I have just received a link to the reply to my petition whihc was worded as follows

    "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to provide a reliable train service with adequate capacity at times that travellers wish to make journeys from Swindon to Westbury, Bristol to Severn Beach, Portsmouth and Weymouth to Cardiff, Taunton to Cheltenham, Swindon to Cheltenham. This includes all intermediate stations and journeys in both directions."

    Details of petition:

    "On 10th December, train service were slashed over the "Bristol Commuter Area" with some stations such as Melksham loosing as much as 60% of their service, remaining trains being shortened, and frequently cancelled. This has resulted in severe overcrowding, massive delays, and the transfer of many journeys to inadequate local roads to the detriment of the environment and at economic cost. This petition requests the immediate return of a service that meets the needs of travellers in Wiltshire, Bristol, BaNES, South East Wales and surrounding areas. Where the service use was growing dramatically prior to last December, to increase future provision to meet future travel flow requirements. Further information and discussion forums are available at http://www.savethetrain.org.uk and other web sites which are linked from there."

The petition was signed by over 1700 individuals, making it the top petition on a domestic public transport issue on the Prime Minister's web site.

Here is the reply:

Thank you for your petition concerning the provision of rail services in the South West of England.

Ministers have raised the issue of improving train performance, including cancellations and short formation of trains, directly with First Great Western, which operates the train services in the greater Bristol area. First great Western have given assurances that appropriate measures are being taken, including bringing in additional rolling stock, and have accepted responsibility for underestimating the capacity requirements of the new timetable introduced on 10 December. First Great Western have already taken steps to restore capacity in some areas and expect the position to improve further in the coming weeks.

The Department for Transport will, of course, continue to monitor the performance of the FGW franchise to ensure that commitments given to Ministers and the public are met and that a significantly improved service is provided to passengers in future. Performance issues not directly under the control of First great Western itself are the subject of action plans between the company and Network Rail, which are monitored regularly.

The petition calls for the number of services at Melksham and other stations to be brought back to the levels provided before the timetable change on 10 December 2006. In planning the new franchise, the former Strategic Rail Authority found that usage of most trains on this route was very low, and set a minimum specification in order to achieve best value for money. First Great Western is free to operate additional services over the route subject to capacity on the track being available.

I too received the link to the reply.  I am most disappointed at the tone of the response.  It was empty of even hypothetical commitment to this regional service.

Because the franchise says so (as if it wrote itself) FGW are at liberty to cut services that _they see_ are not adequately used even though as has been pointed out several times that this assessment is an error.

The fact that when I tried to email Tom Harris at the DfT it bounced back saying the address did not exist was indicative of the lack of seriousness in which they view these problems.

I note that the most successful e-petition on road charging whose premise was hysterical was received and noted without problem by 10 Downing Street.

We must continue to keep pressure up on ministers and our MPs.  I will write again to Robert Key with my grievances on my return to England.  I am currently in the USA where you can see the devastation caused by the cynical removal of public transport systems.