Activists Briefing

Issue 32 - 15th November 2007

IN THE NEWS

A letter from Railfuture Chairman, Mike Crowhurst, about gauge clearance in Southampton tunnel and Reading station improvements was published in the November edition of Rail Professional.

NEWS FROM RAILFUTURE BRANCHES

The Autumn Meeting of Scottish Branch is at Jurys Inn, Jeffrey St., Edinburgh 250m from Waverley Station Market St exit on Sat 8th December 1400-1700. Speaker: Patrick Harvie, MSP. All welcome.

In their November newsletter Railfuture Scotland reported the sad news that Frank Neville has died at the age of 86. Frank was a strong advocate of railways for more than 50 years. He had been associated with the National Council for Inland Transport since its launch in 1962 when he represented the Scottish Railway Development Association (SRDA). The SRDA was a predecessor to the Scottish branch of RDS and Railfuture Scotland.

Railfuture East Anglia have put out a news release in a bid to counter the clamour for more and more lanes on the A14 east-west road across East Anglia. The release welcomed the announcement of £80million for the upgrade of the Peterborough to Nuneaton route enabling many more freight trains from the East Anglian Haven Ports cutting the need for many lorry movements along the entire length of the heavily congested A14. Railfuture East Anglia chairman, Peter Wakefield did a longish radio interview with Radio Suffolk about the upgrade.

Railfuture Lincolnshire vice chairman, David Harby, was interviewed by Lincolnshire Echo in connection with a front page story looking forward to the new East Midlands Trains franchise. David also had a long conversation with a reporter from Radio Lincolnshire briefing her on the franchising process and the benefits (very little!) that the new franchise would bring for Lincolnshire rail users .

BRANCH AGMs

The venue for the Railfuture East Anglia AGM has been changed to Cambridge due to the non availability of Bury St Edmunds Library. Would the branches without an AGM listed in Forthcoming Events please advise David Harby as soon as your AGM date is fixed.

DATA PROTECTION

When the RDS registration with the Information Commissioner's Office was renewed we were reminded of the steps we need to take to comply with the Data Protection Act. For all the information we hold on individuals we need to ask ourselves the following questions.

● Do I really need this information about an individual?
● Do I know what I am going to use it for?
● Do the people whose information I hold know that I've got it, and are they likely to understand what it will be used for?
● If I'm asked to pass on personal information, would the people whose information I hold expect me to do this?
● Am I satisfied the information is being held securely, whether it's on paper or on computer?
● Is access to personal information limited to those who absolutely need to know?
● Am I sure the personal information is accurate and up to date?
● Do I delete or destroy personal information as soon as I have no more need for it?

In addition to the membership database some information is held at branch level. Would all branch chairmen and secretaries please consider the information that they, and other branch officers, hold and ask themselves if they are meeting the above criteria. If you are in any doubt about Data Protection then contact David Harby for further advice.

ELY CONFERENCE 3RD NOVEMBER 2007

Railfuture East Anglia branch organised a very successful Rail User Group conference in Ely. 136 attendees heard excellent, thought provoking, presentations from the morning speakers combined with very informative short reports in the afternoon covering a wide range of topics ranging from reopening lines to fighting service cuts. See http://www.railfuture.org.uk/tiki-index.php?page=Rail%20Users%20Conference

ANNUAL DRAW

The main prizewinners in the 2007 Railfuture draw, which was drawn at Ely on 3rd November, were:
1st prize (£500) C. Bourner, 2nd prize (£200) J. Ward, 3rd prize (£100) M. Wade and 4th prize (£50) R. Kennedy.

RAILFUTURE CONFERENCES IN 2008

As mentioned in Briefing 30 we are planning a High Speed Rail conference in London in autumn 2008. A tentative offer to host a Rail Users' Conference in early July has been made but nothing is yet confirmed. If all goes well we hope to announce a date and venue in Wiltshire in next month's Briefing.

RAILWATCH SCHEDULE FOR 2008

Railwatch 115 ( 2008) has a last copy date on paper of 7th January and by email on 21st January. Railwatch 116 (July 2008) has a last copy date of 7th May. The last copy date for Railwatch 117 (October 2008) is 14th August and for Railwatch 118 (December) it is 27th October.

WALES FREIGHT STRATEGY

The Wales Freight Strategy Consultation, which will run for a period of 13 weeks from the 3 October 2007 to 4 January 2008, can be found at http://new.wales.gov.uk/consultations/currentconsultation/transcurrcons/1709071/?lang=en

Rowland Pittard is co-coordinating a submission on behalf of Railfuture Wales branches. Please send your comments to Rowlandpittard1 at yahoo.co.uk ASP

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT NEWS

FREIGHT FUNDING GRANTS ANOUNCED

On 29th October DfT announced £132m more funding to support freight. This is for four schemes to increase capacity and potentially remove around 300,000 lorry journeys per year. The schemes are Peterborough – Nuneaton, Southampton – Nuneaton, Humber Ports - the East Coast Main Line and West Coast Main Line and Liverpool Docks. Work is due to start in 2008 and be completed by 2011. For more detail see http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=326295&NewsAreaID=2

On 30th October DfT published a Command Paper – ‘Towards a Sustainable Transport System: Supporting Economic Growth in a Low Carbon World’ (Cm 7226) - setting out the Government’s approach to transport policy in light of the Eddington Study and the Stern Review. See http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/speechesstatements/statements/wmstransportframework http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/transportstrategy/ http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/modal/ and http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/intcomparisons/

The Invitations to Tender for some recently let franchises was put on the DfT website on 26th October. They are South West Trains (2006), New Cross Country and East Midlands. The other recent awards not yet published are West Midlands and InterCity East Coast. See: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passenger/invitationtotender/

LOCAL TRANSPORT BILL

After publishing a Draft Bill earlier in the year and inviting consultation responses the Government introduced the Bill to the House of Lords for First Reading on Wednesday 7 November. DfT have placed a lot of information on their website including the written consultation responses and even comment on the Bill taken from websites of other organisations. See http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/regional/localtransportbill/

ORR NEWS

On the ORR website is some proposed new risk management guidance.

● Internal guidance on the use of cost benefit analysis as part of assessing investments which reduce health and safety risks on Britain’s railways - letter to stakeholder
● Internal guidance on cost benefit analysis (CBA) in support of SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practical) decisions - Annex 1
● ORR guidance and general principles for assessing whether health and safety risks on Britain’s railways have been reduced so far as is reasonably practicable - Annex 2
● A report commissioned by ORR as part of their review of the cost benefit analysis guidance - Discount Rates for Rail Safety Scheme Appraisals - NERA
See http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1118

A Signals passed at danger (SPAD) Q3 report 2007 (issued 31 October) is at
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.00101400c00a003

NETWORK RAIL

On 1st November Network Rail published their Strategic Business Plan. Links to this and detailed, updated, Route Plans can be found at http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/4357.aspx

The Strategic Business Plan includes details of where the 1300 additional coaches in England and 180 in Scotland are to be deployed (page 44). Appendix 13 on Page 216, lists 96 "Candidate Stations for the National Stations Improvement program" is also worth noting. The main Business Plan even refers to "Infill Electrification" in a short paragraph on page 45. In West Midland Route Plan a possible short extension of the Cross City Electrification down to Bromsgrove.

SNIPPETTS

A new Railfuture Media Contacts list has been uploaded to the Railfuture website. See http://www.railfuture.org.uk/tiki-index.php?page=Contact+Us

Accessibility for All - Public Transport and Social Inclusion in Wales, July 2007.

A quarter of households in Wales do not have a car, which means that people from those households must rely on public transport to get to essential services. This report outlines ways in which accessibility in Wales might be improved, and ranges from recommendations to strengthen the regulation of public transport to work to tackle crime and improve quality.
See http://www.bevanfoundation.org/17.html