Melksham trains - "useless" has improved, but only to thin and unreliable

[whole diary]

[grahame]

100 minute wait for the next train - if it runs ...https://grahamellis.uk/blog1716.html

Westbury Station is a hub - trains head off in five different directions. I found myself there yesterday at just after half past two in the afternoon, looking to get home to Melksham. And it reminded me how grossly imbalanced, shoddy, thin, our train service is at Melksham.



[snip] - Blog article continues

[John D]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) has just updated its 4 weekly performance figures

Cancellations overall up to 4.32% (much higher on some lines)

On time is still poor at 57.87%
The more reasonable within 3 minutes is only 75.75

Amazingly the >119 minutes late has a percentage, showing 1 in 10,000 trains at least 2 hours late

Short formed trains are averaging over 90 per week (below the min spec agreed within DfT^» (Department for Transport - about))

I know they are struggling, but this period covers fair late summer weather, not stormy Autumn or snowy winter.  So depending on your view, either not great, or rather poor.

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/our-performance/GWR-Periodic-Web-Report-P2606.pdf

[Chris from Nailsea]

To support grahame, in his clear frustration - from one of his posts elsewhere:

... 5. Don't even think about the train - be amazed if it runs ...

At the end of the last couple of my visits to Melksham, I decided to catch the bus, which goes from the end of grahame's driveway in Melksham to Bath Spa station - for just £3.

[grahame]

To support grahame, in his clear frustration - from one of his posts elsewhere:

... 5. Don't even think about the train - be amazed if it runs ...

At the end of the last couple of my visits to Melksham, I decided to catch the bus, which goes from the end of grahame's driveway in Melksham to Bath Spa station - for just £3.

We are quite a big town.   On Sunday morning, I took the train with 41 other passengers when it left Melksham toward Swindon at 08:32. Yesterday morning, Lisa and I joined the bus into Bath at 07:35, and it was at the "oh my goodness" stage, shouts of "please move down the bus".  We (residents of Melksham) need and use both, and that will be all the more the case with future population growth.

Improvements are sought.  The train reliability sucks and that is damaging to put it mildly; I am amazed at how robust it has been but numbers are not as they should be and so many people tell me that they don't use public transport here "because".     The bus has been blossoming in use and we were disappointed / surprised that our service was just a single decker.

[matth1j]

The bus has been blossoming in use and we were disappointed / surprised that our service was just a single decker.

We took the bus into Bath the previous Saturday to catch a matinee at the theatre. When it picked us up in Whitley (2 miles down the road from Melksham) at about 12:40 it was already standing room only, and a number of potential passengers after that decided against boarding. A double decker would have been very welcome.

It didn't help that there was a local rugby derby on, Bath were hosting Bristol, which also meant that progress was very slow down Walcot Street due to all the cars queuing to get into the Waitrose car park.

I know there's at least one double decker that gets regular use between Bath and Melksham, the 17:15 from Bath, but I don't know about any others.