I've been travelling up and down the line for most of the week chatting with passengers (with, I have to say, a tremendous amount of support from
FGW▸ staff at all levels, who very clearly want to see the improved services work) so I will answer a few of the points here if I may:
The car park was full, although I'd imagine mostly by shoppers...
If you are referring to Melksham station car park, experience so far suggests that it is being used almost exclusively for rail-related purposes. For example, the 0728 Westbury-Swindon & 1736 Swindon-Westbury peak services are said to be doing well, with reports of anywhere between 30-60 passengers per train, including reports into double figures at Melksham.
Arriving just after 1.30, around 15 minutes late, I just had enough time for a cup of tea before the return. However, disaster almost struck. Despite normally having a good sense of direction, lack of signage meant that I took a wrong turn on the way back to the station and ended up at ASDA. Signage needs to be made clearer to encourage visitors from the town centre.
There are blue walking route signs from Melksham town centre to the station, but these are a few years old now. I know that Wiltshire Council have ongoing plans to improve access to Melksham station over the coming months, and I will mention this to them on Monday.
After a dash across a dual carriageway and along a muddy verge, I arrived at the station. Luckily the 2.30 was running 10 minutes late, according to the screen, which had now fixed itself. Unfortunately, a few moments later is just switched off and went blank! This screen needs sorting ASAP.
Yes, we have had a number of reports of this happening with the help screen. To my knowledge FGW have already performed 2 fixes over the past week, and I will include this latest occurrence in my report to them today.
The 2.30 arrived - one person got off, I got on; there were five others on board. It seems to me that most people are using the route as a quicker way to Swindon and not many using it for Melksham. Presumably this will improve.
Experience so far suggests that the origin/destination mix has varied from service to service. However we shouldn't ignore the positive impact of improved direct links from Swindon/Chippenham through to Trowbridge/Westbury and vice versa. Of course, some will undoubtably point out that you could do these journeys by rail already, but what we are experiencing is a significant (in relative terms) proportion of traffic of this nature that is entirely new to rail - because passengers were put off by the time and effort that changing elsewhere entails. The fact that FGW have chosen to offer cheaper fares for direct travel clearly helps as well.
I'd agree with you though that we would like to see the gradual development of passenger numbers at Melksham continue from its initial starting base.
CRP▸ publicity policy is designed to assist this process, with CRP letter/FGW timetable drops already completed to households in 5 areas of Melksham, with a sixth due to be completed today. This is on top of business visits, an ad in the Melksham Independent News, Tourist Information Centre assistance, a Melksham Area Board presentation, along with probably a whole host of other activities that I haven't mentioned that grahame will no doubt fill you in on.
That's not to say that we've neglected other areas of course - household deliveries have also taken place in Chippenham & Trowbridge (more to follow) and an ad has gone in the White Horse News in Westbury. People have been active in Swindon and elsewhere. As with Melksham, publicity policy in other areas will continue and evolve.
Well, I hope I've done my bit to add to the passenger numbers!
Thankyou for visiting. Its been really encouraging to see a number of forum members, all of whom have been hugely supportive of the TransWilts cause over the years, try out the trains over the past week, and on a personal level I remain proud to be a part of it.
