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September 08, 2005
The story so far
History
Closed in the Beeching era, Melksham Station was re-opened in the early 1990s with a limited service - a train to Swindon in the morning and a return in the evening.
In May 2001, under (I believe) an agreement between Wiltshire Country Council and Wales and West Trains increased the service to 5 trains a day each way on Monday to Friday, 4 on Saturdays and 3 on Sundays, all running through from Swindon to Southampton. This service became a part of the "Wessex trains" operation when Wales and West was split into two franchises; it's not clear to me how the agreement with Wilts County Council was effected by this, there's a hint in correspondence that Wessex trains carried on running the service but outside any agreement.
Spring 2005, and the Wessex Franchise, together with Great Western and Great Western Link come up for renewal next year as a combined franchise. The Strategic rail authority asks for the bidders to quote for a service level that provides only for the peak hour train - Swindon to Southampton "to be discontinued". The withdrawal is a single line on page 52 of a long document, and the first point at which it came to my attention was in early August - at a time after any possible consultations; at that stage, the three bidders (National Express, First Group and Stagecoach) were getting the final stages of their bids together.
When I wrote to the bidders, all three replied with great courtesy but offered no real positive news; their replies were somewhat at odds with one another. Which leads me to believe that in at least once case the answer reflected rather less than the real situation. I can, however, appreciate that the bidders are vehicles of the system and can't themselves go right against the dictates of the (now defunct, so unable to answer for its actions!) SRA without lessening their chances of winning the franchise as a whole.
So where do we go from here
I use the trains from Melksham. My customers use the trains. The trains are busier than anyone will "admit" - there were the best part of 40 on the other Sunday when I travelled, for example. So I say how can we save the train?
As a start, let's let everyone know that we don't want to loose this service without a fight. But also let the running companies involved know that we want to work with the for the service / mutual good. So, personally, I've been "learning in".
And let's get the service better known yet. Hence this web site. Hence letters from myself and other press activities. Hence ... meeting ... 20th September 2005. I don't know what the outcome will be exactly ... but I do know my goals!
Posted by gje at September 8, 2005 07:13 PM