Melksham's rail service - where are we, on the anniversary of being Beechinged?

On 18th April, 1966, railway stations at Melksham and Devizes closed leaving Bradford-on-Avon as the only town in what is now the Melksham constituency with public transport by rail available. Devizes remains isolated from the railway network, Melksham station reopened in 1985 but with a minimal service, and Bradford-on-Avon survived the low points (including suggestions that it too could close in the Serpell report) and it now thrives - with half a million passenger journeys every year, and 3 trains an hour headed for (and some beyond) Bath and Bristol, and 3 trains an hour headed for Trowbridge and Westbury, most going onwards to places like Salisbury, Southampton, Portsmouth, Frome, Yeovil and Weymouth.

Melksham has twice the population of Bradford-on-Avon, but passenger numbers there are around 75,000 per year - less that one sixth of the numbers using Bradford-on-Avon. Why are the passenger numbers at Melksham so low?

1. The service has risen, but only a bit - after sporadic changes over the years from a minimal level to just an infrequent and badly connected one. It is not the "turn up and go" service that BoA^» has. I left this morning, headed south, on the 06:32 and if I had missed it the next train in this direction is not until 09:10. I changed onto the Weymouth train at Westbury and expect to be there at 08:25, but on the 09:10 I would not expect to arrive into Weymouth until 12:10, with an 80 minute wait for connecting train at Westbury.

2. Services don't go where we want from Melksham - we need to change trains along the way. That's not always an issue - except that as noted in (1) there are long waits for connections, or connections are a gamble that a train will be on time. I was lucky this morning - my 2 minute change at Westbury worked. Passengers on the 07:21 from Melksham, changing at Chippenham for Bath and Bristol - whet should be a major commuter train - tell me about the change "working" with the 4 minutes in the timetable sometimes, and failing at other times leaving them with half an hour to wait for the onwards train. If that sounds bad, it's a much bigger problem on the way back, where a missed connection at Chippenham means at least an hour's wait and sometimes much more

3. Services that are in the timetable are cancelled on the day far too often. As I write this now (07:30, 18.4.2025) two afternoon services have shown up as "cancelled due to lack of staff" overnight and it's not an uncommon story. The 17:35 off Swindon is typically the busiest train of the day, and that's one that has gone. I saw relatives off on that train yesterday from Melksham; 24 people got off, 12 got on, and I estimate that around 100 people were using the train - a busy 2 carriage service.

4. Melksham Station has no ongoing public transport services that are practical to use within the town. Recently, lip service has been provided with signing of bus stops that are up to a 8 minute walk away as "for railway station" but that's far too far from the station, no timetables are displayed to help you connect, and indeed they don't connect - it's pure luck as to how long you have to wait. And while Melksham Station IS within walking distance of many homes and the start of the Town Centre, it's several miles from the main Bowerhill employment area, and also a long way from all the new housing to the east of Melksham where there is little employment and people really want and need to get to work in other towns.

5. People feel unsafe at and getting to Melksham Station. There are no staff there, and it's in the back of the industrial estate where there's often no-one else around, and no taxis. The walk into town is through a subway which - while recently improved as a legal art wall - still concerns nervous travellers ... and then the walk on is beside a factory that shut down a couple of years ago to the derelict Unicorn pub. Although the station is close to McDonald's - open long hours, shops and housing in north Melksham, it's not accessible from them without walking three times the distance, and through that subway and industrial estate.

6. Fare, journey opportunity information is complex and misleading at times and puts people off, even if they can find the journey they need - it IS out there but you need a doctorate level degree to understand the complexities, and know your rights and alternatives in the event of you changing your plans along the way / return plans or having changes enforced on you by trains or buses not running or missing connections.

This sounds like a tale of horror, doesn't it? Yes and no - the story is that we have come forward so much in the last 15 years - from 3,000 to 75,000 journeys per annum, and we have identified the reasons that, we believe, they remain so much below the 500,000 journeys at BoA.

We have a great deal to thank Great Western, and Wiltshire Council, and the DfT^» , and MPs^▸ of various parties for ... for their help and support thus far. We have moved from a useless service to a one that is usable for some - note those 100 passengers on one of the 18 trains yesterday - and that makes a very real difference to the economy and strength of the area.

We have identified (I believe) the issues - listed above - that limit current passenger numbers and those same people who have helped thus far are too - and we are all together looking at overcoming those objections. Not just looking at the problems, but looking at the solutions too.

More than half the people I talk to in Melksham are embarrassed that they don't use the train as much as they could because of [some combination of the above] and we know we have a potential user base once issues are sorted. And that's not just a narrow "use the railway" benefit - it's a huge benefit to the economy of the town, the area, the environment. I look forward over the next few years to a time when most of the people I talk too ARE able to make appropriate use of our public transport, and that those who aren't using it are easily persuaded to try it purely by helping them learn about it and all the options available to them.