Save the Melksham Train
Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
Where Is The 'Joined-Up' Thinking In All This? - 876/2511
Written by Lee on Monday, 18th December 2006

Here is a Duncan Hames article on the "Trans - Wilts" rail issue (link below.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A18261867

Re: Where Is The 'Joined-Up' Thinking In All This? - 876/2521
Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Tuesday, 19th December 2006

A quick read of Duncan's message ... and I have to say I agree; put another way the recution of the service on its own is silly, but with the knock-on effects added in, it's madness.  There doesn't appear to be any joined up thinking - certainly in any positive direction.

Air pollution, more to spend on travel in individual vehicles by hospitals, schools etc, are all immediate issues. In the longer term, there's the fact that we're more and more mobile, that the population is growing around here at an astonishing rate (as was train use before the cuts!) and that in time - the next few years rather than longer - we're going to have to move people around more efficiently.  Bundling them up 50 at a time on a train that runs at a time they want it  is much more efficient than giving each of them a 4 x 4 (a suggestion made recently by the secretary of state for transport for low use lines) and it's better and quicker for them too ... I can get to Swindon if I happen to be going at 07:17 or 19:50 in a 35 minute journey, but I take twice that by road and three times that if I use public transport alternatives.


Re: Where Is The 'Joined-Up' Thinking In All This? - 876/2562
Written by Steve35 on Thursday, 21st December 2006

I'm sure it all makes sense to the Treasury - if you're on a train you need subsidising; if you're in a car they can tax you and road charge you...

 
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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