Save the Melksham Train
Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Scotland - 1 Green Light , 1 Red Light - 2234/5181
Written by Lee on Friday, 11th May 2007

A

Re: Scotland - 1 Green Light , 1 Red Light - 2234/6760
Written by Lee on Thursday, 9th August 2007

A freight company has renewed its threat to boycott the Kincardine to Stirling railway line if Transport Scotland pushes ahead with plans to introduce track charges (link below.)
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2007/08/08/newsstory10103257t0.asp

English , Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) , which operates coal trains to Longannet power station , says the changes will make the route too expensive , forcing it to continue using the Forth Bridge.

One of the key aims of reopening the 13-mile stretch of track is to enable freight trains to be routed away from the bridge.

The Scottish Executive had said that , as well as taking freight trains off the Forth Bridge , the line would reconnect Alloa to the national rail network for the first time since 1968 and provide a faster and more efficient route for transporting open cast and imported coal from the west coast to Longannet.

 
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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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