News and Views

Railfuture had campaigned for decades for the Borders Railway (or at least part of it) to be rebuilt. It was not alone. The reopening was a popular campaign, supported by many, including David Spaven who is a consultant and writer on railways. Very welcome as the half-hourly service is, there have been foreseeable problems with the service and Mr Spaven described these in an article published in The Scotsman on 5 September 2016. All photos by Jerry Alderson.

Where there is no ticket machine or station staff selling tickets passengers should be able to buy any ticket or group of tickets they require from on-board staff. Railfuture believes it is unacceptable for a passenger to regularly have to queue up at their destination to buy a ticket a ticket, yet it happens all too often. Photo: Phil Smart

Railfuture has campaigned for decades for a bigger and better railway so that more people are encouraged to use it. Although rail patronage has doubled in the last 20 years the amount of rail infrastructure and the number of carriages has not. This has inevitably led to higher levels of overcrowding that must be solved. The D-Train is one small part of the solution.

Railfuture has spent decades campaigning for new railway stations to open and for closed ones to reopen. If proof were needed that Railfuture is effective, more than 400 stations have (re)opened in that time. Of course, it’s also important that the stations are ‘up to scratch’. Edinburgh Gateway Interchange station will open in December 2016 and a video (screenshot from it) shows what to expect.

Since November 2015 Eurostar has been operating its new 320km/h 'e320' trains (left), initially only on the London-Paris route before being rolled out onto the Brussels service as well. They were purchased to allow Eurostar to operate new services including to Amsterdam. Passengers should notice an improvement in the on-board experience compared to the old Class 373 TMST (“transmanche super train”) trains (right) dating back to 1994.

Rail users may feel that London gets the majority of the investment and other parts of Britain are poorly served but some of the most passenger-focused stations are far from London. Carlisle station, on the West Coast Main Line, sets an example that other parts of the country should follow, particularly when it comes to providing adequate seating (including cushioned seats on platforms – a rare sight) and canopies to the end of a platform.

The vast majority of rail tickets sold in Britain are singles, returns and seasons. Few passengers are aware of ranger (single day) and rover (multiple days, either contiguous or X out of Y days) tickets that allow unlimited travel within a geographic area, or the entire British network in the case of the All-Line Rover. They can be good value for money and are often an ideal way to get to know a region. Felixstowe is one of five East Anglian seaside towns that can be visited with an Anglia Plus Day Ranger. The others are Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer and Sheringham. This view of Felixstowe seafront is just ten minutes’ walk from the platform at Felixstowe station.

A capacity boost was provided for hard-pressed Southern commuters on 25 July 2016 when the first 10-car train ran on the Uckfield line. Network Rail has been performing a series of enhancemrnts on the route including platform extensions. Edenbridge Town, for example, has an extended platform, new passenger shelters and customer information screens (photo above by Roger Blake).

Thanks to a tramway building spree that has ended, Britain now has seven tram systems, all of which have substantial populations (apart from Blackpool – the only one that had never closed). Whilst extensions are being planned there are no new ones. In Denmark, where all of its tram system had closed (the last was Copenhagen, in 1972), it is now building it first new one, in Aarhus (tram vehicle and new tram bridge pictured – photos by Erland Egefors) for a population far smaller than the new systems in Britain. Is there a lesson here?

Railfuture’s Freight Group head, Peter Wakefield, looks at the possible impact on the fragile and volatile railfreight market following the decision on 23 June 2016 by 51.9% of those who voted (37.4% of the electorate) in the UK’s referendum to choose ‘Brexit’.