| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Rail Should Seize The Moment - 452/1322 Written by Lee on Thursday, 31st August 2006 Here are a couple of Christian Wolmar articles (link below.) http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/articles/rail/547.shtml Quotes from the above link (one section contains examples of friends of Christian Wolmar trying to find & then use journey information) : "They want to take the train, they are motivated because of its convenience and environmental-friendliness, but they are put off because of the price and the inaccessibility of information." "Then there Re: Rail Should Seize The Moment - 452/1414 Written by mthomson on Sunday, 10th September 2006 ??? It's a real travesty to take trains away from Melksham particularly when the government so vigorously promoted rail travel in 1997 when it came to power. The proposed replacement bus services will not serve as suitable alternative to train travel especially when tavelling to or from London. Melksham deserves a better service than that planned considering that rail travel at Melksham has increased significantly over the past five years. Re: Rail Should Seize The Moment - 452/1416 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Monday, 11th September 2006 [quote author=mthomson link=topic=452.msg1414#msg1414 date=1157919830] The proposed replacement bus services will not serve as suitable alternative to train travel especially when tavelling to or from London. Melksham deserves a better service than that planned considering that rail travel at Melksham has increased significantly over the past five years. [/quote] Thanks, Malcolm ... I very much agree. I had a 2 O'Clock appointment in Chippenham this afternoon (a very short one as you'll see from the time of this posting). Caught the 13:35 from Melksham and was there in good time. Come December, what would I have done? Caught the 12:27 bus and hiked across Chippenham as my appointment was just behind the station. Similar thing for London passengers - the bus adds up to an hour, though to be fair I would probably have asked for a 14:20 appointment had the train been off, and got the 13:27 bus. That's still nearly an hour v 25 minutes. Oh - I always "count" people on and off the train ... 5 off and 2 on at Melksham, and that meant there were just over a dozen on for the run up to Chippenham. The other person who joined with me at Melksham was travelling to Bristol - probably the most popular journey even though it involves a change. Re: Rail Should Seize The Moment - 452/1419 Written by Lee on Monday, 11th September 2006 Just to clarify a couple of Graham's points for non - regular site visitors : 1) The rail - replacement bus service (click on http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=424.msg1249#msg1249) from December 2006 will NOT run via Chippenham Railway Station during the middle of the day. No point in First replacing the 1335 or 1449 services , which both the DfT & First claim arent used (obviously I disagree.) 2) The 1335 is a Westbury - Swindon "shuttle" service , as the majority of Swindon - Southampton services run North - South only. 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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