| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Chippenham to London via Melksham - 176/422 Written by chrisbastian on Sunday, 5th March 2006 Does it really block the line for 40 minutes to turn round a train at Chippenham? Re: Chippenham to London via Melksham - 176/423 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Monday, 6th March 2006 Chris, that's an excellent suggestion. It takes as little as 3 minutes at the platform at Chippenham to turn a train around - I saw it done the other week, and with 10 minutes "dwell" on the way through at Westbury, there's a slackness there which would allow any delays to be caught up. People do travel from the county town to London and First could "grab" more passengers for their service this way ... and a high proportion of Melksham passengers are long distance so a Reading and London service would be superb. Alison Forster was commenting on Saturday that for every 1 passenger they carry, there's another 1.5 out there in the market - in other words, PLENTY of scope for growing services. Personally, I feel that the marketing on the current Wessex services has NOT emphasises the TransWilts services and the ratio is more like 1:5 that 1:1.5 and I think we've been showing with 35% per annum growth for the past 5 years and even traffic increases in the various quick counts I've taken that it is getting better known already. If you haven't looked / make your inputs, please PLEASE do them to tt06@firstgroup.com by Wednesday of this week - rather than me pass them on, use your own words make your own voice heard. link to index of articles |
|||
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 | |||
|
|||
Further Information:
Home
Current Summary
Daily update
User forum
Consultation
Service now
Service future
Future Analysis
Recent Statistics
Recent letters
Letter to DfT
Save the train
Presentation
Support us
Other Maps
Station facilities
Station approach
Pictures
Trains diverted
History
About Melksham
Site Map
About this site