Great Western Coffee Shop

I am delighted to let you all know that Reginald25 - in real life John Hamley, many-year secretary and now also treasurer of the Melksham Rail User Group, has been invited (and has agreed) to join the Coffee Shop moderation team. Looking back, I have known John as long as any other forum member - from well before its formation.  John is one of a number of very kind souls who welcomed Lisa and me as we belly-flopped into the waters of rail campaigning over a decade ago and created waves - helped us so much understand what we were jumping in to and, I know, checked us out to make sure we didn't create waves that broke the fragile threads that were keeping Melksham Station afloat in those days.

John has performed a small miracle updating the HTML of the Melksham Rail User Group web page with the frankly inadequate and impractical tools I have provided on our server, and is now picking up with the new tools I have put belatedly in place; he's also very much a voice of sanity and reason Melksham Station, the TransWilts line project, and the Coffee Shop move on from their early growth, slender beginnings years to something we actually have a reasonable expectation to survive and indeed thrive for coming decades.   John - welcome to the Coffee Shop moderator team.

Thank you for these kind words Graham(e)> I look forward to meeting those that I don't know already. Enjoy the break even if it means travel without trains today!

As a proud new moderator I thought I might tell you a little about me.You may be seeing my name associated with rather more posts from now on. After Reading Uni in the early 70s, I eventually started working at Westinghouse (but not in the railway sector) on power control systems. I finally retired from the company it became after 37 years. For the past 20 odd years I have supported (in a small way) the campaign to get a decent rail service from Melksham, through the Melksham Railway Development Group. It's so good and heartening to see the results of those years in our current service, which we can all hope will be expanded in frequency and destination in the next year or two, so there is still something to campaign for.
Although today's trains to get me somewhere are what I really want, I do have an interest in the network that existed before it reduced in the 60s. Beeching always gets a bad press, and he clearly went too far, but some closures were inevitable, and saved money which helped keep what was left going. What is such a shame is that all closed lines were not kept free for future reinstatement, think of the line from Penrith through Keswick to the NW coast, now much of this is a road, where a train service would be  desirable to keep traffic down in a National Park. And I always wonder how much more vibrant places like Radstock would be if a train service of some sort had been retained (yes I know the level crossing was a nuisance but bridges can be built).
I've plenty of non-railway activities to keep me busy, amateur dramatics and volunteering at a local historical site being just two.
Roll on 2019.