Seaside trips - Summer 2016

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I'm going to post loadings on the HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) - running again via Bath Spa this year - here. It worked very well last August routed via Swindon and Chippenham, but then we had the luxury of having it for the peak weeks only, so posting offseason loadings via the regular route is potentially unfair / could be misinterpreted, so I'm keeping it here in the TransWilts area.

Intelligence for the first run (last Saturday) told me 200 into Weymouth but only 75 on the return train. My educated guess is the the mismatch was due partly to a noticeable number from the 200 being people with an enthusiastic interest going along for the journey and not the destination.

Today - Saturday 28th May - there were 68 passengers between Trowbridge and Westbury.  About 30 were in family groups with children, about 10 with notebooks / timetable sheets etc,  a further dozen or so in pairs for the day or week, a stag party or similar accounted for a further dozen, and one or two travelling for work purposes.  All very much guessing the metrics, but recorded here to have a view of the sort of use as I look back at our leisure marketing and make comparisons later in the season.

It should be added here that last Sunday morning's early TransWilts train - first run of the season - drew an embarrassingly blank on people headed out for Weymouth for the day, even though 46 local journeys were made on the Trowbridge - Chippenham section on the round trip, which ain't bad.  I will be most interested to see what tomorrow brings on that service.