Seaton Tramway Riverside Depot
Yep ... 9 trains, 3 buses and 2 trams. Melksham - Westbury - Warminster - Salisbury - Axminster - Lyme Regis - Seaton - Colyford - Seaton - Axminster - Salisbury - Westbury - Frome - Westbury - Melksham. Bacon Sarnie at Warminster, Vegan Chilli in Axminster, Cake at Colyford, and Cornish pastie in Seaton. Just a coffee to keep me awake in Salisbury. Looking at all sorts of ideas with a "would this work in Melksham" theme, while at the same time aware that only a very few of them if any will really be practical to implement. I do fancy dominoes or draughts tables in the park, and I still fancy a "Happy to Chat" on just one or two benches, but it's proven even impossible to get a leaky roof fixed that was agreed as being urgent in February. And I thought that rail was slow to do things!!
The 21:16 from Westbury to Swindon has only been running for two complete months - a brand new service which after years of asking has been brought in - a round trip via Melksham with the train returning from Swindon at or soon after 22:30 when the connection from London arrives. I used the service for the first time last night, and was delighted to count 19 passengers on the train towards Swindon on the section to, from and though Melksham. Seven passengers got off, three more joined; everyone who got off walked away from the station - no lifts, no cycles, no parked cars. And everyone crossed the A350 on the level rather than using the subway. A report from a regular train user who was on the 22:30 from Swindon on Monday night reported around 20 passengers on that service too, and that the train routinely and correctly waits until the London (to Cheltenham Spa) connection has been made. All this really good - I recall being asked to get an average of 20 passengers per train through the day for the service to become permanent in 2013, with three years to build up to that level. And here we are, just 3 months in on a service at the extreme end of the day already at that level. For the first time in my memory, full days out by train are now practical, but observing the passengers the reality is that the service is meeting a wide variety of travel needs - all shared on the same train service as they should be. As ever on a flow that's not a commuter one, numbers will (and are reported) to go up an down day by day.
