Thanks for posting that fascinating item, grahame.
"Fascinating" is a good word. I would suggest a railway reopening to Devizes (town) isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future, but perhaps there are things we can't foresee that will happen - in fact we've been guilty in places of building on trackbeds when we couldn't foresee possible re-openings that are now feasible and indeed (?) may have happened. And the "Save the Train" campaign started when no-one outside the users of the corridor of the line foresaw any prospect of a decent service.
Some of Matthew's ideas are good - his suggested Fish Bridge (A361) solution, for example. His re-routing of the section on the outskirts of Devizes to a new alignment to the south puts it onto a substantial new embankment or viaduct due to the steep hillside; potentially better to bring the line in at a lower level, and have steps and / or a lift up from the platform to the old station site. And, alas, as he admits his maps are a few years old and there has been at least one bridge dropped, and one removed, fairly recently.
Would people want to travel the route? The old name Devizes originated from the word "divided" - at the division point where people / governance head off in all directions on the cusp. I couldn't pick a single direction or flow and say "that's the main way" and indeed you have bus routes to Swindon, Chippenham, Bath, Trowbridge and Salisbury all being what I would style "interurban" or connectional at frequencies of hourly or two hourly, and a railway in one direction would only meet some of the undoubted travel desires.
Taking an (absurdly?) forward looking view, a Bristol Metro service in phase 5 extended to Bathampton, Limpley Stoke, Bradford-on-Avon, Holt, Bowerhill, Sells Green and Seend, and Devizes. The people of Holt investigated a station in for their neighbourhood plan (decided against when realised that it would only be practical if they filled all the fields between the current settlement and the railway with housing designed for public transport rather than car use), Bowerhill station makes sense especially considering the large swathes of land there for industrial development and the upcoming homes on the "Melksham Link" and elsewhere. Sells Green is one of the busiest stops on the National Express Coach, would you believe, and we get a noticeable Melksham Station traffic (leisure) from the camping and caravan park and canal there. And Devizes itself can - for one of its divisions - be considered the end of the Bristol travel-to-work area. I'll have to point out this video to certain local contacts who have done a more in-depth study ...
Where a re-opening of the line into Devizes is so far in the future that you'll struggle to even protect the corridor from further loss, a Berks and Hants station at "Devizes Parkway" looks much more sensible. With Devizes growing so much, and being constrained from growth on the west due to that steep hill, much of the urban part of the town isn't in walking distance to the old station road site, and is creeping towards Lydeway anyway. With semifast AT300 services passing through on the long run from Pewsey to Westbury, Devizes Parkway makes sense. Current timetables are inconsiderate of passengers from Bedwyn and Pewsey making for Trowbridge, Bath Spa and Bristol (timings, frequency of calls at Bedwyn / Pewsey AND Westbury for changes, random connection opportunities off those which do call at all) but there are real prospects here, at a tiny fraction of the cost of rebuilding the line to "Lower Devizes" and providing much more traffic onto other services that are planned and will be meeting other flows, sharing the operating costs.
