All sold out ... and just the right number of helpers yesterday!
These days, taking and public sharing of individual pictures with Santa (other than your own!) isn't something you can automatically do ... so some special moments aren't captured above. Suffice to say great time had by all - and it's a huge team effort. Here's my "mop up" email:
A massive “Thank you” to everyone who helped - on the day, or in the run up with designing publicity, adding carriages, wrapping presents and selling tickets for this year’s Santa Trip from Melksham.
Nearly 50 adults and 40 children travelled by train at about 2 O’Clock on Sunday from Melksham via Trowbridge to Westbury and back, arriving into Melksham at about 3 p.m. Santa chatted with all the children and their parent / guardians, and gave presents out to all the children, ably helped by Marianne and John as his elves. Peter donated a choice of red or white wine for the cults, and Eddy and Rolf distributed minced pies to all, and soft drinks to the children (and to adults who preferred soft drinks to wine). Jonathan and Paul from the British Transport Police met everyone in our party, and had goodie bags for all the children too - all together making it a really great trip that was enjoyed by all. And a big “thank you” to the train crew too, who put up with our party and all the noise and mess added on to their scheduled train.
There are many people involved in running the Santa Trip outside the hour or so that the train’s running. A big “thank you” to James Wilcox of GWR▸ for arranging the extra carriage, and (James) please pass on our thanks. to the team at St Phillp’s Marsh who found the carriage, and to your Westbury crew who staffed both of the round trips from Westbury. A big “thank you” to Lisa for designing and printing the adverts and tickets. To the Toy Shop in Melksham for suggesting and managing the presents that Santa gave out. To Peter for sourcing and delivering ‘glasses’, trays and wine, and to the BTP▸ for finding all those goody bags and coming along. To Terri, Pauline and their team at the Tourist Information Centre for their answering of queries and ticket sales. Thank you to John, Marianne, Rolf and Eddy for helping wrap last week, for organising parking and crowd safety - and an extra thank you to Eddy for staying on the train when it left Melksham to tidy our carriage up before handing it back to GWR. Finally - big thank you to Melksham Town and Without councils, and to Wiltshire Council, for their ongoing support without which trips like this wouldn’t be possible.
The biggest "Thank You" of all is to Santa. Although this is his busiest time of year, he somehow always manages to make time for the Melksham Rail User Group which organises the trip. Many people don’t realise it, but without Santa (who also chairs the TransWIlts Community Interest Company in his rest-of-year guise as Paul Johnson) we wouldn’t have had our current train service at all - the work he’s put in, and very effectively, has been key to the provision of the current trail service of 8 trains each way per day, and to the success of that trial such that it continues as a permanent service - which makes a huge difference in the lives of many people. I estimate over 20,000 different people now use the train to from or through Melksham every year, where "before Paul" the figure would have struggled to exceed 1000.
I had the opportunity to speak with many of the people who came along yesterday, and everyone had a really good time. It was the very first train ride for some of the children, and the first time that some of the adults had caught there train from Melksham; some, indeed, hadn’t realised where the station was until they came along … and I’m sure we’ll see most of them again - if not before Christmas, then in the New Year. Trains run every day until Christmas Eve, then restart on 27th December. There WILL be new timetables in due course … but the big news is that the service carries on with no more than a minute or two changed here and there, and your trial period timetable is good right through the winter and up to next May.
