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Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge bus changes next month

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-06-26 15:53:34 - Graham Ellis

I now have changes to the 234 bus route as well; here's the new timetable - it only serves Melksham on Mondays to Saturdays.


 

 

No great time to study it yet - but the one critical time - the 19:16 bus off Chippenham station for Melksham is retimed to 19:24. That's the biggest step in the right direction, and a further example of First responding to customer requests. At the old time of 19:16, the bus tended to pull out just as the 19:14 train arrival pulled in... this train is often a few minutes late, and in any case the two minutes allowed really isn't enough for a connection. The old timing looked like it had been designed to fail; the new timing is just about the best possible improvement that could have been made within the bounds of a small adjustment.

Travellers who miss/can't quite catch the 17:45 off Paddington to connect through to Melksham can now "drop back" to the 18:00. And on days when the 17:45 is late (and misses the connection) or cancelled will now have something to fall back on without the expense of a taxis. I know that the train operator is supposed to supply onward travel such as a taxi if a connection fails and there's a long time to wait, but there has been an extreme reluctance on the part of Chippenham station staff to do this on recent occasions....

And finally here's the new 236 replacing the 235 on Bowerhill to Trowbridge runs. Only serves Melksham on Mondays to Fridays.