| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
EK - The Polar Night Of The Long Distance Commuter - 4753/8676 Written by Lee on Saturday, 17th November 2007 Interesting Economy Klaus post on winter commuting between London - Chippenham , comparing it to being a resident of the Arctic Circle (link below.) http://firstlatewestern.blogspot.com/2007/11/polar-night-of-long-distance-commuter.html It reminds me of a Melksham commuting - related post by Graham from December 2006 (link below.) http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=853.msg2443#msg2443 Re: EK - The Polar Night Of The Long Distance Commuter - 4753/8746 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 22nd November 2007 Indeed, Lee .... and we're back into the season of no daylight trains at all at Melksham .... Yesterday's 19:08  About 20 people on board at Melksham. And one of the regulars stopped for a chat and told me that in spite of the awful timing, the morning train is regaining custom - up to (his estimate) around 40 that morning. Re: EK - The Polar Night Of The Long Distance Commuter - 4753/8749 Written by Lee on Thursday, 22nd November 2007 [quote author=Graham Ellis link=topic=4753.msg8746#msg8746 date=1195714335]About 20 people on board at Melksham. Re: EK - The Polar Night Of The Long Distance Commuter - 4753/8750 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 22nd November 2007 [quote author=Lee link=topic=4753.msg8749#msg8749 date=1195726499] In other words , despite the truly awful timings , TransWilts demand remains remarkably resillient , and is actually increasing. Imagine what we could do with an appropriate service. [/quote] Lee, you've got a whole string of major towns with a heavy traffic flow between them, and a road that's a mjore bottleneck as it passes round Chippenham, through Beanacre, through parts of Melksham, then round single carriageway bypasses past oodles of roundabouts that get clogged as it gives access to the county town of Trowbridge ..... I'm not surprised at the resurgence. Shows the the County Council's work showing that an appropriate service level of "one an hour" isn't far off the mark, even though it's a far more ambitious target than we have set ourselves at this stage. 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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