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June 12, 2006
Our battle ....
[This is the first of a pair of articles and looks at the Swindon - Melksham - Salisbury - Southampton service. A second article (link) goes on to have a look at implications beyond just "Melksham" and concludes that we're just an early battle in a gathering storm]
When I set up the "Save the Train" website about a year ago, it was in response to a threat under the new Great Western Franchise to withdraw all Swindon to Southampton trains. The threat seemed quite astounding - to cut out a service between two major centres, based on one line slipped into a middle page of a consultation request that ran to nearly 100 pages.
Our company, based here at Melksham in Wiltshire (which is served ONLY be the train under threat) has many customers who use the train - but perhaps our customers are a dying breed of railway users? That turns out, emphaticallly, to NOT be the case. Traffic on the line has risen at a compound rate of 35% per annum for the last five years. In other words, ticket sales have risen from 3,000 to 27,000 per year at Melksham, and the First group (who won the franchise) have told me that there are 109,000 passengers per annum using the train on the section through Melksham.
Melksham, Chippenham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Warminster, Dilton Marsh are all growing dramatically, and no-one has doubted that traffic would continue to grow if the service was retained, nor that it would increase dramatically if it became a regular service every 2 hours - such a service being providable by a single 153 class (single coach) train. Speak to the First managers and they tell me that there's "nothing wrong" with the financial case that I make - that a service of 8 trains a day would indeed be a better economic proposition that the skeleton/remenant service of two trains a day that's proposed in the very early morning (06:20 our of Swindon) and early evening (18:12 out of Swindon).
So why - in spite of vigorous campaigning - are we hitting a brick wall?
Perhaps the reduction of the service to an inappropriate level is just one step that's planned. Perhaps there's a plan somewhere to render the service un-viable before it grows too much, so that it can then be withdrawn when the new service manifestly fails? Perhaps you think I'm being too melodramatic?
Alas, this "background plan" is the one that makes the most sense to explain what's being going on. In the short term, screwing up what service are left is a nonsense. In the long term, with a wish to kill the line, it makes perfect sense.
This hasn't happened just on the Swindon to Southampton service. You'll find that other lines / issues have received similar rough justice. And that there are great inconsistencies in information provided too. I've been told that it costs somewhere from 150,000 to 650,000 pounds to hire a train for a year. I've been told that buses to replace trains are NOT under consideration, but that a bus service to take the place of the removed trains IS (or has been) under consideration.
I don't, in truth, know exactly why there's such a brick wall. Does the Transport Minister's ex live in Melksham and it's a personal feud? Are they looking for some line to make an example of, prefereably where there's no chance of them loosing any seats at the next election? I'm much more inclined to look at the freight possibilities of the line - single track - and the talk of major freight depots at Westbury and perhaps elsewhere in the A350 / A36 corridor. All the major policical parties seem keen on appearing green and supporting schemes such as this one to get freight off the roads. But none seems to be considering the effect on / displacement of existing services on the same railway tracks. The line through Melksham is slated for major growth, and that ain't going to be through a packed passenger train before dawn, is it??
New laws / guidance for railway line / passenger service closure are being proposed at the moment. It will no longer be the minister's decision, but a purely financial one, and it will look at issues such as how much money would be made selling railway land, and how much extra tax would be taken from motorists forced into their cars. There's not a hardship / convenience case, though - in other words, the fact that a 25 minute journey on a train is turned into over an hour by bus, with a change, with issues for those with special needs and people with luggage ... that's NOT taken into account. Oh - and there's a variety of interested parties who can challenge the viability of a line to start the process rolling.
I don't think the new law is being passed as an academic exercise - what would be the point? I think it's being passed to make it easier to close lines that are wanted for freight traffic, withdraw services from smaller stations on busy lines or that run into busy junctions, and replace services that aren't easily paralleled by roads by giving aside vital railway land to the railway lobby.
I'm going to conclude this first part of this article by widening the scope of what I'm saying ... by telling you that it's not JUST Swindon - Melksham - Southampton that's under threat.
[This is the first of a pair of articles and looks at the Swindon - Melksham - Salisbury - Southampton service. A second article (link) goes on to have a look at implications beyond just "Melksham" and concludes that we're just an early battle in a gathering storm]
Posted by gje at June 12, 2006 05:28 AM