And as shown on the last image a second IET called just over an hour later, followed by a third shortly after 7pm.  All heading towards Swindon.  One also called at Chippenham. More details on the main TW disruption thread. 

 
Yesterday - 2nd September 2025 - saw the very first call for passengers at Melksham station of one of Great Western Railway's IETs (Intercity Express Trains). And what a fitting date as it was on 2nd September 1848 that that railway first came to Melksham.

Melksham Station lies on a now-single line between Chippenham and Trowbridge with a local shuttle train running up to 9 times a day from Swindon via Chippenham and Melksham to Trowbridge and Westbury.  But on occasions that the main line from London to the West Country via Pewsey is not available, long distance expresses are diverted via Melksham and our local service is culled.

GWR's IETs were introduced in 2017, and took over all long distance trains. They could not stop at Melksham though, because our station (like many other wayside stations) was not programmed into their train database, and the station was not equipped to receive them.  However, recent changes encouraged by the Melksham Transport User Group, and other community groups, and being common sense too, have added them to the database and signage has been added so that they can stop at Melksham.

The very first such stop was yesterday - when the 15:42 Exeter to London (Paddington) train, diverted "our way", called at Melksham at just after half past five. The first of what I hope will be a routine, but infrequent, event.  When our local train is displaced by the medium distance expresses that come up from Paignton and Exeter, serving Castle Cary and Westbury, we can now look forward to them calling at Melksham to give us an alternative service.  Yesterday's diversion was made at very short notice indeed (less than an hour) and only half a dozen people got off the train at Melksham, but future diversions of some of these semi-fast services are also authorised to call at Trowbridge and Chippenham. With better notice as will usually be the case when engineering works are planned, they will be an excellent step forward in providing a continuing service at Melksham. Our passenger journey numbers have risen from 3,000 to 63,000 per annum since a useful service was restored and should head for over 250,000 in future years when proposals to increase the regular service to at least hourly come to fruition.









For the record - train 802013 - a five carriage train - on service 1A89

 

Earl is a generally peaceful cat, I was surprised that he went for a gull. He visits me when there are no children at his home to entertain him.
I look after him, and the other cat from the same household, when the owners are on holiday.

 
The North Dorset Railway at Shillingstone gets permission to become an operational heritage line.

 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev2v1pxnmlo

 
From BBC South


I am going to post this in "Railway History" ... but perhaps it should be in "Heritage attractions" or "Campaigns for new services" as the article goes on to talk about it being out of commission at present, but there being an interest in it having a future.

 
21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:04
21:45 Penzance to London Paddington due 05:04 will be starting late from Penzance.

This is due to the train driver being taken ill.

Additional Information
Due to a resourcing issue we are unable to operate this evenings Sleeper service between London Paddington and Penzance / Penzance and London Paddington.

We have arranged for this service to be operated by one of our regular Intercity Express Trains which will offer a Standard and First Class seating service only. There will be no accommodation facilities.

 
It does include Fleming Way and the shopping area of the town centre as well as the GWR park which has been a bit of a disorder hotspot.

There was a PSPO for the town centre in the past which concentrated on public drinking, begging and pedal cycles in the pedestrianised area.  However it was rarely enforced and ultimately not renewed.   This latest one has already seen some scooters confiscated and destroyed. 

 
To go with it. One of Swindon's new PSPOs https://www.swindon.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/11646/town_centre_and_broadgreen_public_space_protection_order_-_2025-2028.pdf
Which I presume includes the new facilities.

 
It called! Report to follow - I have a meeting in 20 minutes and will write up overnight.

 
The Chairman and founder is Dr Andrew Seedhouse who, many years ago, was my predecessor here at the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership.

More about them here https://www.talktosam.co.uk/about-us

 
..and another two due to call - and on the screens

 

It is and not a one off.   However it wasn't announced until 16:39.   That is 15 minutes after the cancelled TW service would have left Westbury and the time it would have been at Melksham.    So unless someone was very on the ball at Melksham they would have unaware.

This is better news - announced an hour in advance.

 

 
Date was in my diary - now booked. I have a powerchair....

 

SUPERB step in the right direction!

 

Why do they cancel the trains on the next line across (yeah, I know, because the West County trains are more important).  Are there alternative arrangements for Melksham passengers? Such as the IETs stopping there?

 
On Eventbrite

 
If you go to this portal, it says this about itself:


In one place this site identifies itself as Travelwest, but mostly it doesn't - so it is? Or is "what exactly is Travelwest" just not an easy question to answer?

 

 

Oh drat and double drat!  Why didn't I think of Lubeck?  Mum trained there as a physiotherapist when she was in her late teens.

 
Not sure which section to put this, so apologies if wrong

South West Smart applications (a membership based central purchasing body) has issued a tender for 8 years covering:

1) Content Management systems (value £20m)
2) Ticket Vending machines (value £20m)
3) Electronic Ticket Machines (value £20m)
4) Assessable Rail Information and support units (£20m)
5) Transport and Data managed Services (value £20m)

https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2025/W36/853737845

Not really sure who they are, or how it might affect anyone in South West, does anyone know more ?

 
It's a long time since I got off the train / took a look around Frome.   Anyone fancy joining me and other members of the West Wiltshire Rail User Group Committee on Thursday of next week?

 

As has already been pointed out the figures quoted are since Oct last year - not from the introduction of technology over the past umpteen years.  I somehow doubt all the things you mention have been introduced just in the past 11 months.

 

I somehow doubt recruits for the latter would be drawn from the ranks of the former,  however they do seem to be being used as a useful scapegoat for a good number of the country's shortcomings at the moment.

I'm sure Rachel from Accounts will be glad of the distraction from the consequences of her policies.

 

I have been "trialling" Kagi - it certainly sorts out a lot of the junk that normal search engines drag out with annoying regularity. Of course............. is it worth paying a subscription for ?

 
That (care homes) probably has as much to do with ability to find staff willing to do the job now that visa regulations are so much tougher that the source has dried up  and there’s little home-grown take up. After all - painting red crosses on mini-roundabouts is a much more valuable contribution to society than cleaning incontinent geriatrics, isn’t it.

 
Not one of our most participated polls - and no clear results that give a statistical bias one way or the other.    As pointed out, there IS a danger of judging others countries by our own standard and that is indeed a danger.  Firstly, all parties there may be happier with it than you might think as different does nt necessarily mean bad.   And secondly, who are we to impose our views and standards?

 
Here are the results ... with percentage of total voters selecting each option:


The thing that shouts out to me is that only one in three of you would gamble on being able to get home if your service was cancelled without alternative.   Which talks to me of the huge danger to actual traffic done by announcing that a train is cancelled, only to re-instate it later.   And the danger of having an unreliable service.  I note that our voting was skewed and in my view are members are resourceful and hardy - so that double up the sentiment to say that people will not risk the train if there's anything but a minimal change of it not being available.

It seems that most gambling is a minority interest only to members. Two specific area - investments (including premium bonds) and raffles do attract the majority of us.   I will admit to holding some premium bonds, and very sadly I haven't won a major prize this month so no million pounds to [inset life plan change] so life goes on.  And for the first time I took part in the Omaze drawn for the £3 million Cornish home and once again failed to win.  Looking at the house on Streetview and GoogleMaps, I don't actually know what we would have done with it had we won it; I suspect that the change to our daily norm would have been challenging which - I observe - is something of a norm for major prize winners.

 
DuckDuckGo is my usual choice. I've also toyed with Swisscows. At the moment it takes some coaxing to get it to come up with Coffeeshop on the first page of results.