Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
21st to 24th March - more bustitution - 5968/10328 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
[quote]Friday 21 until Monday 24 March. Westbury to Swindon via Melksham From Friday 21 (Good Friday) until approximately 1700 on Monday 24 (Easter Monday) March 2008 buses will be replacing trains between Westbury and Swindon.
Customers are advised to use the journey planner to check journey times before travelling. [/quote]
In 2004 / 2005 - with 5 trains a day each way on Monday to Friday, 4 round trips on Saturdays and 3 on Sundays, the TransWilts was a bustling little line over public holidays - some of my best crowd pictures were taken at the August Bank Holiday in 2005 ...
Oh SRA / DfT / FGW - what have you done. I hope you're pleased with yourselves!
Re: 21st to 24th March - more bustitution - 5968/10346 Written by tramway on Monday, 25th February 2008
Bank holiday weekends are always going to be targeted for engineering works, and there will be somewhere on the network that the opportunity is taken not to hit regular commuters. I
Re: 21st to 24th March - more bustitution - 5968/10352 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Monday, 25th February 2008
[quote author=tramway link=topic=5968.msg10346#msg10346 date=1203925363] Bank holiday weekends are always going to be targeted for engineering works .... [/quote]
Agreed, and understood. Our frustration comes from the level of these engineering works - in one year I counted 31 weekends out or 52 where at least 10% of trains (often far more) were effected. And in the last 3 months now I think we have had a full, regular service on just one (possibly 2) weekends.
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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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