Great Western Coffee Shop

The Melksham Rail User Group will have a small team of volunteers at the outdoor Melksham Maker's Market this coming Saturday, greeting friends old and new and telling people about the use of public transport at the moment, what's running as normal, what's got changed timetables, and what is completely missing.   Moving from red to amber, looking forward to going green in the not too distant future.   9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Market Place, social distancing, sanitiser, face masks all arranged.

Pictures from last week ... my first public transport trips for 4 months.  All these possibly bus, 2 out of the 3 by train.   Keeping local at the moment.

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From https://www.facebook.com/MelkshamRUG/posts/613339825977468

Let's Travel Safely This Summer

This Saturday (25th July 2020), the Melksham Rail User Group will have a stall at the Melksham Maker's Market from 09:00 to 14:00, where we will tell you what public transport options (buses and trains) are available again in Melksham, and how to use it safely this summer. If you're in town, pop into the Market Place to see us.

Isambird Kingdom Brownowl, who has been spending lockdown in his nest on Spa Road, will be there and telling you all about face masks, social distancing, hand washing, and travelling at quiet times ... as well as the local journeys available again from Melksham by public transport to Bath, Box, Bradford-on-Avon, Chippenham, Corsham, Devizes ... and other places too.   Do come along and see us - we'll have timetables, handsanitiser, maps, face masks for sure, and we should have Community Rail Partnership and the launch leaflet for the Melksham Station Hub / car park too.
 
If you can't make it - please like this page and email our secretary - secretary@mrug.org.uk - so we can keep you up to date through the summer, and email you a link to our next newsletter which is due out at the start of August.  Our web site is at http://www.mrug.org.uk which includes current travel advice and timetables for all scheduled buses and trains to, from and within Melksham.

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Incredibly hard to get an up to date set of timetables for this summer.   

Potential passenger:  "Is it running"
MRUG volunteer: "Yes"
Potential passenger:  "At what times"
MRUG volunteer: "Dunno - look it up on the website of the operator - do you know which of the 5 that is?"
MRUG volunteer: "It's on this sheet ...."

4 double sided timetable pages ready for tomorrow other leaflets too.   It's been a long day
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Timetable sheets will be online via http://melksh.am/go after the event, spares probably to the TIC on Monday.

Actually ahead of time  ;D

Public Transport to, from, within Melksham. Download timetable sheets at http://melksh.am/go . Individual sheets, as a late July 2020.

http://www.mrug.org.uk/tts2020_gwr.pdf - sheet 1
Trains, Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Westbury
Also Melksham Station Car Park Tariff and transport  use safety

http://www.mrug.org.uk/tts2020_271.pdf - sheet 2
Buses, Bath - Melksham - Devizes (271 - 273)

http://www.mrug.org.uk/tts2020_x34.pdf  - sheet 3
Buses, Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Frome (x34)
Buses, Corsham - Melksham - Bradford-on-Avon -Trowbridge (68/69)
Coaches, Frome - Melksham - Swindon - London (402)

http://www.mrug.org.uk/tts2020_town.pdf - sheet 4
Buses, Melksham Town (14,15)
Buses, Marlborough - Calne - Melksham - Bath (Royal United) (x76)

Roll up, Roll up!

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Big "Thank you" to Peter, Peter, Horace, Steve, Lisa and Bob for their help at Melksham Maker's Market today - objectives:

Objectives:
* To make people aware of public transport availability - when and where from Melksham
* To help inform people about the "new normal" on public transport
* To keep people in touch with MRUG and other transport changes in Melksham
Our objective is NOT to promote "filling the train" - only for people to travel where the are any feel safe

12 points

* We were set up just in time
* After a slow first 30 minutes, time flew
* We met many old friends and made new ones
* Only occasionally were people queuing to talk to us
* Lots of questions about buses and we could answer them all
* Lots of people wanting train timetables and we had them
* People looking to make sensible use of public transport - really wondering about it
* People delighted to have up to date timetables for ALL Melksham services
* Helping people work out what 271, 272 and 273 are, and how they compare to D3 and X72
* Questions especially about evening buses back from Bath
* Perfect print run - down to just one copy of the most popular timetable when we finished
* Rained hard and we got SOAKED in the breakdown!

Good to be out again ... very different with facemasks, social distancing, etc ... but good to be out and taking again.

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Looks like I got away at the right time before the rain.

As Graham says a slow start but then a steady stream of visitors.   Interesting to help a lady hoping to travel by train from Melksham to Henley on Thames.   Another gentleman wanted to get to Bristol for 08:45 on a Sunday (sadly we couldn't help him).  Also met a family group on holiday from the Loughborough area.  Their nearest station is Barrow-upon-Soar which closed in 1968 only for a new station to open nearby in 1994 and now attracts around 90,000 passengers a year.  They were interested to learn of the history of Melksham station.

It wasn't all about trains.  Plenty of interest in local bus times - and it proves not everyone has access to, or possibly the interest in, online sources and likes a hard copy in their hand to refer to.

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Indeed - at breakdown time, Melksham was like a pop group - "Wet, wet, wet".


Yes, and I spoke about journeys to Whitstable too, and someone was talking about trouble with online journey planners that had involved a change at Macynelleth.   I'm not entirely surprised at the wide range of places talked about - sort of par for the course.   But I suspect there may be a catch-up glitch at the moment of people who have not been able to visit friends and relatives for the best part of six months and are now catching up.


The most popular was the Bath bus timetable sheet, of which we had just a single copy left at the end.  Second was the train timetable, with other two bus sheets in 3rd and 4th places.

The Bath bus sheet an especial interest perhaps because the service that's restarted is very different to the one that was running prior to lockdown.  We knew the changes were coming and after concerns and local campaign, with community, operator and council all basically thinking along the same lines, the service is now very much more promotable and efficient.  However, established users as they come back to the bus need to know where "271", "272", "273" and "x76" go, where for the last year or two they have got used to "x72", "D3" and "x76".