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I am currently conducting some research on Community Rail, and I would like to ask forum members for their opinions.

What do Community Rail Partnerships do well, and what could they do better? Does the overall Community Rail strategy, along with the interaction with stakeholders, work fine as it is, or do you have ideas as to how the system could be improved?

Are you involved with a Community Rail Partnership, or a Friends Of-style group? If so, please feel free to share your experiences and insights, along with your hopes for the future.

I think I'l get the ball rolling then  ;)

Community rail projects can work extremely well I feel with the right people involved. You can't just have business leaders involved as the most important stakeholders is the community itself along with the people who wish to use the service. Using the Heart of Wales line as an example, HOWLTA is extremely active in not only promoting the railway, but is also working closely with ATW and NR in services provisions and with the infrastructure of the line. Only recently, NR started to rinstate some of the passing loops on the line as a result of their meetings and input from HOWLTA. Thankfully, anyone can apply to be a member of the group which removes some of the feeling of it being a club for only those invited. By enabling anyone to join has given many people the opportunity to voice their opinions, essential to improve services as the views of many people from a variety of backgrounds are needed. Usually we get the feeling many problems are not addressed as they do not affect members of the "closed group" involved in decision making as they do not affect them.

To improve community rail, I think it is essential that areas start to introduce in different areas what we have on the HoWL which is a Heart of Wales railcard. This enables those who live along the route access to cheaper travel by purchasing the card for ^5 which is only available to people who live along the line. This reduces the price of travel by 33% whilst allowing two children to accompany for a flat fee of ^2 each regardless where along the line they are travelling. If other community rail groups adopted a similair sort of card, then they could increase usage amongst people in the locality, essential to create a viable service. I know many people who have started using the train thanks to the railcard, especially my mother who now uses the train regularly instead of the bus as a results of the saving available with the railcard.

Another way to improve ccommunity rail partnerships is for members of the groups and representatives from TOCs and NR to visit more areas as currently, I feel the meetings are too central forcing some people to miss meetings and voicing their opinions. We need to see more meetings in the likes of village halls near a small station in the middle of nowhere occasionally as even rural stations and users need to be represented in what sometimes feels like a railway run for the benefit of those in urban areas only. Despite being a large town, HOWLTA as far as I am aware has never held meeting in the town of Ammanford which is a missed opportunity for such a large potential userbase for the service. We need to encourage greater interaction between the travelling public and those running services to hopefully achieve a happy medium in service provisions.

For those interested in information please visit www.heart-of-wales.co.uk as it gives an insight into the activities such a community partnership and forum can work to promote and enhance travel along certain lines.

I was going to comment on the sterling work Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways have done on the Severn Beach Line in the last few years, but I guess, Lee, you are already aware of this!

BTW nice to see the FOSBR website up again. Someone pay the bill? ;D

Oh do tell anyway. If not for Lee then for the benefit of us mere mortals unaware of the hard work they do  :P

Rather than repeat details of their work verbatim, here's a link.
http://www.fosbr.org.uk/

I certainly am, and have liased with them on quite a few issues in the past. Thanks for flagging it up, though. I also noted that their latest newsletter mentions the TransWilts pledge.

On their website issues, I can only go with their following quote...


The Severn Beach Line service is also Community Rail-designated - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7326180.stm

Thanks for the Heart of Wales insight, matt473  :)

Pushing my zimmer frame along, I've been involved in community rail since before anyone called it that!  It's now nearly five years since the Government's Community Rail strategy was launched and I certainly feel that it and the focus on community rail generally has been a big help here.

We've always got on well with the train operators here even in the troubled times we have had from time to time, but the advent of community rail and particularly the involvement of first the SRA and now the DfT gave it that extra impetus as far as the rail industry is concerned, particularly in parts of the country where they hadn't had much involvement with Partnerships or even Friends groups.  Crucially community rail brought Network Rail to the table and having an SRA/Government-led Community Rail strategy led Network Rail to appoint a dedicated manager to lead it from their side (and there are now two).  This worked in two ways - he was NR's "ambassador" to community rail and our "ambassador" to NR, making the case within NR for positive engagement with people like CRPs working on what will always be non priority lines. 

This was a big step forward and has had lots of spinoffs, a recent example being the Royal Albert Bridge walk.  Before the Community Rail strategy, the links and contacts wouldn't have been there to make last year's Calstock Viaduct walk happen (or even, possibly, the Ribblehead walk which made all of them possible)   Ribblehead, then Calstock led to the RAB.   Another spinoff has been the reduction in weekday engineering work on the branch lines.  Fortnight/week long closures began in 2004 and, while everyone appreciates the work done, they have caused significant difficulties on some lines, not least the Tamar Valley Line which, of course, is only still with us today because the road links between these communities and Plymouth are so poor.  Thanks to community rail and the focus the Strategy has brought, Network Rail has been able to arrange their work on some lines so that weekday closures are avoided.  The Tamar Valley Line is one - no planned closures this year, a matter of some rejoicing in Bere Alston, I can tell you!

It has always helped that the SRA/DfT have been involved.  Again they help make links within the DfT itself and this was very helpful when we were going through the Dec 06 timetable consultation.  I'd say too that the whole Community Rail process over the last few years has helped give what we do here at the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership a greater focus, though I suppose you might expect me to say that!

That phrase I used earlier "positive engagement" is behind everything - keep talking, respect everyone's own requirements and aspirations and be politely persistent (while also recognising when, from time to time, you do end up barking up the wrong tree - or at least have hit a brick wall.)    Keeping as a bedrock the need to always be promoting use of trains and increasing passenger numbers is also, for me, a key part of it but I know this isn't such an issue on some other lines eg Penistone, with 1 million journeys a year as it is.

Hope this helps.

Richard Burningham
Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership

 

Many thanks Richard, that's a great help  :)

I am going to bump this thread with a question. What would it take for people to become actively involved in community rail partnerships? This question is aimed at people who may not currently be interested in joining such an organisation

My local station has a friends of - I believe the nice environ is maintained by volunteers as are craven arms and church stretton

I would like to help - I do not have the time.

Even if ludlow station were scum land, Id use it as I have no choice.

At the risk of provoking some groans, I'd rather like to get involved with the 'Friends of Nailsea & Backwell Station'. :P

(Actually, there isn't any such organisation - although the Severnside Community Rail Partnership do an excellent job, on our behalf!)

C.  ;D