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By train ...

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-10-25 11:02:52 - Graham Ellis

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I was invited to a meeting at The Sugar Loaf yesterday evening - that's a pub in St Mark's Road, Easton, Bristol - a couple of miles out from the City Centre. And I thought I might like to have a pint or two there, so driving was out, quite apart from the fact that I was meeting up with some rail campaigners and - well - you have to make the right impression, don't you!

But I live in Melksham, where the joke is that you look up a calendar to see when a train is running, rather than a timetable, as trains calling at the station are so rare. However, I was in luck and so I walked from my street through the town centre to the station ... to catch my train at 14:55. It turns out that a calendar was a good idea, as the Saturday afternoon train usually runs 20 minutes later and had I missed it, the next one would have been 27 hours later.

The train was on time ... very comfortable, plenty of space. The conductress sold me my ticket and we chatted, and before we knew it we were in Chippenham where I left the train on its way to Swindon, and connected into the express for Bristol. Again, train on time, good seating and a chance to both relax and travel at the same time (I do feel it's so much better to arrive refreshed after a journey than to be all tense from fighting the traffic!). Bath came and went, and the final stop was Bristol Temple Meads.

Fifteen platforms. FIFTEEN! Where is the next train to Stapleton Road? Just leaving from the far side of the station ... as I lookup up timetables in the subway, I heard a diesel train's engines roar and, sure, that was it. But it turns our there's another one in 18 minutes, so I get onto the Avonmouth train and with a load of other we let the clock tick to just past four when we head out ... and a really quick run out to Stapleton Road, from where this train branches off onto the single track to Clifton Down, then on to Avonmouth.

OK - now here's an admission. I'm not used to stations with 4 different entrances to although the Sugar Loaf is very close to the station, it took me a while to find it. Rather longer than the part of my journey from Melksham to Chippenham actually.

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What was I doing in Bristol? I was meeting up with the "Friends of Bristol Suburban Railways", who have campaigned for a number of years for improved services on the Severn Beach line, for re-opening of freight lines such as the one to Portishead, to Thornbury, and the one from Filton to Avonmouth to passengers, and for new stations at places like Horfield, Saltford and Long Ashton. They've been part of some notable successes too - such as the major improvements that have happened on the line that serves Clifton Down, Avonmouth and Severn Beach ... with major service improvements. But things aren't static. In an effort to get even more trains on the limited line space from Bristol 'up North', there are threats of cutbacks on the "Severn Beach" line, and various suggestions too about cutting back the end of the branch. That would be a retrograde step - although the trains aren't exactly "nesting" - 'Nearly Every Seat Taken' at that far end, they contribute traffic to the inner section where they do "nest", and it's a question of making sure that the bean counters understand and don't do anything stupid.

I look at the steps taken in Bristol, on the Newquay branch, to Bicester and to other places and say "yes, it can be done". The people of Wiltshire took their eye off the ball from 2001 to 2005 - were lulled into a false sense of security with the increased service on the "TransWilts" that made it practical, usable and growing and they were too late when the SRA / DfT put through a specification for the next 10 years which was counting beans, and included a thumping great loophole which meant that the remaining trains were run at silly times that provide few return trip opportunities. Indeed - last night I had a choice between an hour's wait at Chippenham / a journey time from leaving Stapleton Road to getting back to Melksham of over 2 hours (with only 45 minutes actually on the move) or taking to the bus at Bath. Well - I met up with Sion on the train, and we changed over to the bus. Met up with Anne on there ... and I got back to Well House Manor an hour before originally planned ... and took over the wait for late checkins, delayed as they were driving down to us on the road. Perhaps that's another story, or perhaps there's a moral in there somewhere.