CANBER - Campaign Against New Beeching Report

A couple of months ago I posted a short article on the Cotswold Line redoubling scheme - http://canber.co.uk/?q=node/28 - as far as I know the scheme will still be going ahead, despite the original £50m costings looking like they were very optimistic and a price tag of double that being likely. I also hinted that service improvements and punctuality improvements would be hindered by the situation at Worcester - and although welcome, the re-doubling scheme certainly wouldn't revolutionise the line without improvements to the Worcester bottleneck.

This subject is rather outside my local commuting area, but I do think it’s a campaign that is worthy of much wider support, as it is an excellent example of how a relatively small investment could have huge benefits.

Take three rural stations in the East Of England :

Currently, Buckenham and Lakenheath are served by a token service on Saturdays, a slightly better service on Sundays, but NO service on Monday-Fridays.

Shippea Hill does have a Monday-Friday service to "cater for schoolchildren." However, it consists of one train operating in one direction only, so quite how the schoolchildren are meant to get back is anyones guess....

At least Shippea Hill has one service in both directions on Saturdays, although the timings arent of much use. No Sunday service is provided.

The recently reopened Cardiff-Ebbw Valley railway line already has twice the number of passengers predicted. This is just one example which shows that demand for rail is often hugely underestimated.

Meanwhile, the Government has just put out guidance in England about the Regional Funding Allocation - the pot of money it provides for regional transport projects. And the good news is, regional decision makers are being allowed to ask for capital funding for rail schemes.

25 years ago, in 2007, I attended the "Enquiry in Public into the Regional Spatial Strategy" in Exeter - a look ahead to government planning for housing and travel in the South West of England for the following 20 years. Arguments ranged about road developments, about where housing and employment should grow (and by how much), and so on. And it's interesting to look back now and see where we are today - how events have overtaken and modified the plans as they were made in those day, before energy prices rocketed from 2007 onwards, and ever decreasing resources and global warming forced some radical changes.

"Do you know how the cap and collar works?" asked the chap I met in Cambridge last Tuesday evening, and I had to admit that I didn't exactly; I had heard of it, but didn't know the details. Do you?

Apparently, the "Cap and Collar" are built into franchise specifications these days after so many of the first generation of franchises went bust / had to be rescued, and one of the side effects of it is that it makes Train Operating Companies just as conservative and risk averse as they could possibly be. Here's how it works, as I understand it ...

It is often a mistaken belief that service development involves opening new lines, stations, building lots of new trains, or sacrificing precious train paths that will lead to delays to other services. Not always the case!

This week Campaign for Better Transport revealed that off-peak walk-on fares can be up to seven times more expensive than advance fares.
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/press_releases/july_2008/mystic_peg

We're telling the Government that passengers aren't fortune tellers, and can't always book their journeys weeks beforehand. People want to be able to just turn up at the station and go.

My thanks to Lee, for being invited to contribute to this site. My interest is simply in getting to work and back quickly and inexpensively, and in January 2007, I became extremely angry with First Great Western for failing me on both counts. As a result, I set up a blog offering people free badges emblazoned with the legend "I Hate First Great Western".

I thank Lee for inviting me to contribute to the CANBER site. As an employee of First Great Western involved in the operational side of the company, and a life-long supporter of the railways, I have an insight into quite a lot of what goes on within the company, and will post topics that I see as relevant. I'll start with a much neglected route that I am very familiar with: