May 11, 2008
One long journey ends and another begins
We travelled from Westbury to Minehead yesterday on the "Minehead Marauder" - a special train donated for the day by First Great Western, staff working unpaid, on behalf of The Railway Children charity. At Minehead, you'll find the end of the South West Costal path and in some ways it feels like we've come a long way here since this site started nearly three years ago. Members have come and gone; a dear friend made through the campaign passed away, another gotr married and another about to do so in coming weeks. And I fell like an old times as one team of tra8in operators has passed on to another, and withing that new team we have changes too. But I feel we're coming to a defining point now, and in the next couple of weeks we'll see the way forward.
At the end of the South West coastal path at Minehead, the West Somerset Coastal path starts. I don't know what our way forward is; I know it's been a long journey, but I suspect we have another long journey to come.
Our Save the Train Support Pledge page has been signed by nearly 400 people (and it's still open for YOU to sign. Interim replies from the Department for Transport, from Wiltshire County Council, and from First Great Western vary from disappointing to encouraging. But what's encouraging in all the responses is that the case for a decent TransWilts service is being looked at rather more seriously now than it even has been, and it becomes increasingly more difficult for parties who have other things they would prefer to look at for their own (perhaps personal) reasons to simply sweep it under the carpet and condem public transport travellers from (example) Westbury to Chippenham to an indirect journey of 60 minutes when it can be done by direct train in under 30.
Posted by gje at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2008
Road - busy ... railway - no trains, so no users
The A36 is closed for 12 weeks at Limpley Stoke, and the signposted diversion is along the A350 throught the outskirts of Melksham, parallel with the TransWilts Railway line
I had an appointment in Corsham at 9 O'Clock this morning - about 6 miles - but the journey took me half an hour, most of which was spent queuing around Melksham which was solid all the way from the Seminsgton Bypass up to McDonald's
If traffic is diverted on a more permanent basis for any reason, or if traffic grows, this is going to become worse. And with the towns along the way all growing dramatically, surely it will get worse unless there's some form of relief all along. Wait - how about some trains?
Posted by gje at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)