A very disappointing meeting; the speaker (who I know and wanted to re-connect with) had pulled out due to a change in job role, and of the three people invited to come in his place, one had set his apologies, one had said he should be able to make it but didn't turn up, and the third hadn't even responded to the invite. I appreciate that with Thamesdown becoming part of Go-ahead there are more important things to be doing than looking after passenger groups (
) but it would have been really nice to have known there was an issue ahead of time to that I could have made a better informed decision whether to attend.
"Railfuture" is all about rail - tends to look well ahead rather that at the shorter term, and as such much of the audience finds it "difficult to get excited about buses" anyway ... which is a great pity when buses can and should (but so rarely do) compliment trains in providing for people's total journey needs. After the meeting, I caught the (in)famous 17:36 back to Melksham - arrival 18:03 ... and found newcomers to the town also on the train, wandering around and looking for a taxi or a bus ... for a journey that the rail link bus would have done perfectly for them. Utter frustration.
Depressing news afternoon - perhaps because the meeting was attended by several who peddle bad news with a view to goading meeting attendees into rising up and protesting (motivational thing) or perhaps there really is a surfeit of bad new around at present. With (now) two commercial companies operating buses in Swindon, I see the first whiffs of smoke a they start to complete for passengers on the same / similar routes. And I read of "changes in subsidy from Wiltshire Council" which will result in withdrawal of all buses between Marlborough and Pewesy on a Sunday, halving of the 49 Swindon to Devizes service on a sunday, and reductions during the week on the 49 and 55. Reference to a "small number" of services worry me - last time I saw those words, it turned out that more than half the service had been lost.
On the trains, talk is that in order to save money on reprofiling Severn Beach line stations for the 16x class units, only three carriage lengths will be re-profiled with the extra 2 carriage length that most stations enjoy having the platform edge stones removed. And that's depressing because it's making a small saving now compared to the potentially bigger investment which will be needed at a later date when the trains need to be even longer. Back to the old "planning for 0.8% growth" when reallity's likely to be much much higher.
