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July 26, 2006
Press Release - Open Access operator negotiations
Press release - 26th July 2006
"Save The Train" invites open access operators to provide a Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Westbury train service.
On Friday, 28th July, First will publish their final train timetable for the service to run from December 2006. They currently provide 5 trains a day from Swindon to Melksham (pop 24,000), Trowbridge (pop 30,000) and Westbury (pop 12,000) and we anticipate a cut to just two trains - timed anti-socially at around 06:20 and 18:45 from Swindon. And yet the current service is a success, growing at around 35% (compound) per annum, with 109,000 journeys annually. And further growth can continue if the trains can continue.
Our campaign to Save the Train has commanded community support at all levels, and crossparty support in Parliament.
We submitted our original 2-hourly Swindon - Westbury proposal to the Department for Transport and First but, despite being told that there was "nothing wrong" with our business case, our proposals were rejected by both.
We have now began consulting with various other interested parties on our proposals, including talking to other rail operating companies under the "Open Access" scheme", and will make a further statement soon. We believe that with funding and other required factors in place, our proposals should be cleared by the Office of Rail Regulation.
Further details of our approach can be found at
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/open.html?printer=1
Posted by gje at July 26, 2006 11:10 AM