Save the Melksham Train
Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Wootton Bassett to Warminster - 308/852
Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Wednesday, 12th July 2006

Lest we forget ... with a sensible array of stops, and a reasonable train service, usage would grow.  The Parkman report of just 5 years ago suggest and costs an hourly service with additional stations at Wootton Bassett, Lacock, Staverton/Holt, White Horse business park, and Wilton.

Yesterday, I had a delegate who lives in Wootton Bassett and works in Warminster.  He has a one hour drive which he does not enjoy, and looks forward with dread to the 10 week closure of the A3102.  Would he use the train?  Yes, IF ...

a) The service was appropriate. He works shifts and needs those odd times.  Parkman's would do very nicely; the slightly more moderate timings that are all we're asking for on this web site would be more marginal for him.
b) There was a station (and trains stopped there!) in Wootton Bassett.  He would NOT drive in to Swindon to get on.



 
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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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