Great Western Coffee Shop

Stand Duty on a Community Rail promotion is an excellent way to learn / to get a flavour for customer and potntial customer desired and feelings.  It's not as scientific as a survey - but a good feeling of direction.   So it was a real pleasure to meet the public at Swindon yesterday.

1. A desire for extra services - in particular to plug the gap between the 15:18 and the 17:36 off Swindon to Westbury

2. Strong desire / request for improved travel from Swindon to South of Westbury - in particular to Warminster, Salisbury and Southampton.

3. Customers and potential customers who are no longer travellng south of Chippengam because of the unreliabiity of the service.

We did a "guided tour" on the 15:18 from Swindon to Westbury, and back on the 16:21.  Not a massive group as it's no longer a chance for the bashers to do an unusual line,  And - my goodness - how this service has gotten busier.   I didn't count how many people arrived into Swindon at 15:07, but it was more of a flood than a trickle.  And the 15:18 back was 29 off / 8 on at Melksham 76/37 ; the 16:21 from Westbury back carried 40 passengers into Melksham / 5 off and 3 on 43/8 .  Of those perhaps 10 in our group (down) and just under 20 (back) - so general public looking pretty good on the first train, bit thin on the second.  The thinness of the 16:21 I attribute to the lack on an arrival at Westbury southbound in the morning from 6:53 to 09:41 (a few minutes earlier at Trowbridge) which kills any round-trip options for classic 9-to-5 commuters.

Having promoted at Swindon, Chippenham and Melksham - we really should have a stall / do something similar at both Trowbridge and at Westbury.  Me thinks a quiet word with Heart of Wessex - see if I can sew a thought there. At any of the TransWilts stations except Melksham - and particularly at Westbury - there is a heavy flow of rail passsengers on one routing who may not be aware of other routings and opportunities.