It makes me think ... 80 people on the platform at Chippenham for the 08:25 to London on this Saturday morning (including myself, excluding station staff); a handful for the 08:44 Westbound train, but most joined. Amd there's another train 30 minutes earlier and another 30 minutes later. At an educated guess, those trains will have a similar passenger joining count.
Have any surveys been done, specifically Saturday and Sunday (we helped with a weekday one) to tell us where all these people are going? Do we know the mix of adult / child / babe? Do we know where they come from to the station and how they get there? DO we know how far in advance of the train's time they're there and when they're coming back (or are they already on their way back, or are they emigrating?).
Chippenham has a population of around 42,000. Trowbridge is only a little smaller. Melksham has a catchment of around 27,000. There's an interesting study of the leisure market, starting with learning about Chippenham. Does anyone have any data / answers to my questions to get me started?
[I've posted in "across the west" as I would love to have reports / counts / details from elsewhere of the leisure flows at weekends - very much in "learning mode" for 2014 ... which starts on December 8th!]
Edit note: One of grahame's inevitable typos corrected, for clarity. CfN.
