When I was a child, I commuted to school by train from a London suburban station called Petts Wood. Station Square was a hive of activity in the morning rush hour, with partners dropping their spouses off in what was known in the area as a "Kiss and Ride" service.  Stop, kiss, drop, go.

People are dropped off at Melksham station too ... but I've noticed a difference.  At Melksham, it's Stop, wait for train, kiss, drop, go.

At Petts Wood, we could rely on the service; for sure, they had operational problems from time to time (like the horrific derailment at Hither Green), but these were always worked around somehow.  It was an era of industrial activity too, but hardy commuters were able to cope with this as they knew a few days ahead of time.  I remember cycling 12 miles, and getting up really early to catch the 47 bus from Bromley Garage.

At Melksham, alas, we cannot rely on services.  That's why spouses wait. Thank goodness for mobile phones; in the opposite direction, it means that a partner can be asked to pick up from Chippenham or Westbury in the event of a no-show.  Does it happen?  Yes, 4 out of 100 weekday trains in the last fortnight.

Can we quantify the detrimental effect this is having on service use?  That's not an easy one. 

I do know that there were just a handful of people on the bus that ran, over an hour after the train was scheduled, when the evening peak train from Swindon was cancelled last week.  That compares to, perhaps, 35 to 40 people onthe train.  That signals to me that there were around 30 people who were let down but had / were able to make other arrangements, or decided not to travel at all.

The $64,000 question - how many more people would use the service IF it was reliable (if it ran, say, 99.5% rather than 96% of the time, and if First grabbed the taxis at the station to get people to desitination with a maximum delay of 20 minutes rather that the 70 minutes it takes to get a minibus through)?. I don't know. 

I have base observational evidence that there's a very high proportion of drop-and-waits at Melksham as compared to other stations, and a very much bigger drop in traffic when there's a bus arranged than elsewhere. That leads me to conclude that our usage is heavily slewed towards those people who can and do make alternative arrangements.

Talking to people in Melksham (my home town) too, many of them say that they would use the service if it was reliable - that's often unprompted from me.  They do also bring up irregularity and infrequency of service, lack of easy access to the station and its daunting location in the back of an industrial estate. Some don't even know about the services and what's on offer.

And we have customer organisations who've used the train in the past ... been let down, and these days make other arrangements that don't involve rail (either to Chippenham / Swindon or beyond ... not JUST a loss of local revenue to FGW).

I'm going out on a limb.  I'm going to speculate that a RELIABLE service, and one that's know to be reliable, could easily grow by an extra 50% in two years.  It would take that long because a fearsome current reputation would take time to fade away.  I'm going to speculate that a REGULAR, 2 HOURLY service could also grow by an extra 50% in two years, and that a further similar growth would be achieved by a little PUBLICITY / MARKETING.

Yesterday, I went to the Melksham Carnival and there was an impressive array of floats.  It's an annual event.

IF we have a service worth shouting about next year, and IF it's guaranteed to run into 2008, I would love to help First and the MRDG arrange and sponsor a float.  With a regular, reliable service, and with publicity, the bulb planted in 2001 with the provision of the current service that's grown into a promising bud in 2006 will burst into full flower by 2008.

Pictures - Melksham Carnival, 15th July 2006.
Ths Courts, Holt (National Trust) - just 400 yards from the railway, also taken on 15th July 2006.