Activists Briefing Issue 11

18th February 2006

IN THE NEWS

Railfuture President and media spokesman, Peter Lawrence, has been in demand in 2006. Media enquiries have included:
Eastern Daily Press - Following reports of local passengers being left behind at Norwich Station due to lack of train capacity on 153 Class units. In depth article discussing the reasons.
BBC Radio Coventry - Interview on recent fares increases
Guardian and Eastern Daily Press - Railfuture views on recent fares increase.
Talk Radio - Interview on recent fares increases.
Eastern Daily Press - 23 January 2006 concerns on increased possession of track at weekends for maintenance are passengers being inconvenienced?

A meeting was due to take place at Suffolk County Council to discuss possible new stations and reopening of some old stations and Radio Suffolk called Peter for a Railfuture opinion. Local issues are possible reopening of Leiston and Felixstowe Beach and new stations at Moreton Heath (Bury St Edmunds), Blakenham and Great Conard.

Peter comments that “The lions share of the interview time was taken up by Councillor McGregor and I was just given a brief time for a couple of comments. My main reply was to say that only one station was opened in 2005 and any station reopenings would be in the mid-term or longer term if at all. One opinion that I shared with Mr McGregor was that Leiston should be examined for reopening with the view to a Leiston to Ipswich through services. Leiston would then become a railhead for the Aldeburgh and Leiston area. Much development has taken place in this area since the line from Saxmundham to Aldeburgh closed in 1966. I was able to make the point that Railfuture considered the top priority scheme for Suffolk should be a loop between Halesworth and Lowestoft in order to run hourly trains which would help to boost the economy of Lowestoft.

Railfuture Media spokesman and Vice President, Michael Caton, has been interviewed by TalkSport about the fare increases and, on 16 January, by Three Counties Bucks Radio who wanted the Railfuture view on a speculative article in the Sunday Times about a high-speed London to Scotland line using jet-propelled trains. (See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1986436,00.html) Michael advocated an electrically hauled high-speed railway integrated with the UK rail network and the mainland Europe high-speed lines via the Channel Tunnel.

On 27 January the Yorkshire Post telephoned Railfuture Chairman, Mike Crowhurst, and asked to comment on the announcement that no extra paths would be made available in 2006 for services from West Yorkshire. Mike letters printed in Transport Times (same as Rail) and Local Transport Today (cross subsidy)

NEWS FROM RAILFUTURE BRANCHES

Railfuture Lincolnshire Chairman, Brian Hastings, was interviewed by the Lincolnshire Echo about the Central Trains announcement of their Adopt a Station Scheme. Brian welcomed the scheme as it encourages community involvement in stations. Following the publication of the Public Accounts Committee report “Maintaining and improving Britain's railway stations” Brian was contacted by a local journalist who wanted to find a poorly maintained station in Lincolnshire. After some discussion with the journalist involved it became clear his paper were planning a ‘knock the railways’ article so Brian declined to assist.

RAILFUTURE 2006 CONFERENCES

The Campaigners' Conference in Stoke-on-Trent on 1st July will include a 5 to 10-minute statement from each of the 16 Railfuture branches on their current and recent campaigns, how successful they have been and what lessons have been learned. Anyone wishing to guarantee accommodation (incl. breakfast) at the venue for £25 on either Friday or Saturday and £45 for both nights, needs to send their booking for to Jerry Alderson at 32 The Oaks, Milton, Cambridge, CB4 6ZG by end the end of February. Rooms may be available after that date but we cannot guarantee them. If anyone intends to turn up on the day without pre-booking (this is discouraged!) they should note that the building is not the one on the booking form sent with Railwatch in December 2005.

The 2006 Rail Users' conference will be held in Reading on Saturday 4th November 2006.

RAILWAY DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY LTD AGM

Members will shortly be receiving Railwatch 107. Enclosed with it will be a flyer giving details of the AGM and a booking form. Ballot papers to elect Directors will not be included, as there have been insufficient nominations to require an election. The RDS Ltd Annual Report and Accounts will be sent to members in a separate mailing.

MEMBERSHIP OF SPECIALIST COMMITTEES AFTER MAY 2006

In accordance with usual practice the Board will review the membership of specialist committees at their May meeting. Committee Chairmen will be asking existing members if they wish to remain on the committee. If anyone else feels they have something to contribute to the work of any committee and would like to join it please advise Mike Crowhurst before the AGM.

RAILFUTURE EAST MIDLANDS BRANCH HAS NEW WEB-SITE

The new East Midlands Railfuture branch, which recently merged with North Midlands, has a new web-site: http://www.blackrhodium.co.uk/RailfutureEastMidlands.

REQUESTS FROM NETWORK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

The committee would like to remind branches to keep a watching brief on all Local Authority Structure Plans and similar documents to ensure that closed routes with potential for reopening are protected and not zoned for development.

A new A – Z of Rail Reopenings is being prepared and the committee would like some photographs of stations that have opened or reopened in the last 15 years. Preferably these will show platforms with plenty of passengers on them. If anyone can supply suitable photos please send them to Jerry Alderson.

MEMBERSHIP PROMOTION AND FUNDRAISING GROUP

The Membership Secretary, David Harby, has been having informal discussions with various Railfuture members to see if there is anything we can do to assist branches, committees and individuals in recruiting members and raising sponsorship. Ideas that have been suggested include putting together slide show(s) and PowerPoint presentations that can be shown to potential members and sponsors and interested groups. We could even produce a short DVD such as this one produced by Great Central Railway to promote their scheme to bridge the MML at Loughborough http://www.bridgingthegap.org.uk/video.html.

We are trying to put together a Membership Promotion and Fundraising Group to take this idea forward. If you have any skills that could help us, have any other ideas or would like to help in any other way please get in touch with David Harby (details below).

_-ANOTHER THREAT TO THE CKP TRACKBED AT FLUSCO __

Eden District Council has received a planning application (number 06/0001) for a fuel storage depot on the North Lakes Industrial Park at Flusco. The application form and site plans can be viewed on Eden District Council's website and can be found using the following link: http://eforms.eden.gov.uk/fastweb/detail.asp?AltRef=06/0001

The site proposed clearly straddles the trackbed of the Keswick to Penrith Railway and would be much more damaging than the access road for which permission was recently granted (application 03/0378). Eden District Council, Regional and National Government have policies that should protect Railway trackbeds for reopening.

CKP Railways plc is preparing a detailed objection, but would also encourage as many interested people as possible to make individual objections to this proposal which would damage and obstruct the Railway trackbed. There were nearly 170 objections to the roads application, which gave the subject extremely good publicity. Petitions are not a good idea as a petition is recorded as one single representation, regardless of the number of people who sign it

More details can be found in the ‘Latest News’ section of the CKP website at http://www.ckp-railways.co.uk/ All objections must be received by Eden District Council by 22nd February 2006.

EUROPEAN PASSENGERS’ FEDERATION AGM

The 4th AGM and Conference of the EPF will held on March 18th 2006 at Kumulus – Centrum voor de Kunsten, Maastricht. The theme of the conference is “What can Europe do for passengers?” Further details of the conference, an optional excursion through the Euregio on Sunday March 19th and links to tourist and hotel information can be found on the EPF website at http://www.epf-eu.be/. Registration costs 40€ (including lunch) but UK delegates have the option of sending a cheque for £25 per head to EPF Chairman, Trevor Garrod, at 15 Clapham Road South, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR32 1RQ. The cheque should be payable to ‘RDS Group Travel’ and must be received by Trevor no later than 25th February.

RAIL PASSENGERS COUNCIL FINALLY ANNOUNCES ITS’ NEW IDENTIFY AND LAUNCHES NEW WEB-SITE

Passenger Focus is the new name for the Rail Passengers Council. Interestingly there is nothing in the name mentioning rail, which has led some people to speculate that it may evolve into a public transport passenger body especially if widespread replacement of train services with buses occurs in the future. The new web-site is http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk.

ECML ROUTE UTILISATION STUDY

Martin Murphy of Railfuture North East will be co-ordinating the Railfuture input to the ECML RUS. Will all branches with an interest in the RUS please liase with Martin so as to avoid conflicting versions of the Railfuture view coming from different ends of the route.

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY MEDIA STUDIES COURSE STUDENTS SEEK US OUT

Twice in a month, students on the media studies course have telephoned Railfuture Lincolnshire chairman, Brian Hastings, for interviews having found us via the Railfuture website. The first enquirer wanted our views on train reliability and punctuality relative to Lincolnshire and the second was following up a story on the roll out of a new station adoption scheme by Central Trains.

It was an ideal opportunity to put over the raison d’être and campaigning activity of Railfuture and one which was seized. Both female enquirers used a recording studio to tape the interviews, which are then analysed and reviewed by course tutors. Whilst the results do not give us immediate publicity, it enables us to profile ourselves to a student age group who are the media journalists of tomorrow. After finishing their courses many of these students will move on to being junior journalists and researchers in television, radio and the printed media. If they have a rail story to cover Railfuture will be the organisation they will contact for the passengers’ view.

Maybe other universities with media studies courses will discover our existence or perhaps it is worthwhile branches making their existence known. Doing these sort of training interviews works two ways as it can also give hesitant branch media spokesperson experience.

BRTA CONFERENCE

Bedfordshire Railway and Transport Association are holding a conference on "Community Railways" on 22 Apr. 2006 (10.15 am 'til 4.45 pm). The conference is receiving modest sponsorship from Railfuture. Speakers Include: Richard Pill – BRTA, John Parry, M.B.E. - Parry People Movers (Confirmed), Trevor Garrod, M.A. - European Passengers’ Federation & Railfuture Board Member, John Watts - Chairman of Oxford-Bicester Rail Action Group (OBRAG), Steve Deane - Wensleydale Railway Company and Steve Sharp - Capita Symonds on Bedford-Northampton Rail Link re-opening.

The venue, Best Western Moore Place Hotel, The Square, Aspley Guise, Beds, MK17 8DW, is accessible via the Aspley Guise Halt on the Bedford-Bletchley Branch. See the BRTA website for more details http://www.brta.org.uk/html/events___diary.html#Conference2006

PLAN UNVEILED FOR RAIL AND ROAD FREIGHT INTERCHANGE

A MULTI-MILLION pound road and rail freight interchange could be built in the North East, near the East Coast Main Line and the A1(M). A planning application for the facility, which would be part of an office and industrial development on 464 acres of land at Tursdale, near Bowburn, south of Durham City, could be lodged by developers in the next few weeks.
Source: http://archive.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/2006/1/26/217040.html

TRANSPORT TRENDS: 2005 EDITION

The Department for Transport has just published the eighth edition of "Transport Trends". This National Statistics publication provides readers with an introduction to the major trends in transport and travel in Great Britain. Through the inclusion of many charts it presents an overview of key trends over the past 25 years, and highlights some of the key issues. It is intended as a companion volume to Transport Statistics Great Britain, which contains reference tables containing more detailed figures and some longer time trends.

Transport Trends 2005 follows the structure of the previous edition, with the inclusion where possible of more up to date data. There are sections covering the following topics:

• Roads, vehicles and congestion
• Personal travel by mode
• Public transport
• Variation in personal travel and access to services
• Freight and logistics
• Ports and airports
• Safety
• Health and the environment

The complete publication, including a brief summary and all the data underlying the graphics, can be found on the Department's website. www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/page/dft_transstats_026281.hcsp

Transport Trends 2005 is available free of charge from DfT (telephone 020 7944 4846, or e-mail publicationgeneral.enq at dft.gsi.gov.uk).

Source: Department for Transport press release

FREIGHT USER BENEFIT STUDY PUBLISHED

Four stages of a freight user benefit study commissioned by the SRA have been published, although the DfT is keen to point out that their findings are not in operational use at the moment. Read these reports at

www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/divisionhomepage/611115.hcsp

DFT CONSULTATION ON STATION CLOSURE CRITERIA

The DfT have issued a Consultation Document about the criteria that will apply when a closure proposal is made. Railfuture Passenger Committee will be co-ordinating the Railfuture response and all comments should be sent to the committee secretary, Nick Lewis, 36 Common Road, Stotfold, HITCHIN, Herts. SG5 4DB, in time for their committee meeting on 25th March.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/page/dft_railways_611064.pdf

MAINTAINING AND IMPROVING BRITAIN'S RAILWAY STATIONS

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report on “Maintaining and improving Britain's railway stations” which was given considerable publicity in the media in early February can be found using this link http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmpubacc.htm