Railway Cuttings - Issue 80
16th November 2004
IN THE NEWS
On Wednesday 20 October 2004 Railfuture President, Peter Lawrence, was invited to the launch of the new range of restaurant menus aboard 'One' restaurant car leaving at 10.00 from Norwich to Liverpool Street.
80% of the food provided by ‘One’ in its Restaurant Cars comes from local suppliers. The breakfast fare consisted of a choice of Kedgeree, Lowestoft Kippers, Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs, Novia Scotia and of course the Great British Breakfast. Peter settled for the Great British Breakfast of Porridge, Smoked bacon rashers, grilled organic Suffolk sausages, scrambled eggs, black pudding, sauté mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, hash browns and fried bread. This was followed by numerous cups of coffee and buttered toast. As you can imagine it was an excellent start to the day.
During the journey Peter was singled out by the BBC TV crew on board to give an interview on the excellent breakfast provided. His comments were, of course, “very good”.
REQUEST FOR *EVIDENCE* THAT PEOPLE PREFER TRAIN-TRAIN TRANSFER RATHER THAN BUS-TRAIN TRANSFER
This is a plea for anyone who has evidence, as opposed to opinions, on why a train-train interchange is more attractive to passengers than a bus-train interchange. Jerry Alderson is asking for evidence about the benefit of local branch lines as feeders to main lines, and why they are better than replacing them by buses, even a "high quality" bus service.
He needs some research that shows that a person taking a train journey involving a cross-platform change, rather than taking a bus to the station, has a positive effect, such as more people taking the train or fewer people using their car.
This is very urgent because Jerry is trying to write something for the inspector at the Cambridgeshire Guided Bus public inquiry, and it has only two more weeks to run. Information to
NEWS FROM RAILFUTURE BRANCHES
Lincolnshire branch chairman, Brian Hastings, was quoted extensively in the local media on November 2nd when he condemned cutbacks on the TPE network and the bustitution of services on the Barton on Humber branch. A 46 minute rail journey takes over 2 hours by bus. What was particularly annoying was that these changes were imposed with only a few days warning and First Group was blaming leaf fall whereas it was well known locally that there was an ongoing industrial dispute with the drivers. Following a local outcry services on the Barton branch were reinstated on 8th November.
Following a request from Midlands branch the Railfuture board have agreed that henceforth the branch will be known as West Midlands branch.
CENTRAL TRAINS FRANCHISE TO BE BROKEN UP
The Secretary of State for Transport announced on 19th October that following the expiry of the current Central franchise in 2006 it would be broken up. There was no definite information given about which lines will be transferred to which franchise. Source: http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_about/documents/page/dft_about_032240.hcsp
TRANSLINK PUBLIC ENQUIRY DUE TO BEGIN ON 15TH FEBRUARY 2005
Luton Borough Council in partnership with Bedfordshire County Council are promoting the Translink busway to serve Dunstable and Luton. The latest edition of their newsletter, Translink Express, reports as follows:
The public inquiry into the Translink application will begin on 15 February 2005 in the Council Chamber at Luton Town Hall and is likely to run for about 4-6 weeks. Information Sheet No.3, explaining more about the public inquiry process, will be published shortly. All the documents likely to be referred to by the Council in its case for the scheme are available for public inspection at the Central Library in Luton and at South Bedfordshire District Council’s offices in Dunstable.
To enable people to keep up to date with progress up to the Public Inquiry and proceedings once it begins, the promoters have created a new area on their website dedicated to the inquiry. They say that in the interests of unbiased reporting, the text for these pages will be independently edited and updated by the Programme Officer’s team. Visit www.translinkexpress.org.uk/inquiry01home.htm. Source: http://www.translinkexpress.org.uk/newscurrent.htm
COURT OF APPEAL BACKS DISABLED RAIL USER
Readers may remember the court case in which a disabled rail user took Central Trains to court because he could not catch Norwich bound trains at Thetford except by travelling ½ mile along country roads. Central Trains offered disabled passengers free travel to Ely, 30 miles away in the opposite direction, where they could cross the tracks, change trains and then travel to Norwich.
A County Court judge backed Central Trains when it refused to pay for a taxi to reach the desired platform.
The Court of Appeal has now overturned this decision. Lord Justice Sedley added that the ruling was limited to this specific case and would not set a precedent. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/3984199.stm
Whilst not wishing to oppose the many good outcomes of disability legislation this judgement could impose extra costs on TOC’s. These will have to be paid for by somebody and, unless the SRA/DfT allocates additional cash to the TOC’s, finance will have to come from fares or cost cutting elsewhere.
RSSB RAILWAY GROUP STANDARDS HTTP://WWW.RGSONLINE.CO.UK/RAIL/MAIN.HTML
This site contains copies of Railway Group Standards, Codes of Practice, Guidance Notes and Manuals etc. A quick random search of the site found such things as Infrastructure requirements at stations, design of station platforms and requirements for the design, construction, inspection, maintenance, operation and decommissioning of level crossings.
At the Rail User’s Conference David Keay, Principle Inspector HMRI, told us that Railway Safety Cases will also soon be available on the Internet. A site well worth bookmarking for future reference.
NEWS FROM THE SRA
The SRA response to their consultation on services between Saltburn/Middlesbrough and Newcastle from December 2005 is on the SRA website. The main conclusion is that they can see no reason to make further substantial alterations to the services. Railfuture North East branch made representations to the SRA on this issue and these were taken seriously enough to justify the SRA response to them being included in the documents now on the website. http://www.sra.gov.uk/publications/consultation_default
INTERCITY EAST COAST FRANCHISE CONSULTATION
The parties bidding for the ICEC franchise are currently carrying out consultations with stakeholders. Their bids have to be with the SRA by 6th December 2004. Railfuture branches along the route have been in touch with each other so as to present a consistent ‘wish list’ to the bidders.
SURREY C.C. LEAD THE WAY IN HELPING BUS PASSENGERS FIND THEIR STATION
Bus stops serving rail stations in Surrey will soon have new signs displaying the National Rail logo and the name of the station that the stop serves. Bus users who are new to the area will then know where to alight even if the station is not visible from the bus.
The council had to obtain special permission from the DfT to erect the signs. Source: Surveyor magazine 28 October.
TRANSPORT CO-ORDINATION IN PUBLIC INTEREST SAYS CFIT
In response to the Competition Commission's recent inquiries into big group ownership of major rail franchises the Commission for Integrated Transport has issued a report setting out its perspective of what would be in the public's interest.
Professor David Begg, CfIT's Chair, said: "The real competition for transport operators is the car. They have no choice but to compete with it as existing core markets would otherwise shrink as car ownership grows. Many journeys involve more than one form of transport. Joining up those journeys gives customers more seamless, co-ordinated journeys at a more reasonable price."
The report found that:
Co-ordination reduces perceived and actual journey time, particularly where a change of service is needed to complete a journey
Through ticketing and network ticketing cuts the price of fares for passengers who need to change services and that
Inter operator competition in itself does not offer the service enhancements that greater co-operation can provide.
Source: CfIT press release http://www.cfit.gov.uk/pn/041025/index.htm
RAILFUTURE MEDIA CONTACTS 2005
An updated Media Contacts Card will be printed shortly. Copies will be distributed to the National Media from the Railfuture office. Six copies will be sent to each Branch Contact to enable branches to distribute them to their own local media. If any branch needs additional copies please email Keith Dyall ASAP.
RAILFUTURE ANNUAL DRAW 2004
Winners in the draw held at the Rail Users Conference on 6th November were:
£500 - Mrs M. Walde, Shrewsbury; £200 - D.J. Gammage, I.O.W.; £100 - Mr & Mrs C. Bourner, Stockport; £50 - R.C. Caston, Newport; £10 – F.A. & Mrs S.M. Connolly, Ely, R.H. Perkins, Southsea, W. Ebbett, Bath, R. Foster, Newport, I. Yates, Colchester, P.J. Hobart, Warrington, J. Tucker, Leamington Spa and W. Stoneham, Maidstone.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF RPC’S
In the “Future of Rail” White Paper the government proposes abolition of Regional RPC’s but does say that a regional presence will be maintained.
A decision is due to be made shortly as to the form that this regional presence will take. There may still be time to influence this decision and members are urged to write to their M.P.’s stressing that rail users need a strong local voice. At the Rail Users’ Conference many members favoured the option of regional public transport user’s forums bringing together public transport users, transport authorities and operators. As these would cover all modes of transport they would have a wider remit than the current RPC’s do.
Similar forums are already in place in some parts of the country. The South West Public Transport Users Forum was established in 2001. One of their actions has been to organise jointly with others a seminar to address concerns that multi operator tickets and travelcards were difficult to deliver in accordance with Competition Law. The OFT have now provided clearer guidance.
RAIL RE-OPENINGS TOOLKIT LAUNCHED
The Countryside Agency launched its ‘Rail Re-openings Toolkit’ in Leeds on Friday October 15th. It is a guide to the process of re-opening a disused railway and has been put together by the Independent Railway Consultancy, based in York. ACoRP had a considerable input to the publication and is now responsible for its distribution. It aims to provide local authorities, campaigners and other interested parties with a clear guide to the long and tortuous process of re-opening a railway. It is available from ACoRP price £5. Details from: http://www.acorp.uk.com/times.htm Source: Train on Line 20 The electronic newsletter of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships
Also in ‘Train on Line 20’, ACoRP are reporting that the Strategic Rail Authority’s Community Rail Strategy is expected to be launched soon.
RAILWAY FORUM THIRD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR
Chaired by the Railway Forum’s Paul Kirk, this event on 19th October was of great interest to Railfuture’s representative, Norman Bradbury. A few key points from the day are:
There needs to be a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions over the next 50 years to stabilise climate change.
The automobile R&D budget is 100 times greater than rail.
Oil prices are unlikely ever to fall below $40 a barrel again.
Rail privatisation has complicated the introduction of optional low sulphur fuels as dual fuelling points would be prohibitively expensive and a switch from gas oil to low sulphur motor fuel would have to be done with an industry wide “Big Bang” operation.
Cliff Perry, Managing Director, AEA Technology Rail, commented that economic growth will be choked if rail capacity is not increased – electrification will become increasingly important. It was disappointing that the seemed to be a general lack of enthusiasm for electrification by other speakers.
We must make better use of the capacity we already have by ensuring services are better used and by running longer trains.
There are currently 50 or so daily flights between London and Manchester. Most passengers on this route are making inter flight connections at Heathrow but there is currently no proposal for a train service from Manchester and Manchester Airport to Heathrow and Paddington.
A copy of Norman’s report can be obtained from david.harby at ntlworld.com.
RE-OPENINGS CONFERENCE 2005
The 2005 re-openings conference will be held in Barry Welfare Hall on 2nd July. If all goes to plan this should be just after passenger services start on the Vale of Glamorgan line.
RAIL USERS’ CONFERENCE 2005
The 26th Conference held in Birmingham on 6th November 2004 was well attended. November 5th 2005 has been reserved for the 27th National Conference of Rail Users and it is hoped that this will again be held out of London. Would any branch like to host it?
WILLINGTON ROWING LAKE
Readers may remember that the Bedfordshire Railway and Transport Association (BRTA) is fighting a proposal to construct a rowing lake across the trackbed of the Bedford to Sandy section of the proposed East West Rail Link. A report into the proposed lake has been produced by Humbert Leisure for Bedfordshire County Council. BRTA have produced a critique of this report. For more details contact BRTA. http://brta.org.uk/
MAPLE PROJECT SEEKS GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES
There was recently a presentation to the Access Association by "MAPLE: Improving Mobility and Accessibility for People with Learning Difficulties in Europe", it is a European Commission project as part of its activities for the 2003 European Year for People with Disabilities.
Merseytravel are responsible for co-ordinating the project. Other partners include Lund University, Sweden, and Dominic Fells a Parisian professor. They are producing a pamphlet shortly with their findings.
The guide pulls together examples of best practice from throughout Europe. The Guidance will cover three main areas; i) Training of public staff;
ii) Travel awareness programmes and;
iii) Providing an easy to use travel environment.
Unfortunately, most of the examples are British as we appear to have more examples of good practice than elsewhere in Europe. There are though some examples from Sweden and Prague. If there are any examples of good transport access of which you are aware relating to these 3 themes, please let David Skelton know.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Saturday 20th November
Railfuture Scottish Branch Meeting. Quality (Central Station) Hotel, Glasgow at 14.00. Speaker is Alistair Watson (Chair of Strathclyde PTA)
Saturday 27th November
Railfuture International Committee meeting, VAT & Fiddle, Nottingham at 13.00.
Saturday 4th December
Railfuture Passenger Committee meeting, VAT & Fiddle, Nottingham
Railfuture East Anglia branch meeting, Little St. Mary's Church Hall, Trumpington St. Cambridge at 14.00. Lord Berkeley of the Rail Freight Group is guest speaker. Details from branch secretary Nick Dibben.
Saturday 8th January 2005
Railfuture Board meeting, Birmingham.
Saturday 15th January 2005
Railfuture Freight Committee meeting, venue TBA
Railfuture Yorkshire branch meeting, Trades and Labour Club, Doncaster at 14.00
Saturday 22nd January 2005
Railfuture Network Development Committee meeting, venue TBA
Saturday 12th February 2005
Railfuture North West branch AGM, Stretton Hotel, Blackpool at 11.00.
Saturday 5th March
Railfuture Passenger Committee meeting, Calthorpe Arms, London
Saturday 12th March 2005
Railfuture Board meeting, London
19th March 2005
Railfuture Yorkshire branch AGM and luncheon, Huddersfield at 11.00 approx.
2nd July 2005
Re-openings Conference, Barry Welfare Hall, S.Wales
5th November 2005
Rail Users’ Conference