« A disappointing letter | Main | Monday morning, Melksham Station »
November 06, 2005
Some scenes at Melksham Station
Many thanks to Melksham Historic Society and Tony Seagers for old pictures of Melksham station. I'm putting a couple of them here with this post and other will be sprinkled throught the site - the idea is that you're going to look around and find them ;-)
Melksham Station was opened in 1847, closed in 1966, reopened in 1985. I've now got pictures of all of those (I question the 1847 picture - were there photographs THAT early?). There isn't quite the threat of complete re-closure at the moment, but the threat to decimate the service would - in my view - take usage back to 2001 levels of 3000 ticket sales per year as against current levels or around 8 times that, and that represents 20000+ journeys, per year, forced onto the roads that are already more than busy. If each of 20000 people takes an extra half hour on their journey, it represents 416 days of people's time being wasted ... and remember that's only the people who leave or join the train at Melksham!
The top picture here shows "The Flying Scotsman" - the engine, not the train, approaching Melksham on a special excursion. I don't know the date, but it was probably just after 1960.
The second picture was take perhaps 12 years later. The station had closed and beel demolished with just platforms left. One of the two running lines had been taken out of service, but the additional track hadn't been lifted - at least through the station.
Posted by gje at November 6, 2005 06:03 PM