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Author Topic: Dilton Marsh - 85 years young today  (Read 5848 times)
grahame
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« on: June 01, 2022, 07:56:31 »

No brand new railway station has been opened in Wiltshire for 85 years! Dilton Marsh station opened on 1st June 1937.  At that date, set in the rural countryside but now sitting between the major residential area of Westbury Leigh and the very much expanded Dilton Marsh, there are only a few fields left in the immediate area of the station.

The train service at Dilton Marsh has been sporadic and appalling over the years and remains so to this day - it seems very much an afterthought in the train planner's work and there are some real failures to provide a decent service for customers - both in terms of the timetable and in terms of the reliability of those trains. 

At present, it's a request stop on trains that are run more at operationally convenient times than to meet the station's potential customers needs. I speculate that hourly calls on the Cardiff to Portsmouth services - which call at all other stations from Bradford-on-Avon through to Salisbury - would quickly elevate it way above being a request stop.  And I note the three week trial just before Easter in which an extra call was made by one of the Cardiff - Portsmouth trains just after 8 O'Clock in the morning; the train was still on time at Salisbury (so no timetable issue) and I'm told there were passengers picked up every day - remarkable for something that received no publicity - just appeared on the online timetables.

As a statement of the obvious - trains in the reverse direction (Portsmouth to Cardiff) should also stop.  Actually much easier to timetable, as the gradients near the station make it downhill to Westbury.

A very great deal of investment has been put into Dilton Marsh Station in recent years, and the station is now in excellent condition.  Come on, GWR (Great Western Railway), SWR» (South Western Railway - about), DfT» (Department for Transport - about) - please provide that final piece of the jigsaw to make Dilton Marsh a success story over coming years.
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« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2022, 17:54:56 »

The most famous resident of DM would be very pleased,Bristol City footballer John Atyeo.
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« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2022, 19:44:08 »

Had to be done !

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grahame
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« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2023, 08:55:26 »

With Dilton Marsh's anniversary coming up "on this day" today, it's opportune to record the success (1) of the extra stop added there last December at 08:04 in the morning to take young people to school.  Something "we" had requested for many years. 

How has this been achieved? By working together.  Our community has
(*) a deep local knowledge of flows, including those not using public transport because they weren't suitable services,
(*) some analytic skills to understand what is practical and the consequences of a request,
(*) an understanding of what motivates the key decision makers, and
(*) a continuing demonstration by the community to the public transport industry can work with us - that we are here for the long term, that we will support their sensible though sometimes tough decisions, that we know our community, and that they can trust us as we work together.

Sometimes it comes down to taking advantage of unexpected opportunities to ratchet services in the right direction; in mid-May, the Metro-West service from Bristol to Keynsham and Oldfield Park increased from 1 to 2 trains per hour.  That's totally a totally correct change from WECA» (West of England Combined Authority - about), and I expect to see passenger numbers going "through the roof".  But where to turn those extra trains?   It turns out that the chosen option is Westbury, Frome, Warminster or Salisbury.  The extra services - now 3 trains an hour - to Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge and Westbury are more than welcome.  The lack of a track at "platform 0" at Westbury limit that station's operational capacity to turn trains, and so they go on.  A big consequential advantage to Dilton Marsh and Warminster ... and now there's a service that's frequent and complete enough for that station to be the start / end point of choice for people to leave and join the rail network - especially for journeys such as commutes / day trips to Trowbridge, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads. 

Are passengers going to "offer" at Dilton Marsh?  The people are there.  As well as Dilton Marsh, the suburb of Westbury Leigh is in easy walking distance of the little station, whereas those residents would have a trek or need to get their cycles out to get to the main Westbury station.   But crucial in the choice of "do I take the car" or "do I walk / cycle / get a lift to Westbury" is reliability and information systems. Will the train actually be running?  Will the information be correct and complete if the train is delayed?  What will happen if a connection misses?   

We are in a heartbreaking phase at present. Not just Dilton Marsh but all over West Wiltshire and indeed across much of the UK (United Kingdom), with reliability in tatters through a combination of frugality of provision, adaption to changes brought about by such as covid, Brexit and technology, the ongoing battle (it seems) between government, unions and train operators, and more extreme climate and environmental events. 

However - this heartbreak should be just a glitch - we still have our community strength.  We still have our local knowledge. We have climate, and congestion-busting rail use on our side.  We have really good professionals in the rail industry with whom we can work, and indeed experts on "our team" who ave retired from a life in public transport and who know a thing of three.  It all sounds a long way from Dilton Marsh, but yet that's just part of a story.

A huge "Thank You" to Bryony Chetwode from TravelWatch SouthWest who came to the West Wiltshire Rail User Group's meeting last night to talk to us on what (as passengers) we have to look forward to on public transport over the next decade, and how we (as a user group) can help tune that for the mutual benefit of the passengers, the environment, the paymasters and the operators.  Unusually, I have put passengers first in that list - at times, it feels like the passengers aren't exactly top of the list when so many other businesses have a "customer is King" mantra.

 (1) - By "Success", I mean not only in getting the train to stop there without impacting journey times for through passenger, but also in getting a significant number of passengers joining it on a daily basis, and also in getting their business on trains home later in the day which were already running!
« Last Edit: June 01, 2023, 09:02:39 by grahame » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2023, 13:51:06 »

Further writing inspired by that - http://grahamellis.uk/blog882.html

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Today - 1st June - marks the anniversary of the opening of the station at Dilton Marsh in 1937. Incredibly, no other new railway stations have opened in Wiltshire in the 86 years since, though the station at Melksham was closed in 1966 and reopened 19 years later.

Dilton Marsh and Melksham stations have a great deal in common. Both offer limited passenger facilities, and both have suffered since they (re)opened from a sporadic service. Neither has a decent bus connection, and passengers using the station tend to walk or cycle there. Both have a significant local catchment and their rail use (passenger numbers per head of population) are way lower than other stations in the area - so they represent levelling up opportunities.
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« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2023, 10:29:37 »

Delighted to arrive at Dilton Marsh at 09:35 this morning ... update my photo library ... and leave again on the 09:55.  Several people off when we arrived at 09:35, and 11 got on at 09:55 so neither was a special stop made just for me.   Good to see it busy - perhaps busier than I've seen it before except for the afternoon school train.  Most of the joiners on the way back stayed on the train beyond Westbury (from observation)

P.S. Reports are that the new morning school train is doing rather well too.

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