Great Western Coffee Shop

The following from my inbox, shared with permission:


Many thanks for your questions / thoughts. What one person asks, many wonder ...

Some background thoughts (I've been involved with public transport for a number of years and have become aware of many things that effect what is done and what can be done.

1. Part of Wiltshire

County boundaries artificially divide geographic and economic areas in many cases, and Frome is an excellent example of that with its commercial and movement links to(wards)/via Trowbridge and Bath, yet its county town administration / county level funding in Taunton, and its LEP based - I believe- in Exeter.

The link to places other than Wiltshire is emphasised by public transport - with the most frequent services to Westbury (by train) and and to Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham, and to Bath, and (next) to Warminster by bus.

2. Gaps in service

Frome sits on the Westbury to Weymouth line, with train services tailored to suit the requirements of Weymouth, Dorchester and Yeovil as well as Frome. The line south of Yeovil was lucky to survive, having been listed as one of the very few to close under version C1 of the Serpell report - http://www.wellho.net/pix/serpell_c1.jpg and http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17797.0 so it's no surprise that the service isn't all that frequent (long gaps) and is tied to requirements of the other places served.  For example, there are no train services for anyone wanting to work a regular (9 to 5) day in Frome.

3. Advertising in Frome News and elsewhere in the town

At TransWilts we are very much aware of the potential of links to Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon; we include Frome in the line timetable work we do, and have advertised with the local free newspaper.  Our literature where appropriate is stocked at the town's information centre and our combined road / rail timetable when issued covered/covers the parallel x34 bus too.  Bus times change frequently and it was / is a real problem to always have a current version of a combined document, in terms of artwork and cost. It's not usually possible to print the start and end dates on such a document, and as buses are run by private companies the information to us to prepare for new leaflets can be patchy in reception, indeed it is often held back until just before the changes come into effect to avoid confusing customers or perhaps to keep competitive companies guessing.

4. Heart of Wessex CRP

The line from Weymouth to Westbury, with service onwards via Trowbridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Bath and Keynsham to Bristol, is looked after by the Heart of Wessex Community Rail Partnership from the community perspective and they're the lead on CRP type activities there.  TransWilts works very closely with HoW where appropriate as garnering a better passenger experience is a mutual objective, but the lines are very different in nature - HoW is a line that has seasonal traffic, low winter flows in parts, and a number of lovely stations it uniquely serves to attract people into the countryside. The TransWilts, in contrast, now thrives on regular daily traffic in the area; we have only Melksham Station (hardly rural or pretty!) as a uniquely served point, and in essence we have just a single carriage on the line at any time, rather than the bast part of 10 carriages between Bristol and Weymouth.   Frome is very much a HoW station and they take the lead; TransWilts happy to help if approached and indeed we got a little involved in suggestions for the sorting out of timetable signage.

5. Looking past Westbury

Most TransWilts services terminate at Westbury.   Yet many of the people on those trains want to go beyond Westbury.   You'll find flows of people off the TransWilts train headed onto trains that carry on via Warminster, via Frome and Yeovil, and via Taunton. Such are these flows that it;s logical to look at them and say "should our train carry on in one of those directions?"  After all, it's commonly accepted that you loose between 40% and 46% of your potential rail customers if you have them change trains along the way, and probably more than that if you make them wait for a very long time at the changing point.

6. CRP is not GWR, nor DfT nor Somerset Council

We are a Community Rail Partnership. Our inputs can be effective in helping the Department for Transport specify services for future franchises (and indeed for the 2013 to 2016 service enhancement trial which was outside the normal franchise), and in helping the train operator to promote and develop the service.  Members / support include the train operators, and Wiltshire Council, together with individuals, parishes and other organisations. To my knowledge, Somerset Council isn't a member (hardly a surprise as we don't go into Somerset) - though they and Somerset's districts are involved with HoW.  Many CRPs and other organisations co-ordinate, linking and sharing best practise at events such as the GWR and ACoRP community Rail Conferences, and at TravelWatch SouthWest - indeed we have a meeting of that latter on Monday talking to the DfT about what the communities would like to see in the next GWR area franchise.

7. Platforms at Westbury

Westbury has got three platform faces with tracks alongside. And lines heading off in (in essence) six directions. This leads to unfortunate times of day when a train has to clear a platform before another can arrive, even if there is a big potential for passengers on the arriving train to want to catch the departing one.   Into this cocktail was added the TransWilts extra services, as a trial, and as such easy withdrawal and minimal / zero alteration to other services were mandated.  In practical terms, for much of the day that means services that arrive after a platform has been cleared by a departing train to somewhere else, and leave just before another train arrives in order to clear a platform.

With the success of the trial, adjustment have been made to integrate the services better, but now that each of the trial trains has built its own clientelle, rescheduling to connect has negative as well as positive outcomes.  Some trains have been moved by a few minutes with great success in terms of passenger numbers, and both the Sunday service and the early afternoon train have been integrated with other services - providing something that heps fill a gap at Frome in the latter case.   This integration is excellent in showing that TransWilts is here to stay, as it's a step that could only be take once the train operators were 100% confident they wouldn't have to unpick it later.

8. Opportunities

The world does not revolve around Frome and the TransWilts, so getting improvements is often about looking for opportunities in other schemes or halping make use of what's available and out there.  There are a number of relatively small adjustments and changes that might be possible in the next year or so (so many parties involved it always takes time, and many/most ideas end up being stillborn) and there's likely to be a significant shake up when the timetable changes for the new class 800 / 801 / 802 trains running from London to Bristol via Chippenham, and from London to the West Country via Westbury or the Westbury avoider.  The very first of these new trains visited Frome for a trial run last week.

9. Reliable Clockface running

Running trains at the same minutes after each hour helps passengers know when there will be a train along and it helps in planning a consistent timetable. On lines with less frequent services, it's a good idea for the trains to be running at the the same time in those hours that they run - it helps them mesh properly with the more regular (hourly or better) clockface services elsewhere, and also helps passengers remember time (e.g. 36 minutes after the even hour)

Swindon to Westbury takes 45 to 50 minutes, and with time to turn around, and a few minutes delay to thread around other trains, a two hourly service is practical - you can see this on Saturdays and (now) Sundays. Extending to Frome would be problematic if you wanted to maintain the clockface with a single train - simply not enough time to reliably complete the cycle in 2 hours.   You could mitigate that by uring a 90 m.p.h. train rather than a 75 m.p.h. one, but even that's probably not going to gain you enough minutes. And there are no intermediate stations you could skip on some cycles either.

10. Go-op Co-operative  http://www.go-op.coop/train/

The passenger flows from Frome to Chippenham and Swindon aren't denied.  Potential open access operator Go-op have indeed proposed such a service, and their logic in the routing in Somerset / Wiltshire (and indeed the carry on from Swindon via Oxford) make huge sense.  Such a service alternated with current trains / timings to give an hourly service from Westbury to Swindon, alternately from Taunton via Frome, would (we believe) generate so much more traffic that every train even on the doubled service) would carry more passengers that it does at present.  But a word of caution; starting and running an open access operation is complex. This particular project has significant hurdles to overcome, and has been attempting to overcome them for some considerable time.

11. A regular service can only carry on in one direction

Should the Swindon to Westbury service be extended, it could really only be extended in one direction;  it's unlikely that anyone would seriously countenance the splitting and joining of trains all day at Westbury, and running multiple trains coupled up to Swindon could lead to crowding south thereof, or too much capacity to the north.  It would also mean that operational delays would magnify (already a TransWilts issue as it has to interface with three intercity type services via a getting-busier single track).

Rather than extend via Frome (and replacing the through services from Weymouth to Bristol with services to Swindon), logic is to extend via Warminster and Salisbury, integrating with the services that are provided to Dilton Marsh, Dean and Mottisfont.  The current Dilton Marsh services are "curious and perverse" according to their council, and need to be revamped with passengers rather than the Department for Transport's minium service level specification in mind, and services south of Salisbury calling at Dean and Mottisfont are wasteful of resources, with a train sitting idle for 45 minutes in every hour at Salisbury.  This extension would also give a direct airport service (to Southampton Airport) to Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge and Warminster, which they do not enjoy at present.  At Southampton airport it's just a short walk to the checkin from the platform too.

This is not all "bad news" for Frome. Trains which currently run from Bristol to Warminster could divert to Frome and reverse there, as the Swindon train would have taken over their Dilton Marsh requirement, and indeed from Frome to an airport would become a simple single change journey - change at Westbury.  More trains to Frome => more connection opportunities at Westbury, so some good potential there. And it might be utterly logical to start and end some of none-clockface trains at peak times from Swindon at Frome rather than Westbury.  The 07:32 Westbury to Swindon could start back at Frome, and the 17:36 from Swindon carry on to Frome; that latter looks illogical in the timetable, but it's at one of the points where a unit swap is done for the TransWilts, and so an overlap might be engineered.  In the late evening, the 21:20 arrival at Westbury from Frome should carry on to Swindon, providing a late night service back at around 22:36 from Swindon.  More gaps filled!

And if Transwilts carries on most of the time via Warminster ... we certainly ARE aware of the connectional issues to and from our services at Westbury - for Frome, for Weymouth, for Plymouth, for Yeovil, for Pewsey, and for intermediate and further points too.

12. Wide range of current services

Frome has a very wide range of current services - many gaps filled.  Trains to Waterloo, Cardiff, Taunton (on Friday), Swindon and Paddington as well as the normal Weymouth to Bristol and Gloucester / Worcester / Great Malvern service.   Bit of a nightmare for getting out information to customers looking for specific destinations, and because most of these services are at Frome at times they happen to be passing through rather than specifically for Frome passengers, round trips often involve different changes and even different routes outbound and return.


Edit to add ... TransWilts welcomes new members - organisations or individuals - see https://www.transwilts.org/friends-area . And that welcome would include YOU, dear reader ...

In response to Facebook post worrying that Frome is being sidelines / left out:

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Frome's situation is very much heard by the TransWilts CPR and I think we come across most of the views. However, we are not in any way an "official" CRP for Frome and have to play play fiddle with the Heart of Wessex CRP who we know and work well with where appropriate.

The is no restriction on individuals and organisations based outside Wiltshire joining and that can strength your visibility and help our accuracy into the future. See https://www.transwilts.org/friends-area .

There are many similarities between Melksham and Frome - both market towns of the same size with a train service that's a little sparse at times, both with stations that are more than a stone's throw from the town centre, and both with intermodal connections (i.e train to bus) that haven't kept face with rising passenger numbers over the years. Frome's passenger journey numbers have risen by 44% in the last 7 years, to 176,000. Melksham's have risen 505% - but remain lower at 61,000. That's actually quite a problem at Melksham; we have safety concerns and it not takes far longer than it should to unload and load through a single door.

My personal role is two-fold - I'm the one who's formally tasked with doing things in the community that directly (or indirectly) build traffic, and I'm also on the board of TravelWatch SouthWest - a community interest company that helps bring all the groups, rail, businesss and local authorities together. That's purely a volunteer role - but it does give me a good insight into what's going in a wider area and to then help and suggest what might be co-ordinated and joined up thinking. I would be more than happy to put groups and individuals working alone in touch with the TWSW secretary so that you can come along to the September meeting (planned, however, to major on buses). We are meeting the Department for Transport tomorrow to talk about what we would like in the next "GWR" franchise consultation - a very early look at direction rather than specifics; Somerset CC, Heart of Wessex and many others have been invited but I may be able to spring a place if you email / message me before 8 p.m. tonight.

Summary - Frome should be a part of Wiltshire for public transport planning. Please join TransWilts and / or the Heart of Wessex CPR.

CPR? The nearest reference in the acronyms and abbreviations list is CPRE, Campaign to Protect Rural England, and I'm struggling to see the relevance of that in this context.

Has the heart of Wessex had an attack ?.