The West Wilts Rail User Group covers the five towns of Trowbridge, Melksham, Warminster, Westbury and Bradford-on-Avon (listed in order of town population), their stations, and additional stations at Dilton Marsh and Avoncliff. They have close links with the Heart of Wessex Community Rail Partnership, and naturally include Frome and indeed the line down to Weymouth, and also Freshford on their radar.
West Wilts tends to be at the outer end of services ... or at the watershed of other more long distance onces. So local services from Bristol wander in when the timing is right for Bristol, and Cardiff - Portsmouth and London - West Country trains call at the major stations whenever they happen to be passing. I'm not saying the service is bad, but it has come curious and perverse characteristics - the tail on the dog. The position of the dog is what's carefully timetabled, and the tail just happens to follow behind.
I am delighted to here that the
WWRUG» is looking to become far more of a candid friend and co-ordinating group for passenger and wannabe-passenger requests than it has been in recent years - retaining that enthusiast's interest it has, but at the same time developing the enthusiasm for current rail - for providing constructive inputs to help the specification of whet's needed for the future and to help the rail industry help itself by providing a timetable that's less curious and perverse - so more in line with what people actually want to use.
At first glance - why would the railway want such constructive criticism, but take a second look and it's everyone working together!Separate diary entries will tell you when and where the next WWRUG meeting comes up. Sorry - none are in Melksham (simply because we haven't
yet got an evening train to get people home after the meeting!). And the West Wilts Rail User Group website is at
http://www.wwrug.org.uk/index.html . For members they produce a regular newsletter - always an interesting read - which lands on my doormat every few months. Big "thank you" for the Coffee Shop plug in the latest issue - as we (all) change, we become more natural bedfellows or partners - I'm delighted!
