The details are PROVISIONAL - to be confirmed next week.

Andrew Griffiths, the General Manager Central, First Great Western, will be addressing the meeting of the Melksham Rail Development group at Melksham Town Hall on Friday, 12th May (and, I hope, taking questions).   The meeting will start at 18:15 (we can arrange lifts off the 18:09 arrival from Swindon and Chippenham).  Andrew needs to leave us at 19:30 to catch a train home.

Andrew is now the Manager who looks after customer liaison in a wide area based on Bristol, covering the main line down to Portsmouth, Bristol local area services, services in Glouctershire, etc.   He was previously with Wessex Trains, where he looked after the Devon and Cornwall branch lines, where he's credited with encouraging a healthy growth in traffic.

Anyone who wishes to is welcome to attend the meeting, which will be followed by the group's AGM.

I'll pick you up off the 18:09

A big thank you to everyone who came along, and an especial thanks to Andrew.   It's not an easy job to face a room full of rightfully concerned and angry people, and I applaud Andrew's openness with us and professionalism.   That said, the professional approach to items around the periphery doesn't help if there's no core train service.  As I wrote in a note to Andrew this morning.

"Although First has a great deal of good news to give on the Great Western franchise in general, we feel that the news for users of the Swindon to Southampton service is bad.  The latest consultation process appears (according to the timings you quoted) to have resulted in adjustments AWAY from what was asked for if just two trains remaining, and no amount of new uniforms, cycle racks, restructure fare systems and new information boards and help points will make up for a railway station that has no trains at all from before 07:30 in the morning to after 18:30 in the evening in place of the current six services calling."