It is not [about] the age of the train.
Some folks bemoan that we don't have new trains on the line through Melksham, or indeed anywhere on local and regional services in the South West - but does that really matter? If someone says to you "I'm not going on that train because it was made in the last millennium" are they really saying something else like "it's not clean" or "it's not comfortable"?
I have come up with a personal scoring system as to what makes an ideal train service and come up with values for each of the factors. You may argue the numbers or eve some of the categories, but you can't argue my personal sentiment.
(Mention MKM» SWI» and PAD» to get formatting right) Ideal MKM-SWI SWI-PAD
Appropriate timetable 15 10 15
Reliable 15 7 14
Safe 25 25 25
Clean 15 14 15
Comfortable 15 13 13
Affordable 15 15 12
Age of Train n/a n/a n/a
Added together, you get 84/100 (84%) for Melksham to Swindon and 94/100 (94%) for Swindon to Paddington. But wait a moment - the factors interact and perhaps we should multiply them together? I'm not going to travel train if I think it's unsafe. And then you get a very different score - of 64% for Swindon to Paddington and just 25% from Melksham to Swindon.
Rather sadly, I think the (dis)satisfaction I see at present is more accurately reflected in the multiplication, but the marketing hype from those who want to convince us that all is not all THAT bad tends to be addative.
The other thing to note -
no matter how much you tweak the price and the cleanliness, you MUST tackle reliability and the appropriateness of the timetable to get the sentiment and use right
