Gerald flew into Stansted yesterday ... a good Ryanair flight from Salzburg ... to attend a course with us here at Melksham.

His flight was a good on, as was the train to London and the tube connection across.  Great journey out to Swindon too, where it all went pear-shaped.  "No Melksham train" he reports, and he also tells me of seeing the station manager facing angry crowds; I suspect that was caused by some other disruption, as the regulars on the Southampton service are so used to disruption that they take it much more in their stride.

Back onto a main line train to Chippenham, and First found a minibus to carry on to Melksham and beyond.  Gerald reports an arrival just over one hour late in Melksham, and with perhaps 5 to 10 people on the minibus. That's a far cry from the 40 or so who might normally have been on the train, but then all the regulars are so used to having problems that they have alternatives pre-planned rather than facing being home an hour late.

In her press release of 10th July celebrating the first 100 days of the new frachise, Alison Forster their MD hails a dramatic improvement in reliability and performance. "As yet unpublished punctuality figures for the first eight weeks of the franchise show a dramatic rise in performance".  Congratulations, but still a long way to go, and still a lot to improve on the "TransWilts" line.