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September 24, 2006
Consultant's reports recommended a modest INCREASE
The Department for Transport has published (under my Freedom of Information request) two consultants reports from 2004, showing various options that were considered for the TransWilts service from December 2006.
The Consultants looked at options that included the reduction of the service to just ONE train each way daily, at options that included moving the evening train earlier (16:38 off Swindon) and later (18:38 off Swindon). Another option considered was 3 daytime trains between the commuter train (that's one more than at present) packaged with retaining the evening train.
They concluded that the daytime trains made sense, and that the evening train should NOT be moved. Which makes it somewhat ironic and disappointing that the daytime trains are gone, and the evening train has been moved later. The report clearly notes the negative impact on the economy of the area that would be caused by culling most of the trains.
[i]Why on earth get specialist advise if you're going to ignore it?[/i]. I suspect that some 'clever' person noticed that a bit of immediate money could be saved by operating a remenant TransWilts service in 'marginal time' with a train borrowed off another line, and that smart Alec's ideas were given precedence over a researched and presumably quite expensive set of consultants reports that for the whole GW area add up to nearly 300 pages.
See Freedom of Information - the Consultant's reports for FGW
As well as the "TransWilts" service, the FOI reports cover other services in the FGW area.
Posted by gje at September 24, 2006 05:59 AM