We call it commuting in these parts 

I understand that the 2001 Census showed more Melksham -> London commuters than Westbury -> London, and current data held by the local transport planners here shows a high proprotion of cars parked in Chippenham Station car park have originated from Melksham.  Rather backs it up further.

I looked up Robert (Bob) Reid on Google as he was around at a time I lived far from any station ... surely it wouldn't relate to Melksham ... and learned about his concerns as the Chairman of British Rail in the lead up to privarisation.   I read in The Independent, 31st January 1993:


I can't imagine what he was thinking. He couldn't have been imagining that a train operator would be allowed to leave a gap from - say - 07:20 to 19:48 where there had previously been services at  05:52, 07:45, 13:35, 17:02 and 21:33, surely?

Sorry - I still don't recognise that picture of Melksham.   I've lived here since 1999, taken a user interest in the train service every since and a more active one from 2005, and the only Wessex / ex Wessex Managers I've seen at the station have been here to visit on railway business and (in all three cases) lived in other counties.  However - I'm willing to be proved lacking in knowledge, which is why I invited a clarification.


Ah - I think I may be beginning to see the picture here, and a picture I can recognise.

Melksham is a town with extremes.  At least twice in the past ten years, we've had the most expensive street in Wiltshire (average cost of houses sold on the street in the year), and we've also had two of the five most deprived wards across the county.  We also have some very good local industry, with worldwide repute and a good import / export record.  Indeed, I think the three Queen's Awards to Industry on the Bowerhill Industrial Area may be a unique concentration of such awards.  Three big companies that I know of are in transport business, and one of those is a leader in rail technologies.

Why am I telling you this?

Because it means that we get a lot of "Manager types" visiting the town to visit businesses.  And we also have a number of "Manager Types" who work in Swindon, Oxford, London, and so on - to Swindon, the journey takes the best part of an hour if you drive yourself, but it can be done in 25 minutes by train.  So - with a service that fitted their needs, and a many of them being tranport industry related (but NOT, you'll note, with any commercial interest) the service was popular with the business traveller.   Many was the time in the five years up to December 2006 that I met people off the 09:12 arrival with its excellent connection from London, or dropped off people for the 17:02 departure.  And, thinking back, it was notable that the clientelle looked distinctly like senior mamagement.

So - I think you're right, SprinterMeister - that the Westbury drivers stopped and picked up manager types, and it would seem that was to the extent of it being notable.

However ...


I think that's a false conclusion to draw, now that we've established that the manager types concerned were notable in their proportions, but not related to Wessex trains and I also can't accept the following conclusion as it's based on what I believe is an incorrect piece of initial data.


And yet - even if some (any!) Wessex Managers had lived in Melksham, the case for the Swindon to Southampton service was a strong one.  The Park report, published in 2000 (I may be a year out) did a great deal of work on an hourly service from along the whole of that route, and I don't think it's any co-incidence that the new Wessex services introduced in 2001 ran to ... Southampton.

Two trains an hour, Trowbridge to Southampton, would have been an attractive proposition. And it would be to this day - imagine the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) train from Romsey / Eastleigh / Southampton Airport / Southampton to Salisbury carrying on to Swindon.  It fits in well with the current MVA business case, and sorts out some real issues like the inefficient locals from Westbury to Warminster and the complete lack of services at time they're needed from Salisbury and West Wiltshire to Chippenham and Swindon.

So - the $64,000 question - why did the previous TransWilts service fail?  I'm not sure that it did.  Jacobs in 2004 recommended that the current franchise have a train every 2 hours between Swindon and Westbury, based on a 0.8% growth; sadly the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) / DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) took that out when it specified the franchise - a political decision, I think. But actually the annual growth turned out to be over 10 times that, resulting in a service which was pretty darned busy when the last 17:44 from Swindon ran in December 2006.  And that's quite remarkable when you note (I agree with you, SprintMeister) that the trains were not exactly reliable.

Anyway - I'm a long way off topic here. The summary is that the TransWilts has a much better service up to 2006 based on proper evaluation, and that by technical evaluations it should have continued.  And with all the growth in the area (another 2000 homes just added here in the latest core strategy revision), an appropriate service should be restarted at the first possible opportunity.

Threads like this make me really proud of this board.  Thank you, Buckham for your question and IndustryInsider for your answer.

We should add Honeybourne to that exclusive list which also includes Totnes and Bodmin.   Are there any others?

Really? ... that's news to me!  Can you provide data to back up that statement?  I would be most interested to learn more.

It certainly moved from "Train Cancellation" to "Other Train Service Updates" on Journeycheck 

Reminds me of the Brighton to Worcester service that only ran to Hove.   

Looks like problems this a.m. getting trains out of OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot)) - in depot issue?

What's the capacity of the lifts, though?   One of the great things about the old arrangement was the ability to walk on the level from an arriving train to a taxi with very heavy wheeled bags.   Will it cope with a long distance express coming in on a Sunday afternoon - you know the sort of thing where it was hard to even squeeze on at Chippenham, and baggage is overflowing the racks and the staff locker in coach A, and everyone makes for the rank?

The second train from Swindon:

Paddington 23:30
Swindon   00:45 to 06:12
Melksham   06:37

Also possible to use this same 23:30 train, change at Bath Spa and Trowbridge and arrive at Melksham at 07:20
Finally, the 17:33 from Paddington, change at Westbury, arrives at Melksham at 19:48

Both of these trains are pointelss from London - leave at the same time and arrive later, or overtaken. The 19:48 arrival is a higher fare.  Not sure about the 07:20 arrival - it's "via Swindon" so I think the lower fare might apply, or you might need two tickets - would need to have a routing guide expert tell me.

It depends on which figures you look at - in some ways Fishguard used to have a worse service, in some ways Melksham.  Sorry - but it's "no contest" now and I'm delighted for Fishguard.

It's a peak fare from Paddington to Melksham on the 17:45 (change at Swindon)

If you travel on the 15:00 and change at Chippenham, that's super off peak
and if you travel on the 16:30 and change at Chippenham, that's off peak
(experts please confirm.  At the least you could split at Chippenham)

There is a very good coffee shop at Chippenham Station, run by the lady who runs the Bagette Bar in Melksham.

First arrivals for business travellers from London to various towns and cities are important - and here (following on from my final connection table is a table of earliest current arrivals, leaving London on the first service in the morning (I've defined that as 5 a.m.). I've added in some more distant points this time, and the times shown are the arrivals at destination station.

See how Plymouth compares to other places ... in GW^▸ (Great Western) land and beyond

06:08 Didcot
06:22 Oxford
06:25 Swindon
06:38 Chippenham
06:47 Newbury
06:52 Bath
07:00 Southampton
07:07 Bristol Temple Meads
07:22 Bradford-on-Avon
07:22 Stroud
07:28 Trowbridge
07:33 Bristol Parkway
07:35 Westbury
07:44 Newport
07:45 Gloucester
07:47 Weston-super-Mare
07:49 Solihull
07:57 Poole
07:57 Yate
08:00 Cardiff
08:01 Cheltenham Spa
08:03 Salisbury
08:09 Warminster
08:14 Worcester Shrub Hill
08:24 Taunton
08:31 Avonmouth
08:44 Weymouth
08:57 Swansea
09:07 Hereford
09:08 Exeter
09:21 Stratford-upon-Avon
09:40 Frome
09:47 Paignton
09:50 Exmouth
09:53 Severn Beach
10:12 Yeovil (Pen Mill)
10:35 Barnstaple
10:41 Plymouth
10:43 Carmarthen
12:01 Truro
12:42 Penzance
12:44 Falmouth
12:48 Milford Haven
13:26 Fishguard Harbour
19:11 Melksham

First and last trains have often been specified if SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) documents (the timetable service level that's required of a franchise operator), so there appears to be common ground that first and last times can be important.

P.S. from King's Cross or Euston ...

08:01 Liverpool
08:13 Preston
08:23 Leeds
08:28 Manchester
09:43 Newcastle
10:31 Glasgow
11:04 Edinburgh
16:09 Fort William

Whom to Support?  I'm going to remain impartial ... but I will comment on what I would like to see from the train operating company that runs the service from 2013.

* Reliable services. Don't mind trains that are a few minutes late, or have a slightly slack timetable, but I certainly don't want to see strings of cancellations, nor services which miss connections, nor services which are so overcrowded you can't / don't get on them.

* Fair Dealing. A train operator that tells you the truth rather than trying to brush things under the carpet, pass blame on to others, or who says nothing at all on the basis that "you won't understand because you don't work for the rail industry".  A train operator who's TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) actually offer the lowest price fares for the journey you're about to make on the first screen of options for that journey.

* Helpful and friendly.  A train operator who makes the customer feel welcome, and which does not intimidate the genuine user, especially the irregular one who doesn't fully understand the system.

* Informative.  Provides information on times and fares in an easy way to use - even for less common journeys, and journeys which involve changing to other operator's services too. And provide good real time information too so that if things aren't running quite to plan, data is at hand to help everyone rearrange their plans as necessary.

* Appropriate Service.  Runs trains at times that the passengers want them, with sufficient carriages to allow most of the people to be seated most of the time, at fares which do not put people off travelling.

* Long term investor.  A train operator who believes that his passengers are also his customers - serve them well and they will come back again (and again), and tell their friends.   Provide a product which is so good in quality and values that forums like his will become fan clubs.

I don't know how to measure the bidders against these criteria, though - personally, I just have historic experience of National Express and current experience of First, as follows:

I started making significant use of the train when National Express increased the service at my local station from a commuter service into Swindon to something which much more suited my needs.   They then offered a service ..
* "pre-Dawn" - ideal for long distance journeys
* Commuter time (morning)
* Middle of the day
* Commuter time (evening)
* a late train
which was a much, much more appropriate service that the commuter one they had started with.

First took over the service above and replaced it with a service ...
* between the predawn and morning commuter service times
* between the evening commuter service time and the late train time.
and these trains fall uncomfortably into a time of the day that they're not all that useful - I would describe this as a far less appropriate service than the one they took over,and indeed it's even less useful than the commuter timing that ran at the time of privatisation.

Information systems have come forward leaps and bounds during the current franchise (under First).  Reliability was horrid at the start of 2007, but has clawed its way up to be much, much better (at least on the TransWilts) today. And the previous franchise had an unimpressive record on this.

Of course, companies and regimes change, so a reliable promise to do something different might encourage me to support a company with a less than brilliant past record (and better the devil you know) - but that requires a trust which at times I find very hard to put into certain elements of the rail industry and local and national politics, based on bitter experience.

StageCoach (and the other potential bidders mentioned too) seem to have a varied reputation, and it's hard to know whether to believe some of the writings which at times look so extreme that - surely - they can't be painting the real picture.

Scene at a local manned station yesterday ... young lady walks up to the ticket counter and asks for a child single to [place]

Clerk:  "How old are you"
(Young lady answers)
Clerk: "When is your Birthday"
(Young lady answers)
Clerk: "Which year were you born"
(Young lady answers)
Clerk "How old will you be on your next Birthday"
(Young lady answers)

Clerk sells the requested ticket ...

Now, I suspect that the ticket clerk felt that the young lady wasn't quite as young as she needed to be to travel on a child ticket, and I suspect that he assumed she was buying the ticket for her own use.   I also suspect this scene is played out quite frequently.

Is there any sort of proof-of-age that can be requested by staff?  How aggressive can the questioning get?  If asked for a "Child Single" don't they have to sell that anyway, given that there's no proof that the ticket is being bought for the traveller?  After all, as I understand it I can legitimately buy just such a child single (and I'm no child) ... provided that it's used by a child for whom I purchase it.  In fact, come to think of it, I've done so in the past at that very ticket desk!

Logic says it would be likely to be viable. The 05:27, 05:36, 06:30 and 06:45 HST^▸ (High Speed Train) services off Paddington are all peak rather than off-peak fares [checked to Swindon], so there must be a demand there  and I can't imagine it being any different via the Berks and Hants.   Mind you - there's only one fast line out of Paddington so you can't have an 06:30.   How about an 06:15, giving time to add stops at Newbury and Westbury.  Many of the very early services off Paddington load later into their journey rather that being full out from London as is the case later on, and there are significant flows west from Westbury.   An 07:30 commuter train from there to Taunton and Exeter might be significant.

Surprisingly, some of the others were transferring to cars at Bath.

With an improved TransWilts there would be a large increase in people travelling through Chippenham, a large increase in people changing trains there (flows such as Trowbridge -> London and Melksham -> Bristol) and, agreed, a drop in people leaving the station / arriving at the station to start the rail part of their journey.

Putting this thread into context ... The headline and start of the article are as follows:



Let me clarify the "TransWilts" comment on that.

Wessex improved the service in Summer 2001 - quite quietly rather than with a big fanfare, so that usage didn't take off with a bang the day after the new trains started - but it did grow anywhere between 9% and 35% compound per annum through to December 2006, depending on which particular measure you take.   

Passenger number data was gathered for report use in the two years prior to Jacobs in 2004, so that was indeed as Phile says "before Wessex built up an improved service" - it was after the new service was introduced, though, so the number were thinly spread over the trains.  Fair enough, except that the report assumed a maximum annual growth on 1%.

If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 1% per annum, by 2013 it would have 1093 customers
If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 9% per annum, by 2013 it would have 2178 customers
If a service had 1000 customers in 2003 and grew by 35% per annum, by 2013 it would have 14894 customers

The TransWilts wasn't unique in having the 1% applies to it - this is why there were all the problems when Cardiff -> Portsmouth went back down to two coaches and other trains got altered / pulled.  But it is unique in that a figure of 8% to 10% was pretty general elsewhere, whereas there were some of the TransWilts figure that were far higher.

There are similarities this time too.   The growth rates that the rail industry is using for probable future growth are - in view of current experience - on the conservative side, and there's a real fear that if growth continues as it has been doing (and evidence and experience suggests that it will), there will be a significant shortfall in provision into the future.   Yes - the railways are planning for growth.  But not growth at the sort of rates it will probably happen.

I travelled home from Paddington to Melksham (connection to wife's car at Chippenham) on the 22:15 from Paddington last night.   As we dragged our weary way along, I was chatting with the chap opposite and the chap and chapess across the aisle. It turns out that the other three, too, were getting off the train and taking to private motor vehicles ... the chap lived near another station further south that he could have reached had there been a transWilts connection, and the couple would have been saved a long drive had they been able to connect down the TransWilts, though they would still have needed to drive a bit as Dr B Ching detrained their town ...