Save the Melksham Train
Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Suprise Service! - 7940/12833
Written by WyvusArconius on Monday, 29th December 2008

According to the live departure boards.. there is a Swindon to Westbury service (calling at Melksham) that will arrive jst after 12 today. It is currentley running late somewhere between Swindon and Chippenham. Wouldnt it be nice if this became permanent!?

Re: Suprise Service! - 7940/12834
Written by Sion Bretton on Monday, 29th December 2008

Funny Saturday services as this does not run normally on Saturday's.

Re: Suprise Service! - 7940/12835
Written by WyvusArconius on Monday, 29th December 2008

Exactly... when I saw it I went off to hunt through the timetable... not on any day of the week is there a service at that time.. not even in the Xmas adjustments... strange.. but welcome.

Re: Suprise Service! - 7940/12839
Written by Sion Bretton on Saturday, 3rd January 2009

I understand that these suprise services were a feeder service to Swindon to link up with the Paddington services as there were not may in/out of Westbury to London Paddington.

Re: Suprise Service! - 7940/12843
Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Friday, 9th January 2009

And this is what ran on 6th January  ...

Westbury to Swindon at 06:30 07:02 07:30 08:35
Arriving Swindon 07:16 07:46 08:16 and 09:21

Swindon to Westbury at 06:15 07:45 08:30 and 09:25
Arriving at Westbury at 07:00 08:32 09:17 and 10:12

Now THAT is what I call a nice service - laid on a bit 'last minute' because of problems between Trowbridge and Bristol and I know there were a couple of delays (on time, I think you would have had an Abermule or two!)

 
link to index of articles


Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham.

Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome.

The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users.

We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can.

-- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021


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