Activists Briefing Issue 26

22nd May 2007

IN THE NEWS

The deadline for Eurotunnel’s shareholders to tender their bid offer units was 15 May, or bankruptcy awaited. Railfuture used this occasion to issue a press release reviewing the current Channel Tunnel services.

We pointed out that it is with the classic train services where the greatest scope for expansion lies. There should be more rail-freight services to and from European destinations, instead of the current four services a day.

We welcomed the move of Eurostar services from Waterloo to St Pancras in November. However we condemned Eurostar’s decision to reduce the calls at Ashford to 4 trains a day each way, against 10-12 today, thus forcing more Kent passengers to use the new Ebbsfleet station instead even though this has no domestic train access until 2009.

We also reminded readers that there were once plans for direct day and night trains from Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Plymouth, Cardiff, Bristol, to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. We still feel that some of these services should be provided. They could be economically viable if domestic and international passengers were allowed to use the same trains. Further destinations such as Frankfurt and Lyons should be aimed for.

Railfuture Director and International Committee member Ian McDonald took the lead on this topic and received 2 phone calls and 2 emails soon after the press release was issued.

One email exposed a ludicrous fares absurdity. The writer needed to travel to Paris for a business meeting and as he lives near Ashford and he thought he would take the Eurostar from Ashford in the morning and return home in the evening.

The Eurostar website quoted £233 return in standard class. The Eurostar ticket desk at Ashford station also quoted £233 return. He asked them if the train was full and the girl laughed and said it is barely half full! The writer then booked himself and his car through on the Eurotunnel for £54 return, parked his car free of charge at Calais Frethun station and paid 92.50 Euros for a return to Paris which brings the cost down by over 50% on a similar timed journey.

Now here is the funny side of the story. The train he got on in Calais Frethun was the exact same Eurostar he would have paid double for if he had caught it in Ashford. He had a carriage pretty much to myself and had beaten the system!

The Kent on Sunday paper phoned Ian to seek our views on the plans by Air France to run a rail service in competition with Eurostar from 2010 under the new EU legislation. Ian had not heard of this, but reacted by saying that, although we had "good relations" with Eurostar (!) the introduction of a competitive rail service might ensure that passengers were not ignored, and that Ashford might get a better service than proposed in Nov 2007, and cheaper "walk on" fares than at present.

Railfuture Media spokesman, Peter Lawrence, had a telephone call from the Sun newspaper on 30 April concerning the high fares on Eurostar. They had received complaints from their readers. It appears that fares are 50% higher to UK citizens compared to anyone from Japan or the USA.

Peter was also telephoned by Q103 Radio Station in Cambridge about proposed cuts in service from Royston to Kings Cross.

The Daily Express telephoned Peter regarding the story that South Eastern Trains could start weighing passenger trains in an effort to control over crowding of trains. There are many pitfalls to introducing such a scheme, which Peter pointed out.

Financial Times sought Railfuture views on opening of St Pancras for Eurostar Trains. What affect would this have on air flights between London and Europe?

Once again the overhead lines at Ingatestone came down. The Eastern Daily Press came on to Peter for comments. He said it was "A darn nuisance" and it was likely to occur again until the overhead is replaced between Liverpool Street and Chelmsford. Work on replacing the overhead is due to commence this year and this would of course mean more delays and possessions as the work is carried out.

Railfuture Chairman, Mike Crowhurst, has had an article published in Rail Professional putting the Railfuture viewpoint on rail safety issues such as seatbelts on trains. A letter from Mike about how transport can contribute to combating climate change was published in Local Transport Today 467. This put forward the view that transport should not be exempt from carbon dioxide cuts and that we should start a programme of rail electrification now rather than belatedly when renewably generated power comes on stream.

NEWS FROM RAILFUTURE BRANCHES AND COMMITTEES

David Harby has almost finished collating a document giving a summary of the activities from all Railfuture branches during 2006. When the three outstanding branches send him details of their activities the document can be finalised and made available to members.

Railfuture Passenger Committee has agreed future meeting dates of 30th June 2007, 22nd September 2007, 1st December 2007, 23rd March 2008 and 22nd June 2008.

NEWS FROM RDS AGM, PRESTON

Unfortunately Richard Watts, the speaker for the morning session, had to withdraw due to a family bereavement. At very short notice Railfuture Vice Chairman, Jerry Alderson, stepped in and gave a presentation entitled “New technology as it relates to passengers” which ranged over issues such as Oyster Cards, printing own tickets, mobile phone tickets and car parking by mobile phone. Jerry and David Sidebottom, Passenger Focus manager for Northern then answered questions and led a lively discussion on new technology and ticketing in general.

Officers and Directors for 2007-8 are:
Chairman: Mike Crowhurst
Vice Chairman: Jerry Alderson
Treasurer: Bob Imrie
Other Directors: Andrew MacFarlane, Ray King, Roland Pittard, Philip Bisatt, H Trevor Jones, David Redgewell, Clara Zilahi, Ian McDonald and Trevor Garrod.
There were no nominations for the posts of Membership Secretary and Sales Officer.

The meeting agreed to Special Resolutions that will implement changes which were first suggested in a motion at the Newcastle AGM in 2004. As from the 2008 AGM the Board will consist of Chairman and 9 directors voted for by the membership. The Chairman will be elected annually and Directors will serve for three years. Transitional arrangements will apply so that three Directors are elected each year. The Board will have the power to co-opt 2 additional directors. This will, for example, give the Board the opportunity to co-opt someone from any area that is not represented or, if the opportunity arises, introduce gender and ethnic diversity to the Board.

The Board from among their membership will elect the Vice-Chairman. The Board will appoint the posts of Treasurer, Membership Secretary and Sales Officer. This enables the Board to ensure that the post holders have the specific skills necessary to carry out the tasks involved. Elected Directors may be appointed to these posts.

RAILFUTURE RAIL REOPENINGS CONFERENCE, GLASGOW

There is still time to book for the Rail Reopenings Conference at Renfield St Stephen, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP on 23rd June 2007. If you have lost your booking form, sent with the last Railwatch, a new one can be downloaded from the Railfuture website or you can book online at http://www.railfuturescotland.org.uk/conference.

DFT NEWS

DfT have released a large number of papers covering all the existing Franchise Contracts. They appear to have decided that these should have been in the public domain all the time! They are in a new section titled 'Public Register'.

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL

ATOC have now published their proposed "25 schemes to unlock the potential of the rail network" under the title "Exploring the Potential”. This discussion paper is available on their website as a 58 page, 5 Mbyte download. http://www.atoc-comms.org/atoc-publications-and-factsheets.php

They do invite comments; so it would seem very appropriate that branches write in support of those schemes that ATOC have identified in their branch area that Railfuture supports and suggest others that they have missed.

NETWORK RAIL NEWS

The North West Route Utilisation Study has been released and can be downloaded from the Network Rail website.

Network Rail are looking for new Public Members of the Network Rail Board. An application pack can be ordered from http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/721.aspx or by phone from 0870 060 3957. Closing date for applications is 15 June 2007

OFFICE OF RAIL REGULATION NEWS

A report giving details of Station Usage data for the financial year 2005/06 are now available on the ORR website. An accompanying spreadsheet contains the data itself.

In the Executive Summary the writers of the report say “the Station Usage results are broadly in line with those for earlier years. The total numbers of entries and exits have increased slightly since the last set of data produced for 2004/05. However, there is a slight decrease in the total number of passengers interchanging at stations.”

This year’s work includes some improvements to the methodology. Making use of the 2001 London Area Transport Survey assumptions about which terminal stations passengers use with tickets to London BR or with Travelcards valid in Zone I (i.e. where the station used is not specified on the ticket) have been improved. Updated assumptions when dealing with flows involving a London Travelcard, excluding travel in Zone 1 have been used.

See http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1529 to download the report and Excel spreadsheet

Peter Cousins has spent a couple of days correcting numerous errors in the allocation of Stations to Local Government Regions - including no less than six Scottish stations listed under Nottinghamshire - and he now has a comparable file to last year.

Putting the listing into consistent Counties will take a few days more as the consultants paid to do this work have re-invented Avon, totally messed up the boundaries of Yorkshire & Humberside and seem totally unaware of any Unitary authorities.

Meanwhile a pdf file is available from david.harby at ntlworld.com giving the broad split of totals by Region with last year's growth shown alongside for comparison.

SNIPPETTS

Transport for London (TfL) has recently re-launched its TfL.gov.uk website giving it a new design and user-focussed content structure. The website now focuses on four main content areas:

Latest travel news and information
Maps and Journey Planning
Fares and tickets including Oyster
Road user information including Congestion Charging

Visit tfl.gov.uk to view the redesigned website.
Source: email from TfL

In an email from Passenger Focus they tell us that PF is calling on South West Trains, Britain’s biggest train company, to explain its huge increases in off-peak fares which come into effect on 20 May. South West Trains’ announcement that some fares are to increase by as much as 20% will hit the wallets of hundreds of thousands of rail passengers.

PF are currently running a poll on our website at www.passengerfocus.org.uk to find out how such fare rises might affect travel behaviour, as well as a survey where passengers can tell PF in more detail how the price hikes will affect them. To take part in the poll and survey please follow the link below:
http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/your-experiences/polls-and-surveys.asp

An A5 Railfuture membership leaflet has recently been circulated with the Friends of Settle to Carlisle Line newsletter. This is identical to the 'ticket style' A5 leaflet recently distributed with RAIL magazine. Extra copies have been printed and supplies can be obtained from David Harby.