Great Western Coffee Shop

Previous posts on this subject has raised to question of an open access operator to provide a service to Melksham.

Lets dream a while.

Set up am open access operator Trans Wiltz Rail with a mission to ;-

1. Redouble the line from Thingley Junction to Bradford Junction including the reinstatement of the Bradford North Chord line.

2. Extend Melsham station with an island platform giving two through lines and a terminating bay platform to / from the south.

3. Provide a hourly circular service both clockwise and anti clockwise from Melksham to Melksham via Chippenham, Swindon, Reading, Kensington Olympia, Clapham Junction, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Warminster, Westbury and Trowbridge.

4. Provide an hourly terminating service to Bristol via Bradford-on- Avon and Bath.

5. We could even go further and announce future plans for the 22nd century to rebuild a station at Holt Junction and relay the line as far as Devizes with an hourly Melksham - Devizes branch line shuttle.


Just woke up, its nearly 6 o'clock in the morning and then its off home to a nice comfy bed to continued my dreams.

I don't have quite the vision to look forward as far as you have done, but stranger things have happened.   

I'm not at home tonight (so can't look back to my old reproduction of Bradshaw's from around 100 years ago), but I suspect I would find that the number of express services from Chippenham to London has gone up four fold - and I suspect that such a prediction would not have been made at the time or the pre-grouping (1.1.1923).

If you look at the population around Melksham at the present time, then the current service should be at least 1 train per hour each way if you compare it to the population around Chippenham station.   And with 50% growth in the next 20 years, then an hourly "TransWilts" and a half hourly train to Holt, Staverton, Bradford, Avoncliff, Freshford, Limpley Stoke, Bathampton, Bath, Oldfield Park, Saltford, Keynsham, Brislington, Temple Meads and stations to Portishead ....