Great Western Coffee Shop

A milestone. Last night was the initial run of the new all year Saturday evening train from from Westbury at 20:08 - previously the last train on Saturday outside high summer was at 18:35.   The new service calls at Trowbridge at 20:14, Melksham at 20:24, Chippenham at 20:34 and arrives into Swindon at 20:54.  So we now have trains all year, all day, every day of the week - the last major hole has been filled!  Current timetable - including this train - at http://www.mtug.org.uk/lib/tri_autumn_2023.pdf

The new train is not yet on the timetable / notice boards at the stations nor in the other printed timetables (though it IS shown in our new "Trains via Melksham" leaflet.  So very much a "soft launch".  It IS in online journey planners and Apps. I took the service last night for the first run - 20 people on board into Melksham.  Nine passengers got off and a further 7 joined.  Not bad for a first run - and very interesting to be talking with a couple of people and learning just how useful this is to them.

What now?  Firstly, we let people know about this service and the trains for the rest of the week.  And we then look for Melksham at making the station more friendly and getting buses to and from the station.  We look at making services on the line more reliable and more frequent.  And we look at adding our weight to the calls for a fare system fit for the future, and bettering the organisation, environmental credentials and marketing of the railway.

What I didn't post as I started this thread was the stats for the train I took out of Melksham last night - the 18:09 to Westbury.

No fewer than 46 people got off that train when it arrived in Melksham, and a further 8 joined.  A two carriage train an I walked though both carriages on the way toward Trowbridge, and there were 65 passengers on there - so that's 111/54 using the old measure of numbers using the train on the unique section to this service, and numbers using Melksham Station specifically.

Looking back a decade ago, there were no trains at all even remotely close to this Saturday arrival - so its fair to say that the 54 passengers using Melksham station (at least) are almost all new railway business.  And I suspect that around a half of the 57 through passenger were too, bearing in mind that they now have a direct service where in the past the journey would have required a dogleg via Bath

Nice to hear a bit of positive news amongst all the negatives of late.

With those passenger numbers in the evening, perhaps the defunct cafe can be turned into a bar?  ;)

Hopefully reliability will improve too.

How about asking for a return service for that 'outward' evening-out service to Chippenham/Swindon no earlier than 2230? What happens to that train now? ECS to somewhere, or stabled in SWI overnight?

The new service to Swindon on Saturday evenings returns as the 21:07 from Swindon.  That's been in the timetable from 2006 - it was one of the two trains per day from 2006 to 2013, in those days coming off the Cheltenham Spa <-> Swindon service when that reduce in frequency in the late evening.  For recent years, it has variously run ECS to Swindon to form that train from Bristol and from Westbury.   Good to have it in passenger service now!

For this summer, the ECS WSB -> SWI was suspended as was the 21:07 back, to be replaced until 9th September by the 19:40 Weymouth to Swindon which left Westbury at 21:17 and returned from Swindon at 22:12.

The step we have is a good one, and the number of people on it even last night is encouraging.  But, yes, there are calls (and they make passenger sense) for it to run later on Saturdays like it does the rest of the week.  We need to be very careful how we evaluate that request - of course the real appropriate service as far as passengers are concerned is an hourly one, and traffic would rocket, but we would have severe robustness issues.

That would encourage drinking, drinking is the new smoking.

It's a milestone, but not a destination.  There is a cry for more work to be done.

https://www.facebook.com/MelkshamTUG/posts/pfbid02KThVADjFbL7cnzn97wtguQosvPpJJKV9cWNGfx5w4iSnNtyDMg21AhQF1PTpsELxl

https://www.facebook.com/groups/287152285590745/posts/1094457894860176/

A great deal of reaction:

Except when on strike

...  At least we know two weeks ahead - but, agreed, the industrial action at present is destroying faith in the railways.

... my daughter was due to come at the beginning of September for the food festival ( then the train strike stopped her) then she was coming at the end of September and now we see the strike will stop her again! So annoying but more so for those using the trains daily.

this needs to be every hour back and forth till midnight then it works.. there should be buses every time of day and we’d use them .. Our public transportation is broken

... I agree with you. What I said in the last paragraph of my post. Rail industry proffesional know it too - listen to the heads of GWR and Network Rail describe the current system as "not fit for purpose" and even "evil" - and do so in public.
We have known locally for 10 years that an appropriate train service would start around 6 a.m. and run every hour to midnight. When we got an oppotunity to get half of that, with no prospect of hourly, we took it knowing it would work. Passenger journeys up from 3,000 to 75,000 per annum at Melksham but it should be 250,000 at least.

Buses do not run late enough too and from Bath to Melksham and really we should have a train.

If the Devizes bath bus could call at the station that would be a real help

...  Yeah - I know. Devizes-bound a stop could be put at the top of Station Approach but Bath-bound there's nowhere safe for passengers to wait. Bringing it in to the station would cost too long according to previous enquiries, and whichever way you do it you have to get the ties right for reliable connections.
Better approach is a Town bus route starting at the station. This idea has wings even if you don't see much said in public at the moment.


If there was a direct Melksham to Bath train late at night that would be good

... Answer to follow ... what do you mean "late" and do you really mean Melksham to Bath or Bath to Melksham?

... Both ways, going into Bath in the evening, returning to Melksham midnight-1am.

... An evening out in Bath. Sure, the train would be nice BUT the bus works better. Inbound buses at 16:54, 17:57, 19:03, 20:23 and 22:33. Return services at 19:45, 21:05 and 23:15. The last services to Chippenham, to Trowbridge, and to Frome all leave at about the same time. Last train from Bath now 22:08, change at Chippenham.

With Option 24/7 - look at the name - we have taken a look to see about an early hours get-you-home bus. It would be very expensive to run and find the staff for, and the depot would need to stay open late to receive the vehicle back in - but we did look into a Bath - Trowbridge - Melksham - Chippenham timetable at around perhaps 00:15 to 00:30 from Bath. How much use would it get, and what fare would you be prepared to pay? Who would (want to) subsidise it?

There is so much railway engineering at night that we would have a job convincing Network Rail to provide paths. How busy is the last train at 00:04 from Bath to Trowbridge, Westbury and Frome. The railway geography of the line to Melksham is not kind for Bath to Melksham ... and there can be a lot of overnight freight around too.

Melksham needs to be on the Bath train route. It took me 2 hours to get home by train at the start of the summer!! If my phone hadn't of ran out of battery, I would've just got a taxi.

... Ideally, yes - but the railway geography makes that difficult and without huge investment putting direct trains to Bath would mean removing thinning out the other trains. At present, normal suggestion is to use the bus for Bath journeys. Tickets that could be used on both trains and buses would make sense, and information that gives you a combined timetable.

Can you clarify, - which station are 99% driving from?

Many longer distance bus services being habitually (and rightly) routed round housing to serve the places that people live, why is serving a station with in theory much improved services is seen as a time penalty rather than an opportunity.

It reminds me of the 6 and 7 in Bath no longer ending up anywhere near the rail and bus stations. At the outward end of their routes they run round small suburban roads but the city centre destination now leaves a lot to be desired. The service is still capacity constrained at certain times of the day so now that the service no longer serves bus and rail stations (the change being brought in during, yes, Covid) no one is going to feel the need to change the route. Apart from the people who used to use it for onward travel that is.

The 6 & 7 timetable even begins to thin out before travel home from work times for people working 9 to 5. I had a short email conversation with Weca about that and they came back with a patient explanation to the effect that bus companies can only run buses at times when they are profitable.

Mark

 

Interesting idea - a bar at Melksham Station in the former cafe.

First to clarify - more like 2% drive themselves from the station at Melksham.  I would suggest ...
60% walk
20% picked up
10% taxi
8% cycle
2% drive themselves

Bars work in unlikely places - however, I have a fertile imagination and even my imagination does not see that locally.  I do see other uses for that building. The stats were considerably different pre-Covid and at that point I would have estimated 30% to 40% driving themselves.

Highlighting departing passengers and daytime arrivals (not arrivals on the late trains) and a rest point for local bus staff , there is scope for the former hub cafe.  Another topic.

Many, many a true word, Mark

From 09:57 to 14:25, buses from Trowbridge Station to Hilperton, Semington and Melksham twice an hour but then they fade out ...
15:18 (53 minute gap)
16:14 (56 minute gap)
16:57 (43 minute gap)
17:24 (27 minute gap)
17:55 (31 minute gap)
and that's the last bus of the day.  Yeah, right, people want 10 p.m. and there used to be an evening service run by First in competition with Faresaver, but First couldn't make money either from the Farebox or subsidies available to them, and the service was lost.