The movement of the morning train yet earlier, and the evening train yet later, in spite of our consultation inputs for the reverse, looked like a slap in the face for Swindon to Melksham, Trowbridge and Westbury passengers.  On my "blog" a couple of days ago, and in email too, I asked for the real reasons behind this - a bit of honesty - and I'm delighted to have received and answer from Andrew Griffiths.  He writes.

As a quick glance at the timetable will show, we've had to resource the Melksham service using the Stroud Valley unit - which is why the timings can't me moved as we all would like.  With two sections of single line and a busy mainline in between pathing is very constrained.

Andrew, THANK YOU for your honesty. And THANK YOU for confirming that you, too, would like to be providing us with a train at a more appropriate time.

I'm aware that the service was resourced from the Stroud Valley back in the days prior to Wessex trains, but since then it's been resourced from the Southampton / Westbury end. I don't yet understand why they've had to go back to supplying the train via the Stroud Valley with (as Andrew says) issues of single track from Swindon to Kemble as well, when there's trains of the type that will serve our line buzzing up and down through (and terminating at) Westbury all the time.   There's even a Southampton to Westbury shuttle that could be extended through.

I've an enormous amount of time for Andrew ... a huge respect for what he did in the South West, and his openness - as in this case - to confirm that the timing of the train that's serving both Melksham and Kemble-to-Stonehouse is biased towards when it's needed at those Stroud Valley stations.  Within the constraints of "it HAS to be only one train serving both lines", the timing decision is understandable; where I argue with DfT and First is with that constraint, and with the lack (at least to my knowledge) of them looking for more innovative answers within the limits set on them. I personally wouldn't want to have the job of being, in essence, First's PR man responsible for putting the best face on a service cut. I would find such a role uncomfortable to say the least, especially if I was very much a business growth and development person at heart.