Last night (25.11.2026), I attended Melksham Town Council's Economic Development and Planning meeting to speak to the agenda item 13 - asking the Town Council to add their support to the MTUG request / campaign to get GWR to run the current timetabled service more reliably. Delighted that they added their support, unanimously, and with some very kind words for the work we do at MTUG.

Background

Around 90% of trains in the timetable at Melksham do run. But that's been 1 in 10 cancelled and a figure that means the service in unreliable. A 5 day commuter will find that once a week (s)he has no train either to or from work. The Melksham timetable is so thin that there won't be another one along in a twenty minutes - the gap is typically 2 hours - and Melksham is an unstaffed station where people feel alone. Just yesterday, I was chatting with a lady who used to use the train, but hasn't done so recently after being let down too many times.

GWR will provide alternative transport when a train is cancelled leaving people marooned for what would be hours, but that provision has been far from seamless or consistent, has been slow to be provided and often only on strong demand, and there have been information vacuums where passengers don't know what's going on. Some trains are announced as cancelled, but end up running. On average, around 85% of the trains you'll see in the timetable today for tomorrow will remain in the timetable and run - but unless you have a "Plan B" backup, that's not good enough. It needs to be 97% or better - like it is at Bath, or Yatton, or just about any other station in the area operated out of Bristol AND there needs to be a consistent, friendly and automatically provided alternative in the case of all but the most exceptional cancellation cases.

The requests to the Town Council was for their support for immediate reliabilty improvements, to the level that almost every other line in the area enjoys. The request does not ask for us to be a special case - just for the standards achieved at Melksham to match the standards achieved elsewher.

Update for yesterday evening - my notes prior to the meeting

Agenda item 13 To note correspondence to Brian Mathew (MP) from the Melksham Transport User Group and to consider supporting the campaign.

As chair - my signature / copy on October 7th papers, written on behalf of MTUG.Those papers are available ((here))

There are some good people at GWR - a First company - but their contract comes to an end next year, and they are currently funded by the Department of Transport. Their contract has been described as micromanaged so they do little that changes while they wait for the changes. They have pared back so far in resources that they have no slack if a driver calls in sick or a train breaks down. Interworking on all six lines from Westbury means that they can switch trains and crews around, and evidence suggests that they have being doing this at the expense of our service Operationally, it's an easy one to cancel without knock on effect leaving trains stranded away from base without a driver.

The train services are important to Melksham, but its importance is not necessarily obvious to rail managers who see a small station with limited services and passenger numbers, and without staff, facilities, onward bus or taxi.

We are asking GWR for no more than reliability to match that elsewhere. We can't afford to be forgotten. And we have asked out MP (Brian Mathew) for help at the more political level. The secretary of State for Transport talks of reliability being a priority, and we are asking for their support is helping GWR tune to provide it equally here. Not asking to be a special case - just a normal case.

Since our 7th October letter, we have met with Brian and his team, and Monday of last week we had a big meeting including Brian and WWRUG in Swindon. We heard explanations - nothing new - so many broken past promises, and people cannot travel on promises. But we are encouraged that almost miraculously, cancellations have plummeted over the last week.

Ongoing - I met up with Sam on Brian's team after, and we're going to more deeply involve other MPs, and continue working with West Wilts Rail User Group - even more people use those trains through Melksham than get on and off. Tomorrow - WWRUG meeting with Nick Reid, GWR's bus integration Guru, Friday timetable distribution (proof read and 28 pages by all 5 bus operators as well as GWR) - now is the time to pick this up for Melksham. MWPC supporting too, and working with GWR to look at customer friendly improvements.

All in line with medium and long term plans - see below beyond this campaign

Delighted with MTC and MWPC reps at MTUG - please provide formal support (and they did)

Things that are NOT in this "campaign" but are parallel / ongoing / background aspirations include:

1. The current timetable is desperately thin. Rather than one train every 2 hours, we (as a town) need a train every hour each way - that's a normal minimum standard in the 21st century for a local or regional service. Beyond that, a turn-up-and-go type service - perhaps a train each way every half hour - would suit Melksham as well as passengers between Swindon and Chippenham to the north east, and Trowbridge, Westbury, Frome and Warminster to the south. That is the medium and long term strategy - it is not part of the support sought and gained from Melksham Town Council last night (and from Melksham Without Parish Council too, recently) but provides an assurance to all parties that sorting out the current issues is in the medium and longer term interests as out town grows and more people need to get around without undue extra load on our already-choked roads.

2. Most Melksham Station passengers walk to and from the station, with lifts and cycling being 2nd and 3rd most popular ways of getting to the station. Fourth come taxis, and fifth - a few people - use the car park. This is almost perverse; there are no bus services to the station though some go past (without stopping) the top of Station Approach. And yet so many of the residents of Melksham, and the industrial area, our major educational site, sports site and medical facilities are right across the town. We already have a very thin town bus service - a single vehicle struggling to meet all requirements in our growing town - and the addition of a second vehicle on an easy-to-understand hourly cycle starting and ending at the station, connecting with trains ... but also connecting the Town Centre and between all those other areas I mentioned ... is a natural development to help people get around.

3. The station is at the back end of an industrial area and can be a lonely and unwelcoming. Works OK for current regulars but if people have questions, want the loo, or need help, or a taxi, or a bus it can be daunting. Silly things like the separation by about 50 feet of the help point where you can talk to someone and the ticket machine where you may need advice as to which ticket to buy do not help, neither does the lack of basics such as a simple "departures" poster, nor a line timetable on which you can look at the times of trains coming back. There is joined up scope for a community presence, and certain resources available to help.

4. It's a long walk round - through a subway and then back across that same main road to get to Foundry Close, Leekes and the residences in nearby streets. And yet the Station Approach peters out at a fence which backs on to the roundabout that's in Foundry Close, and with an exit for future expansion running up to that fence. Opening up that route - for just pedestrians and cycles - would do wonders for accessability. Again - in the plans but not part of this campaign.