Great Western Coffee Shop

Community Office report for 2017 - our year to 31.1.2018 / TransWilts CIC incorporating TransWilts CRP, and reflecting Melksham and Chippenham Rail User Groups

2017 was the first year of the TransWilts as a fully fledged permanent rail service after a three year trial under the support of an LSTF grant from central government, during which we more than reached our targets.  Passenger numbers announced in December 2017 for the previous financial year showed a continued growth, with passenger number at Melksham up from 61,000 to 75,000 - a good measure for the line as Melksham is served only by TransWilts trains. The growth, way above targets, has lead to challenges - the single carriage train becoming so busy at peak times that there was no room for any more passengers, so growth will be much more constrained in the next year's data.  Good news at the tail of the year - as from January 2018 the train has been increased to 2 carriages and the Community Rail Partnership helped promote this with a party at the station and press coverage. Within a few days, we were asking "how did we manage with one carriage" when we travelled on the peak trains, and it's good to see the modal shift to public transport that the TransWilts service has brought.  Our team is largely volunteer, yet makes a real difference for people in their daily lives.

Engineering works associated with the electrification of the Great Western main line, with resulting closures and diversions and a need for staff to learn how to operate the new trains have conspired to reduce the reliability of the standard timetable well below what we would like to see, and there's more of the same to come in 2018.  The Community Rail Partnership volunteers, working along with Great Western, have helped inform people ahead of planned works, and passed local feedback back in return, helping to make small adjustments that make big difference, and helping people understand where no early adjustment can be made.

Such small adjustments include the running of the early Sunday train - which was summer only - all year now.  And within weeks, we were into double figure passenger numbers ... with people starting to use the service as a vital link to get to work, as well as for leisure and family visits.  We truely are an all day, all week line now ... we just need to sort out a later service to make it all evening too. And an early morning Sunday train starts back at Warminster as from the start of 2018, giving a first train of 08:47 rather than 10:49 from there - opening up the town for residents to go out for day trips, and for people to take Sunday jobs in Bath and Bristol

Marketing and promotion events included our attending "Community Rail in the City", Salisbury business show, the Melksham River and Food Festival, and we were fortunate to have Santa visit the line again in December.  Walks between stations also helped bring the line into public view, and the countryside is really beautiful too. Our team attended and spoke at meetings too many to mentions - right across the patch from Swindon to Salisbury and sometimes beyond.

Our social media presence through the year has helped keep people informed both of opportunities and preplanned service changes - with Paul looking after the Twitter feed, and myself on Facebook and with Bob on the Coffee Shop forum. Facebook posts have been reacing upwards of a thousand people, and "how did you hear about this" questions on trains often point back to our social media campaigns. Timetables were distributed to all houses in Melksham in early November, and Frome, Westbury and Melksham locl papers carried half page adverts including timetables which people cut out and carry around to this day. GWR's new "B5" timetable has been a handy marketing tool too - a quick and easy reference for local passengers, with key connections shown too.

The TransWilts "app" - downloadable from your regular app source for Apple and Android, and on the TransWilts web site at http://www.transwilts.org/app - has been warmly welcomed - giving you local train information, up to date as the traisn run, without the clutter of the wider network and drilling deeper down into online information than just a departure board - data comes from a source called "Tiger" and this app has a real bite to it.  There's already a rip-off in the Bristol area (OK - with our blessing) and once coming for Devon and Cornwall.

The Melksham Rail User Group continued to support us as our "eyes and ears" in the town, and we have helped start up a group for Chippenham - the second of our designated stations.  Early days for Chippenham yet, but really valueable feedback already, and a look forward to growth of the group ahead.

Around 20 volunteers helped us survey passengers over a three day period in October, to help ourselves, Great Western and Wiltshire Council understand passenger's journeys and aspirations better. A huge "Thank You" to the team out during Storm Brian, and to all our passengers for willingly provisioning so much valuable data.   And this helps so much in us looking forward.

The TransWilts is a growth line,  We are not "steady as she goes". It's my role as Community Rail Officer to promote the existing service and to look at the tactics for doing so / short term gains.  Our chair - Paul Johnson - has done a magnificent job through 2017 in oiling the wheels for a service that's not every 2 hours but every hour, that's not turning back at Westbury but carrying on to Southampton, and is carrying not quarter of a million journeys each year but a million. Paul's work on the Melksham Master Plan (to ensure the station can cope), on line capacity work (to see how we can fit more trains through) and on promoting and doing background work for a new station at Wilton for Stonehenge has been phenomenal, and effective.  It's often background stuff, unseen by the public and too future-looking to be appreciated a much as it should be - THANK YOU Paul.

We celebrate other team members to this year, Peter Blackburn, our president, was shortlisted in the national individual award category at ACoRP' event in Derby ... he's one of the top half dozen right across Great Britain with his unstinting and effective support and background work for going n 20 years - Peter was around before any of the rest of us, and without him I doubt the station would still be open.  John Hamley, long time secretary of the Melksham Rail Development group that has morphed into the Melksham Rail User Group was nominated for "Person of the year" in Melksham, and the Melksham Rail User Group won the award for best user group all across the UK at the RailFuture awards in Leicester in November.  And I would like to add a special mention for our friend's secretary - Bob Morrison - here.  Winner of an award in a previous year, he's continued to be our rock with his bus and train knowledge, common sense, and ability to quickly and efficiently do things the rest of us dread and take an age to complete. Thank you, Bob.

The TransWilts board has also been delighted to welcome Horace Prickett - portfolio holder for Public Transport - which has already further strengthened our partnership working. Horace has been a support for a number of years and his presence and knowledge at so many events has enable us to show truely joined up thinking, and achieve so much.

The end of 2017 was an important time for looking ahead, with a Department for Transport consultation looking at the next 10 years of services across the South West, a consultation on the whole future direction of community rail, and several timetable consultations from South Western Railway, into who's area our proposed Swindon to Southampton service will run. We are delighted to be working with the Three Rivers CRP on this service, which will add many through journey opportunities, as well as covering existing passenger needs, yet running more efficiently.

Town and parish councils along our line, and Wiltshire Area Boards, have also been very supportive through 2017; really the lists are long and I extend a "Thank You" to them all. And big “thank you” personally to the whole team for their help  through the year, which has had its issues and meant that I haven’e been able to deliver as much as I should have done.

2018 promises to be another year of challenges - but our volunteers, partners and passengers are up for those challenges.  The TransWilts is turning from a "nice to have" to a vital part of life for so many people, and we're seeing signs of a modal shift to public transport. Exciting train and bus developments, much seeded by your team in 2017, mean that TransWilts is "onwards and upwards" this year, next year and beyond.  Effective total journey public transport, with people using it in droves because it's the best solution to their travel desires or needs.