From Facebook - better answered here for permanence of answer and due to its length
With the increase in traffic surely there must be a business case for re doubling the line to get even more traffic as well as new stations along the line?
Frequency and duration of serviceThere's a strong case for an hourly train service - indeed there are indications that such a service would attract more people per train than the current service does. You saw elements of this last August when there was an hourly service due to engineering diversions; it worked well, kept time, loaded well, and there was still capacity for freight. Of course the traffic on it was diverted as well as our normal traffic, but you should have seen my inbox (and the negative comment therein) when the service dropped back to every 2 hours or so, and finished in the early evening. Even in that short time people had switched ... and were amazed when a busy service got 'pulled'.
More that hourly? I don't think so - but the case hasn't really been looked at; indications are that passenger per train will peak (current populations, enough capacity on trains - i.e. long enough) at hourly; odd interval services like the 3 trains every 2 hour on the Severn Beach line are not idea as people want the clarify of 'clockface' times.
More StationsIn Wiltshire, there are potential cases with active support for new stations at Wilton Parkway for Stonehenge, Corsham, Royal Wooton Bassett, Devizes Parkway (Lydeway) and Porton. There may be a handful more, but we're a very way away from re-opening everything there used to be along the corridor. Lacock, Beanacre, Broughton Gifford, Holt and Staverton aren't on the horizon (but of course I can't tell you what there may be in a world over the horizon).
Where you can (and we should) add further start and end points ("station equivalents") to the network is by sorting out the buses. Take a look at
http://option247.uk and the new Bus Services Bill, of which our
MP▸ is a strong supporter. The vision here is that you change from a train to a bus at just about any station (only Dilton Marsh and Avoncliff in Wiltshire might be exceptions). Through ticketing and information systems that are joined up, services that connect and are integrated, buses running for the same sort of hours that the trains run, and sharing the vehicles and cost with the current network (or rag-bag of commercial and subsidised routes if you feel that the current setup fails as a connecting network). It's scandalous that our tourist attractions such as Lacock are inaccessible by public transport on a Sunday, and that visitor and residents without cars don't have services after 6 p.m. on any day of the week.
Redouble the lineThere's an argument for more capacity. Whether you go with Network Rail plans as stated three or four years back of an extra signal to allow two trains to follow each other up the single track, or something mores substantial, is an interesting question. Remember that the hourly service + freight actually worked last summer, although trains were very thin on the ground compared to usual on the Swindon - Chippenham and Westbury - Trowbridge sections.
One of the concerns on the TransWilts line is the lack of a freight train refuge all the way from Westbury to Swindon; once a freight has left Westury it can't stop ... and if it's slow it will hold up other services. When TransWilts passenger trains were just 2 a day, the single track section became in effect the refuge, but now the signallers need to take great care before risking that - a freight waiting on the single track can block a passenger train headed the other way which in turn can block an express. Doubling the line only party fixes that; there's still no refuge!!! And that's why ideas like a loop to the third platform at Chippenham, or just to the north of the current Melksham Station, or at Bradford and / or Thingley junctions or long 'leads' and double junctions there are worth looking at rather than - at this stage - redoubling. Even if there's a business case for redoubling, I would suspect that there's a better business case for something much less expensive. There IS a case for retaining infrastructure / not doing anything that would make redoubling, or adding an extra platform / loop at Chippenham and / or Westbury more difficult. And indeed those latter aspirations got noted in the South West invitation to tender paperwork from the
DfT» recently, so they're getting to be on the radar.
Speculating, I suspect that a loop just to the north of the current Melksham Station, stretching to Dunch Lane Bridge so it could take the longest of freight trains, is worthy of consideration and would come out pretty well in an evaluation. As soon as you put a loop away from a station, you slow down passenger trains if they have to pass each other there (and passing passenger trains at Melksham on an hourly service makes operational sense for the timing of a Swindon service). But putting a loop at a station requires a second platform and a foot bridge which these days must be wheel chair accessible - so long gentle ramps, or lifts; very expensive indeed. We're attracted by the ida of building a second platform on the same side as the current platform but up alongside the loop. It's then a flat walk between the platforms, and two passenger trains can arrive concurretly and each make a single stop for passenger and to pass. The old platform becomes northbound, and the new one southbound. By passing passenger trains at Melksham, you also reduce the occupancy of the single track by passenger services to 18 minutes in the hour,leaving plenty of freight capacity - easily one northbound and one southbound path, with still the line only occupied 70% of the time.
On the teamThere's a few misconceptions here, and I'm bit embarrassed! I know that my press, publicity and co-ordination role for the current service promotion gives me a very high visibility, but it's other members of our team who do / have done so much of the background work, and the strategic work too that actually gives me a service to publicise. I'm, exceptionally, going to name Paul Johnson - who's chair of the TransWilts - as the key strategic person and the work you saw on Melksham Station's very much of his doing. Just as the improved trial service that's becoming permanent wouldn't be there at all without him. I say "exceptionally" in naming him because there are so many others involved too and it's deparatetly hard to know who and how many to name; there are half a dozen or so others who, also are key to the line being where it is today, and a slide from my "Wilts Somerset and Weymouth" presentation has a fine-print page that lists out names to show you the utter width of help and support. Last year, two other volunteers were nominated for national awards; Lee was shortlisted for the prestigious and hard-fought
ACoRP▸ award, and Bob got an award from Railfuture. This 'season' other names are going in - that's how wide our team is. We have a passenger survey running this weekend from Saturday through Monday - separate post - and I have emailed around a dozen 'leads' this morning - again, look at the team width!
But the TransWilts success is not based purely on the community team - they're just one (vital) cog in the wheel.
TransWilts is a community rail PARTNERSHIP. And that's three elements. It's the rail industry, especially the train operator (Great Western Railway) who have thrown their heart into this - at director and management level, and operationally too. In my current role I meet up with other Community Rail officers, and I realise just how well we're working and how good
GWR▸ are for us. That's not to say that we don't also (as the community element) also get on well with South West Trains, the Go-op Cooperative, and Network Rail just as we do with First group. The third element - on top of community and rail industry - is the local transport authority. In this case, that's Wiltshire Council who had the guts to make the
LSTF▸ bid that enable the trial service, and who manage it and the developments we've had to improve at stations - primarily Trowbridge from LSTF funding, but significant works at Melksham too. Although current economise preclude the council from offering anything like the time or funding help they were able to provide under LSTF, they are and will remain key parters, with some officers and some elected members going way beyond the call of duty to help ensure that TransWilts works.
Last - and not least (indeed I've kept the most important to last!) are the passengers - the people who actually use the service. Very much a part of the success story, and in many cases with their lives more and more linked to the availability of the service. They contribute by riding and paying to ride, and by being our ambassadors to other potential passengers. Because the TransWilts line's current service serves five significant towns which are economically linked, has ongoing connections at both ends, and really isn't seasonal we have a superb resource of passengers and potential passengers, so with all the ducks in a row, this line really should work - and it does. The same will be able to be said if the service were to extend to Westbury Leigh (where there's Dilton Marsh station), Warminster, Wilton and Salisbury.
