16 off the 1206 seems surprisingly high. Any event on that might have been a contributory factor?
Melksham Comicon is on this weekend ... next weekend is the river festival, then there was the food fayre and the carnival (that one brought higher numbers!) so, yes, an event but by no means the only weekend with such an event.
The 0952 appears nicely full, though on a sunny Sunday maybe could have expected more? With only 1 joining at Melksham, maybe the decision not to over-market the Weymouth opportunity could be reconsidered for next year?
I've been thinking that through. In previous marketing times, the Weymouth trip (or the Santa) has really been the only product that's been joined up and right to market. This year it's been just one of a whole host of things and I see people headed all over the place - not so much "hey, here's a chance of a one-off day out" but "this changes our lives on a repeated even if not frequent basis" and they're keeping the Weymouth trip back for a rainy day (perhaps a sunny day) when they have nothing else to do. So today and other leisure for Melksham folks it's so much about meeting family in Westbury, visiting son / daughter in Swindon and not having to be driven back, going to London to do a day's work.
I did note from a quick glance at the people in the train that there was probably a half to two-thirds of them doing a "bucket and spade" type trip, but that's all. So the very limited marketing in Swindon, and wider marketing in Chippenham, has brought that about.
One of the questions that Claire Perry asked on Friday was in relation to how much of the traffic was regular [and by assumption how much may have been "just trying it"]. We have been concentration on the potentially regular, and indeed that's showing clearly in the metrics of the passengers. Of course, a successful trial may be just for novelty value (and I think those numbers are low) or it may turn into a regular. But there is far more scope for the classic "day out" marketing next year, even though it drinks essentially seasonal traffic. Nice to have on top of the grounding in steady year-round traffic already being won!
Now .. today was the 16th or just 17 potential Sunday trips to Weymouth this summer. And I jotted a few notes down. The TransWilts train was cancelled on at least two occasions. Two other Sundays were bustituted, even though we were promised in the spring that there would be no bus replacements this summer (fewer trains some days, mind) ... and indeed I've just learned from a sign at the station that trains become buses on 14th September; I do wish our partners would tell us if they had bad news like this. On two Sundays, engineering works over-ran on the Heart of Wessex; I tried out one of those Sundays with my Dad, and we turned back at Yeovil when we were waiting without seats for an inadequate supply of buses with no assurance there would be a train back. And a couple of Sundays back the train was nearly 2.5 hours late into Weymouth, with everyone getting a good chance to get to know Yeovil Pen Mill, I understand. So - seven out of the 15 trips so far completed have had significant problems, and perhaps I should be glad we haven't done a lot of marketing to sensitive customers (i.e. ones who won't come again if it goes belly up) this year.
60 people in a 153 (78 seats) would be fine ... and I'm not too ashamed of that marketing. Perhaps a communication breakdown, but it's been turning up as a 2 car train for the past few weeks. Bit late to press the "market harder" button, and I'm still not sure if that was by design or luck; rumour also has it that the 2 car unit has gone on to Weymouth attached to the train from Bristol. Fabulous if so - let's find out if that's the weekly plan for next summer, let's find out when we have buses well ahead and, yes, we'll fill a 150 each time it runs, on fine days at least. Oh - that's the other thing ... many of the 8 trips that have worked properly have been in awful weather - I just thank goodness we appreciate but don't rely on seaside traffic.
For all of this text and explanation, remember that our loadings were
way over the average needed this morning! The next stage - already asked - is how to we maintain the traffic levels and indeed keep growing them, and where's the limit? Actually, first limits have been hit ...
P.S. The Melksham traffic this morning ... a cycle, a skateboard, and everyone else on foot. Except - sorry - me. I was popping up and down by car; the hotel is a 20 minute walk from the station, and home is 30 minutes.
