A trip up to Swindon on the 10:02 from Melksham, returning on the 13:29 (yes, I just made it, thanks) today and I took the opportunity to observe passenger number in both directions. As a note for newer members, that's something commonly done in the past in the lead up to - and during - the trial service.
2 people got off and 15 people joined the 10:02 at Melksham, and there were then exactly 50 passenger on board (32 in one carriage and 18 in the other). So that was 52 passengers making use of the service on the section from Trowbridge to Chippenham that has only the TransWilts service of passenger trains, of whom 17 were making journeys to or from Melksham and the rest were through passengers. In the past (and it worked well) we routinely used a shorthand to log those numbers -
52/17The 13:29 train had 19 passengers on board on its way back from Chippenham to Melksham (12 in one carriage and 7 in the other). 6 got off and 8 more got on at Melksham - so that's
27/14Nice summer's day ... no obvious signs of major events adding to passenger numbers, nor of passengers being diverted onto these trains from elsewhere. Schools still "in" but I suspect that numbers were slightly up on average (on the 10:02) with a number of young people who had probably finished their exams and were headed for the delights of Swindon.
Cars parked at Melksham Station - 23 both when I arrived to catch the 10:02 and when I got back; 2 left the car park with drivers who had come off the train.
In late 2013, it was suggested that we should look towards an
average of 20 passengers per train making use of the service between Chippenham and Trowbridge by the end of the third year (so that's prior to 2017). Bearing in mind that neither of the services used today is what would be considered a peak one (the 13:29 off Swindon is one of the very quietest as there's another train about half an hour earlier), these are remarkable figures. They are, however, no surprise. Off peak traffic is hugely significant to the economy of the line - not much good having a commuter train packed from 07:50 at Melksham to 08:02 at Chippenham and then being near-empty the rest of the day; I'm so glad we are NOT in that situation ...
Promotion of off peak services by the Melksham Rail User Group (
http://www.mrug.org.uk ) continues - the leaflet is at
http://www.mrug.org.uk/Summer2019brochure.pdf and we have a good stock of printed copies ("we" because I have the publicity mantle for
MRUG» !) which are looking for good homes. Last Saturday, the Melksham Carnival (thanks to the members / readers who walked in the parade with us). The Saturday before the Shaw Village Fair (thanks to the members who did this while I was away) and this coming Saturday, Remington Village Fete. It's the busy season ... the following weekends .... I 'll post about later ...
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