Cuts to rail services in Devon and Cornwall planned for next year have provoked widescale protests.
Branch services are being axed, main line trains are slower, and a few stations, such as Ivybridge and some on the Barnstaple branch, will have almost no service at all.
The Tories have blamed Transport Secretary Alistair Darling for the 2007 Greater Western timetable disaster and accused him of being "Son of Beeching".
First Great Western managing director Alison Forster met passengers at Taunton on 4 March.
She explained that First Group is a contractor delivering a service specified by the Department for Transport.
She said additional services can be run but only if their costs are covered by extra fares income or other sources of funding and the extra trains did not impair performance of other services in the timetable.
This leaves campaigners in the bizarre position that they have to prove that fares paid will cover the extra cost.
The alternative is to persuade local authorities or Government Office for the South West to fund them.
This latter approach may prove difficult with current local authority revenue funding levels and the Treasury’s aim to reduce the cost of railways to the taxpayer.
Getting the Government to accept less than First Group’s £1billion premium or First reducing profitability and dividend payments to its shareholders was not discussed.
However the audience generally agreed that pressure should be focused on MPs and ministers and in the press.
Andrew Seedhouse from Government Office for the South West indicated that First would be submitting the main points from the timetable consultation to him.
The Government could re-negotiate the franchise with First at the eleventh hour and agree to buy more services, or it may try to manage the media by placing press statements that the cuts are services that are not well used and there is better use for the funding involved.
Alistair Darling has already said as much in a letter to the Western Morning News.
Ms Forster said the timetable has to be fixed at the very latest by 27 April.
This gives First six to seven weeks to consider the feedback on the consultation. They have already received over 2,000 responses.
Once fixed there can be no major changes for a year.
Transport users forum chairman Chris Irwin urged passengers to send their responses to MPs asking them to be raised with Mr Darling.
On other issues excluding the timetable, Alison mentioned the following:
Some InterCity 125 trains sets will be reduced from eight to seven coaches. The seven-coach sets - without a buffet but with a trolley service - will be used on Paddington to Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford services.
The eight-coach sets will continue to be used on Swansea and Plymouth-Torbay-Penzance services with buffets.
Chris Irwin is hoping to arrange a special transport users forum meeting on either the 4 or 6 April inviting MPs to discuss the Greater Western franchise. This is likely to be held in the Wiltshire area.
Railfuture Devon and Cornwall has also invited Julian Crow from First Great Western to its AGM (which is open to non-members as well) on Saturday 8 April at 13:00.
This meeting will be at the Unitarian Church, Notte Street, Plymouth. Bearing in mind that First Group says that timetable service levels are specified by the Government rather than them, this meeting is likely to be about on-board facilities, publicity and station facilities.
However we may get some feedback on the issues raised by the consultation responses and of course will be happy to hear any views raised by the audience.
Information from Stuart Walker, Railfuture Devon and Cornwall