grahame,

As discussed yesterday, I'm more than happy to assist on Monday 13th and also Tuesday 14th if required. I can be available from the second service of each day, starting at either Westbury or Swindon.

Additional trains from Swindon to Westbury via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge have been running for 9 months, with passenger numbers growing and some of the trains getting quite crowded.  To help us (that^s the community, Wiltshire Council and First Great Western) understand how they^re being used, so that we can best know how they can be taken forward, we^re doing a major counting and survey over this coming weekend and early next week.    We^ll be asking all passenger groups on every train from Saturday through to Monday to complete survey forms for us [draft at end of message].   And we^ll be counting the numbers of passengers joining / leaving/ travelling on each leg of the journey from Saturday right through Tuesday to build our evidence base (midweek may be different to endofweek)

1. Please can you help us?  We are looking for / I am organising volunteers.  And I need lots!  There will be around 60 services to cover, and at least 2 people needed on each because it^s getting that busy.  Those of you experienced in this sort of thing may be asked to take the lead ^ those who are new to it will be briefed at the start and have someone to ask for help (and to chat with in quieter times ;-).   PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL if you can help - we really need to schedule in half day blocks; let me know day(s) and morning / afternoon / evening.    Tickets and all the stuff you need will be provided - coming together this week
   Saturday 11th October
   Sunday 12th October
   Monday 13th October
   Tuesday 14th October

[snip]

The TransWilts trains are very very much busier this year than even the ^peak only^ service was last year - there are six or seven times the number of passengers averaged across the whole service.   THANK YOU for your support and help so far.    The data gathering and planning that we^re doing in the next couple of weeks is vital to ensure that the right local inputs are made to future planning and franchising processes so that we carry on with the most appropriate service possible through 2015, and beyond to 2020.

Any questions - please call / email

Graham

P.S. Please feel free to copy this email on to others who may wish to help / come along ;-)

Commentary - 10th to 14th October - TransWilts survey

A rainy autumn weekend, with the Swindon Town home match postponed well before anyone travelled.  On Saturday,  a person hit by train near Cam and Dursley resulted in some diversions of traffic in the area. On Sunday, lines between Didcot and Swindon were closed, and lines between Warminster and Salisbury were closed until late afternoon. On Monday and Tuesday, the line from Castle Cary to Taunton was closed for planned engineering works, and West of England expresses ran via Swindon.   This resulted in a loss of traffic via Westbury to Taunton and beyond, and some schedules being varied by a few minutes to allow for extra trains at the Swindon end.

On Sunday night / monday morning, a track failure resulted in the line through Melksham being closed and neither the 06:12 from Swindon nor the 07:04 from Westbury called there - routed instead via Bathampton with an extra reversal.   Pilotman working was in force all day from Thingley to Bradford, resulting in delays to service all day Monday.

On Tuesday, the 18:52 from Swindon was cancelled due to a train fault.

Scheduled - 59 trains.   Ran calling at book stations - 56.   94.9% operated.
(2 ouf of 8 key commuter runs lost - 25% lost / 75% operated)