Great Western Coffee Shop

Shiplake Garden Club has taken on a new challenge by ^adopting^ its local railway station. It has volunteered to help First Great Western to keep Shiplake Station in the best possible condition as part of the ^Adopt a Station^ scheme. To help the scheme along First Great Western has donated 10 of its roses to be planted at the station for passengers to enjoy (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/NewsItem.aspx?id=568

Mary Batten from Shiplake Garden Club said , ^Shiplake is a small and much-used community station and we felt it was important that we played some part in helping to maintain it. The First Great Western roses are not only beautiful to look at, but they also have a lovely scent ^ they have really brightened up the platform.^

Didnt MRDG once plant FGW roses at Melksham station , grahame?

Flowers in FGW colours were planted by the Melksham Railway Development Group (http://www.mrdg.org.uk) when First took over in April of last year.

With 40 trains a week calling during daylight hours at this time last year, and traffic growing, it really felt worthwhile.   But at the moment the service is cut right back and at this time this year we only have 3 trains a week calling during daylight hours - a cut of over 92% - and somehow it feel less worthwhile to make the station pretty during the day  :-X

Efforts are being made to get an imprivement of the service, which is now commonly admitted to have been one cut too far and a decision that has proven to be incorrect based on data that wasn't available to the SRA when they made it.   See "Save the Train" (http://www.savethetrain.org.uk) for more details.