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I wish I was not a special case

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-12-29 22:59:18 - Graham Ellis

On 18th January, I'm going to an evening meeting about rail services in the old West Wilts area - the towns of Trowbridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Melksham, Warminster and Westbury, And being a meeting about railways, it's located convenient to one of the stations - Warminster - and the invite includes a note about train connections from the other towns.

From Bradford-on-Avon, there's a train at 18:47
From Trowbridge, there's a train at 18:53
From Westbury, there's a train at 19:02
From Melksham, the recommended departure in 19:11 but it says "YOU ARRIVE LATE" - yes, about half an hour late.

Return times are given too. You get back to Bradford-on-Avon at 21:37 or 22:22, Trowbridge at 21:31 or 22:16, and Westbury at 21:25 or 22:09. For Melksham, the invite says "next day". Look it up, and you'll find it's 07:20.

When practical, I take the train and / or bus when I travel, and I make an increased effort to do so for public transport meetings, which are usually run at venues easily reached by public transport. But I'll drive if I'm likely to waste hours waiting around or traveling a dogleg route miles out of my way.

I used to be embarrassed at the introduction sessions at these meeting where everyone says who they are and where they have come from - I was the odd one out to drive. But I'm no longer embarrassed - for I know that Melksham is regarded as a "special case". Missing the backbone of a decent rail service even though it has a station. And I know I'll get a good laugh if I say "I could have come by train ... I would have had to catch the 06:37, and would then have had 12 hours to wait in Warminster. Returning, I would have to wait overnight for the 06:24 tomorrow morning".

Now - let's be fair - we're talking these days about integrated transport. So I looked up the my journey of Travel Line South West (http://www.travelinesw.com). If I wanted to get to the meeting on time, I could get the bus at 17:45, change in Trowbridge to another bus, and get to Warminster at 18:51 - a 66 minute journey. Returning home afterwards, the 22:02 train would take me to Trowbridge (arrive there at 22:16). I'm then recommended to catch the route 265 bus from the station to the town hall, from where I catch the 234 bus back to Melksham. The Travel line site tells me that I arrive there at 23:29 - that's 87 minutes for a journey which the AA tells me is 14 miles and 22 minutes by private car.

The 18th January meeting is about "Facilitating Integrated Public Transport" and is to be addressed by Ian White who is "Head of Service Passenger Transport" at Wiltshire Council. It will be good to hear him speak, and to listen to his comments and feedback on situations such as the very ones I'm facing to get to the meeting.
* Lack of any services at or near the time needed
* Long waits for connections
* Extra legs needed to take buses between railway stations and bus stations / bus hubs
* Lack of fares information on buses
See West Wilts Rail User Group website for more details of the meeting - all welcome.

I really wish I wasn't regarded as a "special case" when attending these meetings by car. I really wish that we had a level (or more level) playing field on the public transport side of things. It can be done. The picture shows the 17:30 bus from Warminster to Chippenham via Westbury, Trowbridge and Melksham, on Sunday 9th October. It took 50 minutes, it was very well loaded ... and it was run by volunteers using a bus built in 1952. Why can't a modern transport system be provided by the professionals to do what volunteers can do with equipment that's half a century old?