Great Western Coffee Shop

Melksham Rail User Group - dates for 2017

Friday 24 February 2017
Friday 12 May 2017 - AGM
Friday 23 June 2017
Friday 29 September 2017
Wednesday 29 November 2017

All at 19:30 in Melksham Town Hall.

All welcome.   Further details meeting by meeting on this thread and I will add links to the MRUG webiste too.

(edited to revise date for the AGM) (And edit to change 1.12. to 29.11)

Edit to add AGM on 25th April 2018

Melksham Rail User Group meeting this evening (24th Feb 2017) at Melksham Town Hall. 19:30 start, all welcome.

Items on the agenda include ....

* Station development and the master plan
* Train service development
* Current service issues
* Service enhancements
* Heritage opportunities at the station and in the area
* Station care, maintenance and information
* Onward transport from and to Melksham (buses, etc)
* Special events upcoming - 2nd March, 1st and 26th April
See http://www.mrug.org.uk

Nothing on that website for those dates?

There's also a glaring error on the fares/timetable page...anyone else spot it?
(And a not very helpful piece of off-peak info too)

2nd March / tomorrow, with regret, is invite only but those who attended the meeting last Friday are aware of it and a news release will follow.   You will see the logic later.  1st and 26th April, publicity there / here shortly.

Not very helpful to the person who maintains the page (not me, but a member here) to be told there's a glaring error without saying what it is.  Please p.m. me or contact the secretary of the group - easier to deal with and put right if we know about it!

You can't buy a season for a period between 7 days & 1 month.

Not a serious error that needed correcting there & then, otherwise I would have memtioned it last night.

Melksham Rail User Group - 19:30, Friday 12th May 2017, Melksham Town Hall.

All welcome.

Issues reporting to include:
- Service and capacity issues. More trains, longer trains, later trains?
- Service reliability figures
- Help point, security, rubbish, ticketing etc
- Developments to handle more passengers
- Growth history and 10 year forecast
- TransWilts CIC annual report
- Bus connections - a possibility for 2018

Also at this meeting:
- AGM / new committee - newcomers welcome.
- Station TLC
- Day of passenger counts
- Party in the Park and Food and River Festival
- Promotion of Melksham as a destination
- Leafleting
- Santa

For what its worth, I've checked the wording on the website. It states 'Season tickets offering unlimited journeys between specified points (and intermediate stations) are available for periods ranging from 7 days to 1 year.' It does not state or imply any number of days from 8 to 356.
However I agree it couold be misleading, so I'll modify. Thanks for pointing it out.

You can only buy weeklies (one at a time), or monthlies. Monthlies can be extended by adding weekly and or daily tickets to a monthly, thus allowing any period between a monthly an annual.

Not sure why you can't buy two weeklies (to total a fortnight) in one go. And of course, adding daily tickets provides no further discount over what a weekly does.

But that does tally with offering 'periods ranging from 7days to one year'....just not including periods from 1 week to one month

Last night's meeting ... moved next meeting from 1st December to 29th November / as a user group rather than a development group, trying a mid week evening as there were an awful lot of apologies for the Friday night.

Santa wrapping on 15th December, Santa on the train on 17th December at 14:50 to Swindon (subject to engineering check and Santa check).

Last night's agenda / discussions included ... (these are my notes):

Sunday changes - All year; DfT request for timetable info - early, late, Sunday; Station Master Plan; 19, 21, 22 surveys; Robustness study; RailFuture visit / 2016 campaign; ACoRP - Peter; Santa plans; SWR timetable consultation; Famous 5; Bus plans; Relaibiity; Note GWR Annual report; Customer Panel; CHRUG; GWR community rail next year; NB Bristol - am not engaging; Community Rail in City; Food and River Festival; IET; Bus Stops in Market Place; Roy; 3R SWR event; Lights at station; Info point update;

Melksham Rail User Group - 19:30, Melksham Town Hall, Wednesday 25th April.  ALL WELCOME

I will have a few new First train and bus timetables with me for Melksham services:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/first_tt_2018.jpg)

So the new timetables are available in print form but not on the GWR website, bizarre and quite frankly poor.

You will note "a few" ... I will have a lot more printed copies available a few days ahead.  Wide distribution before a timetable starts tends to mean that people turn up for services not yet running, or late for a train that's moved later in the new timetable and see the taillights of it leaving at the old time.   So I'm afraid that the whole thing is engineered to serve the many as is considered best, with frustrated few (who can read a start date) being - err - frustrated.

Not so bothered about the printed versions as I agree they shouldn’t be widely distributed unless specifically requested at your local station.

Other TOCs have their new timetables up on their websites so why can’t GWR?

The printed version would have gone to print at least two weeks ago so there is no excuse not to have them on their site at least four weeks out.

Don't forget Melksham Rail User Group meeting Wednesday 4th July 2018 19:30 Melksham Town Hall