Great Western Coffee Shop

Now that the dust has settled and the festivities are over, I've had a chance to write up the Santa Trips from 14th December 2014.

We took a total of 205 people (107 adults and 98 children) up from Westbury, Trowbridge and Melksham to see Santa in Swindon, many of whom were new to the TransWilts service, and indeed some were making their first ever train journey.  And we got plenty of marketing exposure in the run up (and a little after) which reminds people that the TransWilts is here.   Giving people a great trip (which we did!), having fun ourselves (yes, that also) and helping with promotion is the main objective.   Financially, we sold tickets worth ^1432.00 against an expenditure of ^1393.07, making a net profit for the Melksham Railway Development Group of ^38.93 - the aim is to break even and a 2.7% profit to funds is just about ideal. 

Our plans this year had been for Santa to see the children at Swindon station, as there was a 50 minute scheduled turn around on the trains.  However, signalling problems meant that the incoming trains were considerably delayed, and Santa travelled on the first train to Melksham and then back up on the second to ensure he saw all the children and gave them presents.   We had sufficient spare gifts to be able to give something to other children who happened to be on the train in the course of their normal travel plans too.

Train loading - we counted (at a maximum) 158 people on 2 x class 153 units - so that's every seat taken in theory.  Some young children were sharing parent's seats and a number of our helpers / team hadn't got the time to sit down - so the train was comforatbly full / numbers just about right.   My estimated split for the 158 - 105 on the Santa outing as guests, 10 helpers / on our team, 43 on the regular (scheduled) running of the train.

* Income / Expenditure
-> Total income 1268.68 (plus 142.32 received by TICs and Visitors centres for their funds)
-> Total expenditure 1229.75 (plus 142.32 to TICs)