Provide a useable train service, and people will use it!

Yesterday, I went down to Melksham station to pick up a delegate arriving from Ely off the 15:48 (that's our first train southbound on a Saturday - the second and final one is at 21:34).

A little surprised to see that there were only two spaces unoccupied at the station car park, that the disable space was occupied, and that a taxi was waiting too. I confess to wondering which of the motoring businesses around was using it as a convenient place to leave cars over the weekend.

Arriving - 3 car 150/1 at Melksham

Ah - here comes the train. Good to see this new type (150/1 for the Anoraks) that have appeared over the last six months. But there's still need for more; there should be 10 trains each way per day, not just two.

Leaving

It's very interesting to see the "Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership" advert on the side of the train. Cynics may laugh and say that it's way out of its area, but I'm delighted ... for it makes for excellent advertising for lines that are not competing with ours (none do) - but that help to make a complete network of journey options.

Dropping passengers

Fifteen people off the train - the most that I've seen getting off a Saturday train since the summer of 2006, when we had 4 trains each way on Saturdays and the service gave good day trip opportunities.

Provide a service that's even half usable, let people know about it, and people will use it! I have to admit to an error of judgment when I first saw the car park, for all of the cars at the station were there on railway business ;-) !

There are so many really small things that could be done:

* Advertise it better - e.g. have a "TransWilts" unit running around
* Provide "PlusBus" ticketing to and from Melksham
* Add the 05:19 Gloucester to Southampton and the 07:04 Westbury to Swindon services to the list of early services that can be used on Freedom / Rover / Ranger tickets, at least until the timetable's improved
* Fix the information screen. It's been showing this message for weeks now ...

Help point under test

Except last weekend - when it was telling us that no train was due for 4 hours in the lead up to the arrival of the Santa train. There's a laminated sign above that says the system's under test, but for how long for goodness sake?

Slightly larger things

* Run trains beyond Westbury, or at least make good connections. I Note that yesterday afternoon's train to Swindon started back at Castle Cary (wasn't Glastonbury weekend, was it?) and that the down train said it was going to Frome. Ideally, the through trains would be on to / from Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury

And slightly larger again.

* Run an appropriate service for the flows on the travel corridor that the line serves. i.e. about hourly in the peaks, and at least once every 2 hours off peak.

You'll note I say slightly larger. Really, a proper service shouldn't be a big deal. The shortfall in income compared to expenditure in the first two years is just one hundredth of the amount of money just announced for the strengthened FGW services to the end of the franchise on 31st March 2013. And in the following three years (on pessimistic assumptions) that money will be recouped.

I should point out here that - although my example is Melksham and Melksham's traffic, TransWilts services are also used by many others when they run at appropriate times. There are major flows between Westbury / Trowbridge and Chippenham / Swindon, and also between Chippenham / Swindon and Warminster / Salisbury. The train pictured above left Melksham headed for Trownbridge and Westbury with about 30 people still on board ...
(written 2011-12-11, updated 2011-12-17) 7406

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