Sharing from Facebook - my post of this morning and below it my post from Facebook that triggered it
This came up on my timeline this morning and was the most enormous success and the hugest of failures. The Melksham Rail Link bus took passengers from Bowerhill, the Snowberry Lane area , and the Eastern suburbs of Melksham to the railway station in order to catch the recently introduced 07:20 and 07:50 trains to Swindon, and then return them after the arrivals at 18:03, 18:50 and 19:19. It was a success because it worked - taking people where they wanted to go, when they wanted to gp. Passenger numbers built up quickly with double figure user numbers on a couple of services. It failed because it was started on a temporary budget and there was no long term budget in place - superseded by improvements to the car park at Melksham Station, a decision lead by local politics (on skewed data) which we challenged but failed to reverse.
We are doing better now. The Rail Link Bus in 2014 brought significant additional rail journeys to and from our embryonic train service in - thousands of them in the short time that it ran, and was a facility ahead of its time. A clever facility, using the Town Bus otherwise not in use at those times of day but it did need and extra driver and a shift change during the day. We have learned and did a route-prover in the autumn of 2022 using an electric bus hired from the Big Lemon and I'm just going to say "watch this space".
With the Rail Link Bus in 2014, with the successful "Option 24/7" campaign to save rural, evening and Sunday buses in 2018, with the work done for 2020 to ensure that passenger considerations were key when the national operator pulled out of the Bath - Melksham - Devizes route which could have left just a daytime pensioners route mostly between school runs, I (and the team of friends) have moved from being primarily protesters to being primarily partners with the local authorities and bus operators in these parts. Covid decimated bus finances and was a challenge - with both a risk (and some service loss) and a challenge to build back better.
These days, Wiltshire Council listen far better to inputs - or perhaps our inputs are more realistic and better informed. But it's much more than just listening. I hear of service just in neighbouring counties that are not happening here though there will always be some dvelopement, and what might have been appearing in public as inactivity is only partly true. Three meetings already this year - looking at the Enhanced Partnership now running in Wiltshire (did you note that Chippenham - Corsham - Box - Bath is up to 3 buses an hour from 2, and the journey time has been slashed on one of them to make it a superbus service. Another to look at Real time information provision at bus stops (including the central ones in Melksham) and a real passenger involvement planned in feedback, using once again this "Option 24/7" banner or a successor. Next step - watch this space (I will be sharing to the Option 24/7 Facebook feed and giving a long overdue update on the base web page) across the county. On the ground - I expect to see improvements to services on key routes; each route is different so it will NOT be that same form as Chippenham to Bath. And, please, watch this space - follow option 24/7 - right across the county.
Written 10th February 2014:
Melksham Rail Link - Day 1. The 06:50 bus arrives at Falcon Way, Bowerhill ... a free ride to the station from Bowerhill, The Spa, Snowberry Lane, Thyme Road and Melksham Forest for the 07:20 train to Swindon, arriving there 07:48. Return from Swindon at 17:36, back to Bowerhill by 18:30.
A second bus service leaves Bowerhill at 07:20 (08:18 into Swindon) and a later train leaves Swindon at 18:50, getting back to Bowerhill by 19:40.
Early days for the bus ... but numbers are starting to build significantly on the trains. That's as we predicted - with a weekly season ticket costing just £38 from Melksham to Swindon ...
