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May 14, 2007
An update
"Long time no post" I think is the saying. The forum has been busy and there's been much activity behind the scenes, some of which I'll be talking about just as and when I get a chance to catch my breath. It looks like the technical group that's going to be looking at the case locally is indeed being chaired by the county, and after a slightly stuttery start that's going to be convened shortly.
Six months ago, I would have put our chance of getting an appropriate service on the line at a slim 5%, but now I'm thinking the figure is much higher. The early days of "Graham, we can't run a service just for you" were superceeded by "Melksham on its own doesn't justify a substantive service" and now I'm hearing / seeing real thought being put into what should be provided; with a single train allocated to the line, a two-hourly Swindon to Westbury is practical. As is a slightly less frequent Warminster to Swindon. Or a three-hourly Salisbury to Swindon. And if the discussions come down to "should we choose (a), (b) or (c) rather than "are we going to do anything at all", that's a positive step.
Here's an interesting further look forward. What IS an appropriate service level?
If you draw a graph of the population within 2 km of each station in Wiltshire, plotted against the number of passengers per day using the station, you'll see that the points all scatter onto a straight line. There's just ONE station a long way from the line - below - and that's Melksham. Why? Because the station's unfriendly, the service has always been thin and with a dreadful reliabiity reputation, and publicity was non-existant. Actually, it didn't do too badly - grew by a whapping 500% + between 1996 and 2006 (next best was 190% growth) - but it was cut off before it had a chance to fully blossom. "Use it or loose it" they said and I THINK the 500% - from county survey data, by the way, WAS a use. but still we lost it.
An appropriate TRAFFIC level, in line with other stations in the county, would be 1000 passengers a day to or from Melksham. And the appropriate service level to cope with that is an HOURLY service.
So - let's set our initial goals as a single unit service from December, but lets RETAIN the "Stroud Valley Unit" in its current timings too. ON ITS OWN, it doesn't work. IN ASSOCIATION with another unit running every 2 hours, it does. Opportunities to arrive in Swindon at 07:40, 08:40, 10:40, 12:40, 15:40, 17:40, 19:40 and 20:40. And to return at 06:20, 08:45, 10:45, 12:45, 15:45, 17:45, 18:45 and 19:45
Posted by gje at May 14, 2007 06:36 PM