlier than the current train, will be of no use to passengers returning from Bristol and wanting to change at Severn Tunnel to get back to Caldicot and Chepstow. 

“If you are coming from Bristol you arrive one minute after the Cross Country train has left. 

“For those coming back from Bristol it doesn’t help because the timetables are just not compatible. It would require a change either having the GWR train, from Bristol, running five minutes earlier of the Cross Country, from Cardiff, five minutes later.” 

He also criticised the removal of the 8.09pm train, from Cardiff, in the new timetable and that from December there could be a four hour period, from 7.10pm to 11.34, without any Transport for Wales Trains running from Cardiff towards Gloucestershire.

Under the new timetable the last train to Gloucester and which calls at all stops from Cardiff leaves the capital at 11.12pm but the provisional December timetable has proposed pushing that departure time back to 11.34pm.  

Transport for Wales said it has introduced an additional 12 services a day on the Cardiff to Cheltenham route, from May, and new Class 197s trains on the line.