Save the Melksham Train
Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
31st March - last day for Wessex Trains - 185/446
Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Friday, 10th March 2006

Friday, 31st March is National Express (in the form of Wessex Trains)'s last day running trains to and through Melksham - First take over the franchise at 2 a.m. on 1st April.

I would like to record a THANK YOU to the Wessex Trains crews, and also to the managers we have met, for their help and assistance and all the work they've done - sometimes a difficult job on a shoestring, and in the case of the Melksham line with a far terminus (Swrindon) at which they were very much the guest and not the main operator..

Re: 31st March - last day for Wessex Trains - 185/447
Written by Sion Bretton on Friday, 10th March 2006

The staff on 6.56 Monday to Fridays are very friendly and be a shame to not see them from December as the they go up and from Westbury to Paddington.

 
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Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham.

Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome.

The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users.

We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can.

-- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021


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