Railfuture sets out its views on how flexible season tickets might work for a mid-2021 launch date; we propose a flexible ticket providing 10 single journeys, to be used within 2 weeks and priced the same as a weekly season. This will meet the needs of the hybrid worker, who post Covid will split their time between home and the workplace. Image from Network Rail - Leeds station - plenty of passengers, one of the lifebloods of the railway

One of our Directors, Ian Brown, took out a camera to see if people were returning to rail for off peak shopping and leisure travel in East London on Wednesday 26 August. This is what he saw. Photo by Getty Images / Rail Delivery Group.

Better value fares, new ticketing options and aggressive marketing initiatives are needed to attract passengers back to rail after COVID-19. South Western Railway passenger won £5,500 in Touch Smartcard prize draw. Image by South Western Railway.

Jane Ann Liston, Secretary, Railfuture Scotland explains why we must attract people back to rail after COVID-19. ScotRail covers train faces to encourage passengers to do the same.

Have our railways suffered another collective nervous breakdown with such strong messages so openly discouraging sustainable travel - by train? Since the DfT is funding all the franchises, has it lost all faith in its own services? The messaging is negative and inconsistent, even contradictory, not conditional encouragement – in sharp contrast to all other modes. Passengers may feel unwelcome or unsafe, and may be unable to travel. The comparison with air travel is stark.

A Railfuture scheme to encourage further investment in making stations user friendly for all, initiated by our East Anglia branch. The new waiting room at Audley End station, our category 1 winner.

New ticket gates cause a furore in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Harbour gateline: pass down to the end and turn left to access the ferry terminal.

Toby Hart was a Network Rail train planner based at Leeds. This letter is his submission to the Rail Delivery Group and the Office of Rail and Road inquiry into the disruption following the May 2018 timetable changes. It backs up Railfuture’s contention that Network Rail’s reorganisation of the timetable planning function to reduce costs (at DfT’s direction) and centralise at Milton Keynes contributed to the failure of the timetable through a loss of expertise and insufficient iterations of the timetable process to resolve conflicts in the proposed timetable. Image: Official TfGM Twitter announcement on 19 May 2018.

Railfuture briefing by Ian Brown, Railfuture Policy Director, on the December timetable ‘cutbacks’ announced by the Rail Delivery Group today, 10 July 2018. Image by About Manchester