Great Western Coffee Shop

It's great to see the weekend services back!   (Two our of three were trains today ... only one was a bus).  And thank you to everyone who helped on the "Santa Special" - 100 people in our party on the 17:22 Melksham to Swindon, and the 18:31 return.   And our especial thanks to all those people on the train who were not in our party - of whom there were a surprisingly large number!

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Waiting for the train on the platform at Melksham

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Meeting Santa

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Leaving the train after a great trip!

Many thanks too to all the people who helped organise the trip - To Santa, to the FGW staff on board and behind the scenes, and to the Melksham Railway Development Group and its members

I'm pleased you all had a good day, and good to keep up the profile of the route.

Out of interest, what would you have done if your service had been replaced with a bus? Or had you explained the importance to FGW of running the service today in the hope of avoiding the all too frequent bustitution?

The whole thing was done with the very best of co-operation, John.  We chose a Sunday when trains were running, First Great Western ensured it was a 2 car 150 on the service today and not a 153 which it sometimes is, and Santa tookl time from his regular job with FGW to come up to Swindon and back and see all the children and give them presents!