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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 May 11, 2008 09:12 AM