| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
A letter from the new route director - 4474/8251 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 18th October 2007 An answer to my request to John Curley, the new route director, to provide an appropriate service on the TransWilts from the earliest possible date Dear Graham, Many thanks for your impassioned missive on the need to correct the wrongs inflicted upon the citizens of Wiltshire by our recent timetable changes. First the bad news. There is absolutely no chance of making any changes for Dec 2007. My first priority in the new role is to drive up the quality of our daily service delivery which has been poor for too long. One cause of this has been late and unstructured changes to the plan .The plan for this December has now been closed down. More to the point I have not yet had time to form a balanced view of the competing aspirations from a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups for what is a very constrained pool of resources. However I hold to brief to defend the status quo and would welcome the opportunity to meet and discuss your proposals and supporting arguments in detail as part of the process of consultation that will inform any changes for Dec 2008 . If you would like to take me up on this please contact [name and number deleted] , I am spending much of my time out and about looking at our current services and would be happy to meet you wherever is convenient. John Curley Route Director West First Great Western First Rail Holdings Ltd Registered in England number 5154485 50 Eastbourne Terrace,Paddington,London.W2 6LX Re: A letter from the new route director - 4474/8253 Written by courgettelawn on Thursday, 18th October 2007 I feel more letters to Mr Curley would be in order. I would like to know who the stakeholders are, why a perfect viable service was ever pulled in the first place - 'constrained resources' cannot be blamed over and over - what a way to run a business! I suggest you meet him at Melksham on the morning service and make him wait for the return service. Is arrogance FGW's new policy for improving passenger relations? Re: A letter from the new route director - 4474/8255 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 18th October 2007 [quote author=courgettelawn link=topic=4474.msg8253#msg8253 date=1192694709] I feel more letters to Mr Curley would be in order. I would like to know who the stakeholders are, why a perfect viable service was ever pulled in the first place - 'constrained resources' cannot be blamed over and over - what a way to run a business! I suggest you meet him at Melksham on the morning service and make him wait for the return service. Is arrogance FGW's new policy for improving passenger relations? [/quote] I wouldn't suggest that we flood Mr Curley with requests, but it's certainly sensible for each of the traffic flow groups to ensure that he is aware of travel requirements ... in your case from the South of the county up to Chippenham. You can work out his contact details from the post at: http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4407.0 (I am not going to write up email addresses here directly as I'm not going to be antisocial and encourage spam engines to reap them!) I'm not proposing to be nasty to Mr Curley or anyone else at the First group by suggesting they use their train service to visit us, though it would be a superb practical demo. I would much rather suggest that we work well and reasonably with them to regain and retain the service. Just because we consider a very raw deal has been applied to us, it doesn't mean we should lower ourselves to that same level. Re: A letter from the new route director - 4474/8268 Written by courgettelawn on Friday, 19th October 2007 Wouldn't dream of it! Though to be fair he did say he was travelling across the network himself to see what it was like. It would certainly be useful for FGW to be reminded of needs across the county. I will contact accordingly. Re: A letter from the new route director - 4474/8874 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Saturday, 1st December 2007 I'm coming back on an old thread here to fill you in a bit. Had a quiet meeting with John Curley a week or so back; like the guy, he talks a lot of sense and is intent on pulling things back along the right lines. Yes, for this December that DOES mean no improvement ... but it also means an honest admission that the current service on the transwilts is fit for the purpose of meeting the frabchise spec rather than being appropriate for the passengers, etc. Big push going on in the background to get a decent case together for the new year, with a footnote that the key players and the elected representatives at various levels should also be reminded about the need to do something about the line. More to follow on other threads. Re: A letter from the new route director - 4474/8906 Written by courgettelawn on Tuesday, 4th December 2007 This is good. Although so many of my communications with DfT remain unanswered (or stonewalled) - even simple ones asking for information - I am pleased to see that FGW is keeping its channels open. Also more than can be said for Wiltshire CC. I however am keeping my local MP Robert Key abreast of our continuing campaign and the desire to seek support from local representatives. In answers to what can be done to improve cross-county transport he replied: "Our transport team is well aware of the shortcomings of intra-regional transport. It is really not possible to predict what will happen after the next election. It all comes down to money and priorities. Locally I am supporting the work of the Three Rivers Community Rail Partnership - I met them today. You can see what they do at www.threeriversrail.com." [via email 30 November 2007] The above refers of course to the extension of the Romsey-Southampton stopping service to Salisbury. Of course aided by the subsidy but I think also a will to respond to local needs. It would of course be nice for Salisbury business people to have a direct link to Southampton Airport (not that I wish to encourage air travel!) but more importantly will hopefully provide a more reliable link from Salisbury to Southampton, offering passengers an alternative to the oft cancelled services of FGW. link to index of articles |
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Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham. Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome. The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users. We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can. -- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021 | |||
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