Railway Cuttings - Issue 82

18th January 2005

IN THE NEWS
The Eastern Daily Press ran an article on Friday 17 December 2004 concerning the punctuality figures for 'One' railway. The SRA had published punctuality figures for the whole UK network and said that "One" train performance on the London to Norwich Line had achieved 88.8 per cent compared with last year’s figure of 76.7. An increase of 11.4 per cent.

Our President was quoted in the paper as follows:
Peter Lawrence, Norwich-based president of rail user groups' group Railfuture, said; "I think this increase has shown that 'one" is performing well. We are very pleased there has been an improvement, but with the new timetable the slightly longer journey times are not welcomed by users."

On Saturday 18 December 2004 the Eastern Daily Press ran another story. This time there had been a suicide at Brentwood that caused the cancellation of three Norwich to London trains. Peter’s previous day’s comments were also repeated.

When new fares were introduced on 2nd January 2005 the Saver fare from Wymondham, Attleborough, Thetford and Brandon to London was expected to rise by nearly 10% to £27.40. Due to a mistake an incorrect fare of £33 was published instead. ‘One’ admitted the mistake but said it would take a week for the fare to be corrected on the Internet and NRES systems. Peter Lawrence was quoted in the EDP. “It is certainly a nuisance for rail passengers and we hope that ‘one’ will put this right as soon as possible”.

NEWS FROM RAILFUTURE BRANCHES
Over the Xmas period Brain Hastings, Chairman Lincolnshire branch, was interviewed by BBC Radio Lincs and Lincolnshire Echo concerning the Central Trains/ASLEF dispute and bus replacement services. Brian said that it should be possible to devise a way to resolve these sort of disputes without always inconveniencing the passengers. The part of the interview in which he said that there is also a need for much better publicity at unstaffed stations, where passengers are often not aware of the replacement bus times, was also carried on all the BBC Midlands local radio network.

Wessex branch are hoping to make progress towards forming a Heart of Wessex line user group at their AGM.

Railfuture Wales branches have expressed their concerns about passengers facing broken connections, longer journey times and higher fares. These have come about because the Arriva Trains Wales timetable was not altered to tie in with new Great Western timetables. Our concerns were expressed twice in the Western Mail and also ensured that branch members were interviewed in Radio broadcasts highlighting the disadvantages of the new timetable.

The RDS Wales publication “On track for the 21st Century – A development plan for the railways of Wales and the Borders” has been well received. Meetings have been held with Welsh Assembly politicians, rail operators and other interested parties. RDS Wales were pleased to hear members of the Welsh Assembly quote from the Plan at a WAG Economic Development and Transport Committee meeting on 13th January.

NEWS FROM THE SRA (1) - Great Western Main Line ‘Route Utilisation Strategy
The SRA launched their Great Western Main Line ‘Route Utilisation Strategy’ consultation on 12 January 2005. The Strategy aims to deliver:
 Over 800 more seats for peak-time Thames Valley commuters into London Paddington station – another 4% capacity increase over and above that introduced in December 2004;
 More frequent off-peak local services between London and Slough;
 Improved local and regional services across the wider Bristol, Cardiff and South West areas, including additional peak seating capacity, more regular pattern timetables and greater cross-Bristol journey opportunities;
 Further improvements to journey times on services between London, Exeter, Plymouth and beyond.
Many of the changes could be introduced with the start of the new Greater Western rail franchise in 2006; some could be introduced sooner. The proposals build on the improvements already introduced in December 2004 through the ‘wider benefits’ timetable, agreed between the SRA and First Group as a result of the new First Great Western Link (Thames Trains) franchise.

In order to deliver the Strategy’s benefits there would be a limited number of downsides:
A reduction in First Class seating capacity on some Thames Valley commuter services (to increase standard class capacity); reduced off-peak train frequencies on the lightly used Paddington – Greenford service (some trains diverted to increase Slough – London frequency); and a small reduction in the overall number of trains between Bristol and Penzance (eliminating duplication and introducing a more even-interval timetable).
The draft Strategy covers the short to medium-term period up to around 2012. Longer-term issues will be dealt with by the SRA’s Regional Planning Assessment for the South West, due to be published later in 2005.

The consultation document ‘Consultation – Great Western Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy’ can be found on the SRA’s website, www.sra.gov.uk, under ‘Publications’.

Railfuture Thames Valley branch will be leading our response. If other branches send a response to the SRA they must liase with Thames Valley and any other branch whose services may be affected by the comments so that the SRA do not receive conflicting views from different parts of Railfuture. South Wales branch wish to point out that it is important that their Development Plan for Wales is not compromised by any comments from elsewhere in Railfuture. Responses must with the SRA by 8 April 2005.

NEWS FROM THE SRA (2) - National Rail Trends July to September 2004 (Quarter 2)
On 16th December 2004 the National Rail Trends July to September 2004 (Quarter 2) were released. They highlight the best performance for four years. 83.3% of trains ran on time in Quarter 2, an increase of 2.5 percentage points, from 80.8% in the same period in 2003.

Other headline results:
 18 out of 24 train operating companies showed an improvement in performance during this period. The long distance sector showed the best improvement in performance figures, up by 12.1 percentage points to 79.0%, from 66.9% in July to September 2003. London and South East Operators (all day) increased performance by 4.7 percentage points, from 79.7% to 84.4%. Regional Operators showed a decrease of 1.5 percentage points, from 83.7% to 82.2%.
 Passenger kilometres (PKM) increased by 1.2% in July to September 2004 compared with July to September 2003. Passenger journeys increased by 1.5% over the same period.
 Freight moved (measured in net tonne kilometres) increased by 11.1% compared with the figure for July to September 2003. Total freight lifted, which accounts for weight but not distance moved, decreased by 2.3% over the same period.
 Complaints per 100,000 journeys between July and September 2004 decreased by 24% compared with the same period the previous year. London and South East Operators showed a decrease in complaints of 41% over the same period.
 The average age of rolling stock decreased by approximately one year between 30 June and 30 September 2004.
 The National Passenger Survey (NPS) shows that at a national level, overall satisfaction ratings are at their best since Spring 2000. 76% of passengers were very or fairly satisfied with their overall journey in the Autumn 2004 survey, compared to 73% in Autumn 2003. This improvement is being driven by the London and South East sector, which accounts for the majority of journeys made. The SRA say that passengers in this sector are traditionally the least satisfied and although this remains so, the gap narrowed significantly in autumn 2004. The proportion of passengers in London and the South East very or fairly satisfied with their journeys is at its highest level since the survey was set up in autumn 1999 (74%).

Source: SRA press release. National Rail Trends and National Passenger Surveys are on the Publications section of the SRA website www.sra.gov.uk

BIDDING PROCESS STARTS FOR GREATER WESTERN AND THAMESLINK/GREAT NORTHERN FRANCHISES
On 17th December 2004 the Government announced that Expressions of Interest have been invited for the Greater Western and the Thameslink/Great Northern franchises. Each of these franchises is planned to commence in April 2006 following expiry of current agreements.
The Greater Western franchise will have duration of ten years, of which the last three will be conditional upon achieving specified performance targets.
The Thameslink/GN franchise will be for a period of up to nine years:
- Continuation into years five and six will be dependent upon achieving set performance targets
- Continuation for up to a further three years will be dependent upon the progress of the Thameslink 2000 project.
Potential bidders must submit Expressions of Interest by 2nd February 2005.
The announcement states that as part of implementing the Government’s White Paper on the Future of Rail (July 2004), the Pre-Qualification process for these two franchises, and future franchises, will place a stronger emphasis on the past performance of the companies making Expressions of Interest.
A Supplier Accreditation Pack of documents is available on the SRA website: www.sra.gov.uk/pubs2/Fran_Replace
Source SRA press release

BRANCH AGM’s
I now have details of 9 Railfuture branch AGM’s. These are listed in Forthcoming Events. Would the other 8 branches please let me have their dates as soon as they are fixed?

GET A COPY OF “THE CASE FOR RAIL” ABSOLUTELY FREE
Thanks to sponsorship from South West Trains we are able to offer all members the chance to obtain a free copy of “The case for rail” by Norman Bradbury. All you have to do is introduce a potential new member to us and tell myself (David Harby) that you wish to claim your free copy. I will send you your copy as soon as I receive their membership application form. Thanks are also due to Martin Cobley of Beeston for submitting a letter to Rail magazine recommending the booklet. His letter is published in Rail 505.

A SUCCESSFULL START TO ISLAND LINE RAIL-LINK BUS
At a recent Isle of Wight Quality Transport Partnership meeting Councillor Ernie Fox, Transport Portfolio Holder, reported that the new rail-link bus (Wightbus service 16) connecting Shanklin station with Ventnor, which had started operation on 4 October, had carried 5000 passengers in its first 10 weeks of operation and declared it to be "a resounding success". (To be a commercial success it needs to carry about 1200 passengers a week, but is expected to achieve this as its first 10 weeks of operation have been at a quiet time of the year for tourists.) Steve Wade of Island Line reported that the Ventnor bus link would be added to the national rail fares system in January and it would appear on rail maps in the summer, and was pleased that it had attracted additional passengers to the railway.

The only bad news is that the service ceased to serve Bonchurch village after just 2 days after some buses had been unable to pass badly parked cars on the narrow roads and the decision was made to divert the service away from the village to ensure rail connections at Shanklin are maintained. Bonchurch residents signed a petition protesting at this and continue to campaign for their rail link (their first since the "Ventnor Rocket" horse-drawn stagecoach was withdrawn when the railway was originally extended to Ventnor!) to be reinstated, but so far unsuccessfully.

RDS ELECTIONS
Nomination papers for the election of Officers and Board Members are now available from John Lee. All Nominations must be completed and returned to John by 28th February 2005. Since Elisabeth Jordan did not seek re-election as Membership secretary last year there have not been any female members on the Board. Nominations from female members would therefore be especially welcome, as would nominations from younger members, and from branches that currently do not have a Board member. Board meetings are held every two months and currently usually alternate between London and Birmingham/Leicester. Alternative locations could be chosen if these are more convenient for the new Board members.

Would all branch Chairmen and Secretaries please spread this information among their branch members.

Members are reminded that our Treasurer, Tony Sheward, has announced his intention not to seek re-election. Any prospective Treasurers are welcome to contact Tony should they wish to find out more about the duties involved.

RAILWAYS BILL 2004
We are continuing to lobby for changes to be made to the Railways Bill. A full-page letter from Mike Crowhurst and Richard Pout is published in Rail 505. Individual members and branches have written to their MP’s and received a variety of responses from basic acknowledgements to requests for more information. Other members with political affiliations have raised the issue within their respective parties. A delegation from Railfuture will be meeting Minister of State at the DfT, Mr Tony McNulty MP, shortly and the Bill is one of the topics we will be raising.

The response I received from my MP, who is a Labour member of the Standing Committee considering the Bill, consisted of a ‘Factsheet’ which made no mention of any of the issues I had raised in my letter to her. She has been sent another email asking for a proper reply.

Please continue to raise the issue with MP’s and Peers whenever you have the opportunity. As a reminder some of the issues that we are asking to be reconsidered are:

 Missing from the Bill is any continuation of the SRA's duty to "promote the use, and development, of the railway network for the carriage of passengers and goods". A notable exception is Scotland where the Scottish Executive gets a duty to develop strategies for the railways. There would be no body with the power to promote and co-ordinate private and public investment in railfreight projects. There is no mention of any co-ordination between rail and bus services.
 With the exception of Merseytravel the PTEs are to lose their powers to specify and manage rail franchises.
 The 23 clauses on ‘Network Modifications’ i.e. closures. The Secretary of State must produce guidance for closures under Section 42. This guidance will be very important as it forms the criteria against which the validity of any closure proposal will be judged. Alistair Darling may give any number of assurances about what will be in these criteria but any following SoS is apparently at liberty to issue new guidance. If this or any future government decide that they want mass closures of the rail network they only have to issue new guidance and there would be no way of stopping closures providing they fitted the new criteria.
 Disbanding the regional RPCs without replacing them with any local objective voice on service delivery.

RAIL USERS CONFERENCE 2005
A venue has been found for the 2005 Rail users conference. It will be in the Mechanics Institute, Manchester on 5th November 2005.

NEW MULTI-USER RAIL FREIGHT SERVICE BETWEEN MOSSEND AND FORT WILLIAM
On 13th January 2005 EWS announced that it had introduced a new multi-user rail freight return service on Saturdays between Mossend on the M8 motorway in central Scotland and Fort William in the West Highlands. The new service builds on the current five times a week service, and now means that businesses with small volumes in the West Highlands will be able to book space on a multi-user rail freight service six days a week (Monday - Saturday).

The EWS website contains full details of the company's wagonload services on the following link:
http://www.ews-railway.co.uk/services/services_logistics_wagonload.asp
Source EWS press release

TRANSPORT WATCH
Several of our members have drawn attention to a series of advertisements that have appeared recently under the name of “Transport Watch”. These appeared in the New Statesman in December and Private Eye this month. We have confirmed with the advertising managers that these are paid adverts, which was not immediately apparent.

At least one of our members has already lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority. Our Chairman, Mike Crowhurst, has also written to the ASA giving our formal support to the complaint. We are urging other members who have strong feelings about these adverts to lodge their own complaint. This link will take you straight to the ASA online complaint form. http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

Adrian Lyons, Director General of the Railway Forum, has put together an excellent rebuttal of the advert. This is published in Rail 505.

LTUC RESPONSE TO BRIGHTON MAIN LINE RUS
The LTUC response can be seen on their website at http://www.ltuc.org.uk/view_document.php?id=1727 In a polite way they are saying that the SRA had not done their homework properly and their investigations are at variance with the SRA.

RAILWAY SAFETY SERVICES PLUS ACCIDENTS
This is the title of a day school organised by the Workers' Educational Association, Eastern District, that will be held at Wensum Lodge, Norwich on Saturday 16 April 2004. The event will look at the accidents that took place, the stubbornness of some companies to make improvements, the role of trade unions and Parliament in improving safety on railways. Looking at railway safety devices and declining passenger fatality figures on railways - with comparisons made with road traffic accident fatalities. I heard the Tutor, Adrian Vaughan, give an excellent talk to the Lincoln Railway Society last year and can thoroughly recommend him.