I got in touch with Michael Owen who is the Customer Panel representative for First for the Chippenham to Keynsham section.  I wanted to make sure he was aware of our issue.  A few days later I read in the Gazette and Herald (local paper)
that he has resigned from his role on the customer panel because is 'fed up with the attitude of rail bosses'  I dont think the
article is online yet, but I'll let update the post when it is.

In re-drawing the customer panel areas to cover the expanded area, some anomolies have been introduced; it's probably quite tricky to find someone who's aware of the issues of both the Chippenham to London commuter and who's also "au faite" with Keynsham and it's Bristol link.   At a surface level, I know that high on the Chippenham concerns is the very high price of London travel, especially for people who make the journey one or two days a week in the early morning, but the big issue at Keynsham recently has been the dramatic reduction in services and shortening of already crowded trains from December.

Our own rep covers "Bruton to Melksham" and that includes all stations from Warminster to Freshford too. I know him; he was (for example) First's representative at the meeting we held last September, but the TransWilts service doesn't happen to be the one that he personally uses a great deal and I do feel unrepresented on the panel. It does appear to be part (or rather "most") of a panel member's mandate to convey news in a positive light from the operator to the customers, and as First have brought us little good news on the Swidon to Southamptton service, it's been pretty quiet.

It has proven possible to reach elements of FGW through routes other than the customer panel, so it's not (thank goodness) our only route to reach them.  I do sometimes feel that we still don't really reach too many of the decision makers as we're very much in touch with the parts of the organisation that are designed to buffer the planning, specifying and operating staff from the passengers - especially those like us who have a different view of where the future should be.