Here's something I wrote elsewhere - probably worth reproduing it on our main board too, as many newcomers may wonder at the current passenger-unfriendly timing of the TransWilts train service.


Yes, they would sell more tickets, but they would also need to spend a lot (a LOT) more money. I'm going to get a bit technical / financial to complete the story

Although the line had 5 passenger services and 120000 journeys made per annum (Figures from FGW) in the last year before it was cut back (2006), the francise specification was based on a much lower traffic - perhaps a third of that - and a forecast growth rate of just 0.8% from the SRA.  First didn't really do their homework, it seems, and neither did the SRA / DfT nor the line's users.   

Let's do some sums based on that assumption:

40,000 journeys a year - income = 120,000 pounds (that's taking an average fare of 3 pounds). Hire of train - at least 200,000, extra crew for 2 peak services, another 250,000. Fuel, maintainance, etc - you're looking at a total expense of over half a million pounds for an income of 120,000, which you can cut to perhaps 100,000 pounds if you use a train from another line in "marginal time" - time that it's simply not required / going to be used anywhere.   Traffic has shrunk to - I guess - around 10000 journeys, so income 30000 pounds. So that's a loss of 70,000 rather than a loss of 380,000 on paper.

Actually - many of the passengers still pay First - rather than spend 3 pounds on the train (25 minutes, Melksham to Swindon), they leave Melksham on First's buses and pay a fare on there (95 minutes with a change by bus from Melksham to Swindon). Or they drive to another station and pay 4.50 to park their car for the day - I'm sure that's a better profit for FGW than running a train.   Passengers from further south make a dogleg journey via Bath instead - adds about 20 minutes to their journey on a good day, and the sky's the limit on a bad day. So the TOC is laughing all the way to the bank ... and it wouldn't even make strictly economic sense for them to hire an extra train for just two properly time round trips even if every seat was taken. And bu**er the customer passenger.

You see what a funny world it is? This service has been worked out to service the specification, not the passengers.  It's not QUITE as bleak as it seems though - First, the DfT and the local transport authority have now all agreed that there is a very strong case indeed for an appropriate service of as much as 1 train per hour; we won't get there easily, but we may - just may - get a step or two or two nearer this coming December.   It's amazing what a difference a growth rate that's estimated at 0.8% but turns out to be well over 10% can make!