Travelling to and from courses - much easier from December 2013
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-09-08 13:55:41 - Graham Ellis
When I look up train times between Melksham and London on Sunday 8th December, on the First Great Western web site ticketing section, I'm offered:
And that tells me that - truly - an improved service is now, ever more officially, just 3 months away. We're expecting Santa Claus to be with us that day - on the 17:31 from Melksham as far as Swindon, getting back on the train that arrives at 18:50 - but this year I'll be able to see the last of the children and their parents off home and jump onto the new 19:05 service for London, where I'm booked to give a training course for the following week. I'm delighted that I'll be able to make use of one of the extra trains on their very first day of operation, and get back to Melksham on the Friday evening too.
We're just one Melksham business... this is going to make the most enormous difference to our accessibility to our customers.
There is, though, a lot of work to be done in the next three months. In marketing the service, providing information, setting up communication channels, making sure that it works, improving station access at stations where a significantly higher number of passengers is expected, and so on. As a member of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, I expect to be quite busy prior to December - and thereafter as people ask questions and need help with their new rail experience.
