Great Western Coffee Shop

Sharing my Facebook post ...

A very happy Christmas from the TransWilts team to everyone who's used public transport services to, from and within Wiltshire this year, and to everyone who may be making use of it next year too.

Five years ago, the train service on our backbone route from Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge and Westbury with extentions to Warminster and Salisbury was so poor that it was useless.  Miss the 06:12, and your next train would be at 18:44.  We moved for 2014 from a useless service to a trail service - usable, but still very sparse indeed - notable gaps including (and include to this day) between 07:49 and 10:04 northbound (Melksham times) and 06:46 to 09:33 (Trowbridge arrival times).  For an evening out, the service remains absent - last train home at 18:38 on Saturdays (from Trowbridge) is absurd. 

I have personally been involved in helping promote the current service - and it's good to see the drought we had a few years back turned into a trickle, and the trains now carrying a health payload of passengers (or at times so many passengers crammed in that they're more than a health payload) rather than fresh air. Chatting with a new traveller I met at Melksham station the other day, though, he commented on how poor both the station environment and the train service frequency is - he was shocked by the very long waits between services, by the industrial look of the station area, and by the low number of passengers when you consider just how big a population the station serves.  I told him how right he was, before admitting to being one of the people who's been involved in getting it to where it is this year.  TransWilts is very much work in progress.

In the first few days of next year, passengers will start to notice an extra carriage on most trains - no more one carriage trains, and until the extra carriages fill everyone should be able to get a seat.  Gently, services will be improved; the new year timetable moves several trains be a few minutes to help make connections more robust, and an addition Sunday morning train from Warminster heads north over two hours earlier than the current 10:49 - there's engineering works for the first few weekends, but then the new service settles down as an 08:47 to Bath and Bristol. A couple of anacronisms in the fare structure will be cleared in the New Year too.  And you may see other little changes that will make a big difference during the year too.

Come January 2019, timetables change all across the south west as both SWR and GWR reschedule their main lines.  And this offers an opportunity for regional lines such as the TransWilts to be updated to take advantage of new opportunities, and to re-diagram trains to make them better used.  The current service from Swindon to Westbury was introduced in 2014 as a trial, and as such was not properly integrated; to have integrated it would have meant it would have been impractical for it to be withdrawn again painlessly without damaging other lines should the trial have failed. Now that there's no question of the trial failing, the Swindon to Westbury service can be integrated with services onwards via Warminster to Salisbury, and indeed on from there to the Southampton area.   Planning and contractual issues arise as two competing train companies need to co-operate for the common good without falling foul of competition law; we need to work for common sense to prevail as this would be a winner for everyone.

The TransWilts line has been growing faster than any other (and so it should, considering how awful it was five years ago) and the question arises "how far can that growth continue?".  We do expect less growth in the current financial year as train capacity has failed to keep up with demand, and there have been reliability problems over the last six months.  Fixes coming through in the New Year to both issues, and growth will resume.  Passenger numbers at Melksham Station have risen from around 3,000 journeys per annum at the start of the decade to 75,000 in the figures to April 2017, and forecasts suggests that with suitable services and station provision, that will keep rising.  I would not be surprised to see over 200,000 journeys a decade from now; official forecasts based on zero service improvements suggest that at current service levels we'll top out at 100,000 ... with very moderate improvements, their models suggest  we'll hit 130,000 in five years.  The "zero improvement" case is academic as we are promised 2 car trains 10 days from now; the 130k case includes the 2 car trains and 2 additional trips per day - but that's also academic with 2019 re-schedules.  So - whence the future?

1. Great Western and Community Rail public consultations are underway looking ten years ahead.  Although they are not TransWilts specific, the outcomes will form an important framework in which the TransWilts line, and other Wiltshire rail (and perhaps linked bus services) will fit.

2. A specialist capacity study is under way looking at future traffic requirements and how that can and should be accommodated - discussions took park looking at initial suggestions from the study last Thursday, and I'll be making some minor tuning changes (no more than a couple of minutes shift) to the 2019 suggestions to ensure that they're a natural and compatible step along the way.

3. The masterplan work for Melksham Station also proceeds - how that station's facilities (which were adequate when there were 3,000 journeys per year) can be improved to handle 200,000 safely, efficiently, and with the facilities people want.

Looking ahead at what YOU want for the next 10 years is a key January activity.  A note for your diary - Sunday, 7th January.  The Great Western Coffee Shop is holding a passenger meetup to help you formulate your best response to the consultations (and to help inform the Coffee Shop team too) http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19134.0 . All welcome.  Other publicity and activities later in January to follow!

Have a great Christmas everyone ... trains and buses resume on 27th December and we look forward to seeing you on 2018's longer and more modern trains! And thank you for your 2017 support.