Spalding - good news story, and an indicator for Melksham?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Train just arrived at Peterborough from Lincoln via Sleaford and Spalding - March 2017

From Spalding Today

Campaigners hailed their new Spalding rail services - and called for a Sunday service for the town.

Spalding and Peterborough Transport Forum has been asking for better connections to Lincoln for a number of years - and got its wish in the new May timetable.

East Midlands Railways now offers 15 services from Spalding to Lincoln - starting at 6.52am and running to 11.32pm in the week.

There are also 15 services running the other way to Peterborough - beginning at 7.03am and running to 10.29pm.

At the forum meeting on Saturday, MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context) Sir John Hayes praised chairman George Scott for his persistence and said: “For years we have been arguing for extra trains to Lincoln and finally we have got more services.

“We have been pressing for this for 15 years or 20 years and we have finally got them to see sense.

Congratulations to the campaigners and people of Spalding on their success in having these service improvements implemented on their line / through their town.

Spalding has similarities to Melksham - it's a town that's perhaps 15% larger and it list most of its train services at the and of the 1960s. They were down to just three each way per day (we lost ours completely) and theirs came back much quicker that ours - so in many ways Spalding is ahead of Melksham and we can look and learn.

I'm noting the rise to 15 services each way per day (it was 8 in the Lincoln direction and 13 in the Peterborough direction in 2019) and the evening services being hailed as the great news.   Yes, that's exactly what we need at Melksham - 15 through trains each way per day including a late train - all very well people being able to get out, but they need to get back home too.

Passenger numbers at Spalding peaked at 193,000 in the full year before Covid, compared to 75,000 at Melksham - but then that was on 13 trains not eight, and a service running for rather more years.   It confirms (from a different part of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)) our analysis that we should have over 200,000 journeys per annum with 15 trains per day including a late train in the, hopefully, forseeable future. We still need to covert hope to actuallity, mind.

One area where Melksham is ahead of Spalding is on Sunday services. From 2 trains in one direction only in 2007, it rose to 5 each way in December 2013, with an extra "early" one for the summer from May 2014.  Such a success was this that it became all-year a few years later, and we work closely with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to ensure that regular passengers know the arrangements when there are engineering work being done.  I encourage the people of Spalding to take encourgament from us and press for that Sunday service as we can take encouragement from them on the success of their weekday service.

The illustration on this article is one I took, having just come off the train; late morning and it had been packed / uncomfortable as had another EMR^» (East Midlands Railway, also known as EMT^» (East Midlands Trains - about) (East Midlands Trains - about) journey on a 153 that week.  Creaking at the limit of capacity!