Baroness Susan Kramer, Minister for Transport, visited Wiltshire today to officially launch the enhanced TransWilts service between Westbury and Swindon.

She arrived at Westbury after being treated to a cabride in an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) to see for herself the flooding affecting parts of the route from London.

After taking the TW service to Chippenham she spoke of her admiration for the work which had been done by a number of people to get the service up and running.


L-R Baroness Kramer, Matthew Golton - FGW^▸ (First Great Western), Richard Gamble & John Thomson - Wiltshire Councillors, Duncan Hames - MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Chippenham

I will leave others to give a fuller report on the points she made, save to say she singled out Sion Bretton and Graham Ellis from the Trans Wilts Community Rail Partnership for special mention for the effort which had been put in.



Speeches over it was then time to cut the cake - in the shape of a Class 153



Despite the sunshine there was a biting wind and it was good to adjourn to Steamers for a buffet and a chance to talk to the Minister and FGW officials.

One interesting point - Baroness Kramer left for London on the 12:55 from Chippenham and travelled in Standard Class with her entourage.

Alas, John ... the media only has limited space and current rail interest seems to be centred on an 80m gap in the tracks somewhere south of Exeter ...

Yes, there will be a ticket machine for Melksham  and a series of other improvements there and at other stations along the TransWilts.  And there's also the announcement of the Melksham Rail Link bus service - connecting the residential areas to the south and the east of the town with the station, timed to arrive at the station a few minutes before the peak hour trains to Swindon in the morning, and to leave the station in the evening a few minutes after the return trains arrive.

This can make a huge difference in home to work commutes - here's what the ConnectingWiltshire site currently recommends from the East Melksham development (Thyme Road) to an office block 5 minutes from Swindon Station:


You'll note options at 82 and 92 minutes, and if you look into the options in more detail you'll find significant sections of walking, and indeed 2 of the three journeys involve taking the bus to Chippenham then the train. Fares will be around 13 to 14 pounds for peak day return.

From Monday, the bus will leave Thyme Road at 06:56 and at 07:26, connect to the train at Melksham Station, and you'll arrive in that same office block at 07:53 or 08:23 - that's a saving of 25 minutes on the quickest of journeys, a guaranteed connection if the evening train is late, and a saving of about 5 pounds on the daily return fare.

There's a preliminary document on the new service at http://atrebatia.info/melkshamraillink.pdf - there should be a full map and integration under Connecting Wiltshire in due course, but for the moment we're using this "stop gap"

Press coverage ...

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/10996085.Transport_Minister_on_board_with_Transwilts_service_launch/

Smokey is on his bended Knee to very humbly ask that we the people of Plymouth and Cornwall  now  need His Imperial Highness Grahame of Melksham to kick more Butts and get a Second route up and running from Exeter to Plymouth.

It was a great event and to meet different people from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and WC^▸ (Wiltshire Council (Unitary Authority))
The cake was nice as well

Sion

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/11012736._/?


Some other interesting comment in the main article too.   It seems we're not doing too badly considering the truly awful weather conditions we've encountered over the last couple of months.

YES absolutely. Much of the foul weather news is about other lines - after a couple of floody incidents (from which some lessons were learned) it's settling down nicely to clockwork operation.


http://www.bristol.ac.uk/medical-school/staffstudents/academies/swindondirections.pdf ...

"The Number 16 bus runs approximately every 15mins on weekdays between the train station and the hospital"

Ok, thanks very much for that information, guys.