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November 28, 2006
Coming to a course in Melksham
Clearly, our customers cannot use phantom trains as from 11th December; here's our business statement telling people who to get to and from our courses in future. A bit of a personal post today ...I really wish I could offer the 234 bus service via Chippenham station as a good option - alas, it goes TO Chippenham in the morning and FROM in the evening which isn't the wrong time of day that our customers would be wanting to use it in each direction...
If you're travelling by train to a Well House Consultants course, we can meet you off the 19:08 arrival (Mondays to Fridays) from Swindon, which has a connection leaving London Paddington at 17:30.
If your course starts on a Monday, a train leaves Paddington at 18:00 on Sunday evening and arrives in Melksham (change at Westbury) at 19:51. There is also a later train on Sunday evenings. Please check Sunday times with the train operator, as engineering works at weekends frequently lead to schedule changes, diversions and bus substitutions.
For delegates who live near Paddington station, the early train at 07:00 will get you to Chippenham at 08:15, which gives you ample time to reach Well House Manor by taxi (approx 6 miles) for your 09:00 course start.
At the end of your course, we can help with arrangements for you to get home. We can drop you off at Melksham station for the 19:08 or 19:35 departures, or arrange a taxi to take you to Chippenham to catch the 17:55 train to London.
Some delegates prefer to stay over an extra night ... we can provide you with an early breakfast and give you a lift to Melksham station for the 07:17 train on Monday to Friday, connecting into the London train at Swindon. You'll be scheduled to arrive in Paddington at 09:00. This morning service runs 2 hours later on a Saturday.
Over the past five years, around 40% of our customers have arrived and left by public transport. Although we have plenty of parking and good car access, you don't need a vehicle if you're on one of our courses. We also have covered garage parking for cycles and motor cycles, and welcome delegates coming on two wheels.
Melksham to Paddington train service, weedays from 11.12.06
Paddington to Melksham train service, weekdays from 11.12.06
Posted by gje at 07:04 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2006
Fading away?
I met a customer off the 14:48 arrival on Friday and there were the best part of 20 on the train.
Hang on - isn't that nearly twice the AVERAGE number quoted by First and the DfT for all of our trains, on what they tell us is one of the quietest of the day? This service is canned in two week time - fading away. Have we been lied to about loadings? I don't know - but I do know the evidence of my own eyes.
Posted by gje at 07:50 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2006
2 weeks to go
Just over 2 weeks to go to the end of the train service that my customer have used for the past 5 years in increasing numbers to come to their courses in Melksham. 8th december will be the end of an era for us, as I puty my last passenger onto the 17:02 to Swindon, connection on to London, with my car at hand to give him a lift in case it's cancelled.
It's been a fabulous service for us - and we account for perhaps 0.05% of the journeys made on the line - so know that our heartache is shared many times over. Over 14,600 separate host computers have visited this website in just over a year, and each one - each visitor - has a story to tell.
Many lies and halftruths have been told over the last year, and many officials in Government and train operating companies have been less that helpful. I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories but at times I have wondered. I conclude that we're loosing the service because no-one can be bothered to market it and make a living from it as it's not dig enough, that we're loosing the service because some clever statistitians have seen that they can (technically) run a line without a train, and perhaps that our train gets in the way of mainline trains ... even when it's on time, it can cause THEM further delay and FGW's expresses have a poor timekeeping record. The long single line section and lack of loops doesn't help ....
On indicators such as current performance trends, environment, planned growth, surveys such as Jacobs, economic effect on the area the withdrawl is just plain stupid.
Posted by gje at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2006
Current and future summary
The Final timetable for December was published last Friday - 10th November - with just two trains a day on the truncated Transwilts - from Swindon at 06:19 and 18:42, returning from Westbury at 07:02 and 19:35. Our first officlal glance at Weekend trains show a Saturday service from Westbury at 09:00 or so, and anothe rmid afternoon. There are return trains mid afternoon and mid-evening. Sunday trains are limited to 2 evening trains from Westbury to Swindon, with no return trips at all.
Reliability of the current service remains an issue, with the 17:02 and 18:09 services cancelled again during the week - that seems to happen every week at some point now. And it's not as is there was another train half an hour earlier or later - the previous train is at lunchtime and the following train starts out from Westbury well after 9 p.m.
The current service is virtually unusable because of its horrendous reliability issues. The future services timing make it virtually unusable because of the total lack of trains at times they're needed.
Posted by gje at 04:09 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2006
End of term - don't care
This Monday morning on the Transwilts started with a cancellation - the very first return trip of the week failed to make it, making this (already) the third week out of four that we've suffered cancellations - and we have so few trains anyway that even one round trip cancelled is already a service that's 3.5% down on what it should be - more that twice the objective that's set by the Department for Transport for the operator. Oh - in two of the past weeks, the cancellation rate was around the 10% mark.
This evening, I'll be attending the talk in Trowbridge by the DfT's guy in the South West - the one who's job it is, as I understand it, to represent the region / area to Central government. If I've understood his role correctly, he clearly failed to get out point across strongly enough for it to have any effect on the service's future - decimated next month - and I fear that we'll not get any great sensible change of heart tonight.
It rather seems that the Department for Transport and First Great Western have washed their hands of the TransWilts, and Melksham, and would like us to just fade away. "It's the easiet train for us to cancel" said a First correspondent recently - "we don't care about this service" would have been another way of putting it, perhaps.
Posted by gje at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)