[otd] 9th September 2006 - Last commuter train (for over 7 years) to Melksham

[whole diary]

[grahame]

http://www.wellho.net/mouth/974_The-last-commuter-train-through-Melksham.html

The last commuter train through Melksham

"We have altered the trains from Monday". "Please check for changes to your trains". "First - Transforming travel". Theses are the messages writ loud in the publicity surrounding the current train timetable changes. And they read positive, don't they?

I was very disappointed on yesterday evening's train from Swindon to Southampton - the very last commuter service on that route - to find that many travellers were unaware that 60% of the already-few trains running south of Chippenham from Sunday are WITHDRAWN, and that commuters from Westbury, Trowbridge and Melksham into Swindon face an extra 90 minutes on their day.

[snip]

First have made themselves look like arrogant fools in their casting of an excessively positive light on the new timetable changes - sweeping as far as they can any bad news under the carpet, treating (over the past few weeks especially) passengers on the TransWilts service with contempt as they cancelled the busiest train of the day - the 17:43 from Swindon - time and time again (official target - 98.5% to run. Achieved - around 70% to 80% depending on the time period you take).

* Trial (thin but useable) service returned in 2013

* Reached it's three year target in first year

* Growth stopped by 2018 because single carriage train was full

* We now have longer trains and platform, and the service remains thin from 2013, though the biggest holes such as Sunday morning, Saturday evening, and late Monday to Friday evening have now all been fixed.

* Biggest issue is still reliability. The weekend just gone there should have been 14 round trips, but only 7 ran.  Passenger numbers up from 3,000 journeys per annum to / from Melksham to around 70,000 at present but it should be 400,000.   70,000 is a lot of journeys, but I still talk in the community to more people who don't use Melksham Station than who do, citing lack of reliability and thinness of timetable as their top two reasons to not do so.  Third reason is unfriendliness of station access. No concerns over safety or comfort of train, nor at fare level.