Great Western Coffee Shop

This Friday, Barnstaple is holding an "In Town Without My Car Day", with several streets in the centre of Barnstaple being closed to traffic and replaced by a range of activities for everyone to enjoy throughout the day.

In partnership with this event, First Great Western are offering a return ticket from any station on the route to Barnstaple for just ^1.

Full details on the ND Rail Users website here (http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/Special+Offers) </shameless_plug :D >

Welcome to the forum , its good to have the ND Rail Users Group on board.

Any chance of a "shameless plug" by including our forum on the Links page of your excellent website?

Done. And since you made me do it (that 'Edit this page' isn't just for show, y'know ::)), any chance you could increase the number of items in your RSS feed?

If you mean can I include more items from your website , then no problem. Please feel free to post them (and any other comments) yourself , though.

No, I mean the RSS feed for this forum: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml)

I've just had a brief look and it's not a standard configuration setting as far as I know, nor can I see it in the administrator's area.    I'm forwarding a note of this thread's URL to one of my Xperts who knows the forum software forwards and backwards and if she has an easy way of upping the current number of articles being fed, I'm quite happy to do so.

Further answer.   If you add

;limit=40

onto the end of the URL, you'll get 40 articles rather than the default 10.

Perfect, ta!

http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/FGW+Coffeeshop (http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/FGW+Coffeeshop)

I do also have a couple of questions that I have been meaning to put to someone "on the ground" , so to speak.

1) You fought a successful campaign against the original Draft December 2006 Timetable , which would have seen services decimated to many smaller stations on the Barnstaple line (link below.)
http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/DraftTT

What is your view on DfT (page 102 of the following link http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/strategyfinance/strategy/rpa/pdfswrpa) and FGW (Page 6 of the following link http://www.accesssouthwest.org/answers.pdf) plans to look again at revised stopping patterns?

As I am sure you are aware , the original recommendation was to close all the stations apart from Crediton , Eggesford & Barnstaple (pages 212 & 213 of the link below.)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2006/september06/swindonwestburytrainsservice/greaterwesternoutlinebusines1103

I note that some calls to smaller stations on the Barnstaple line are not guaranteed in the Greater Western Franchise Specification (Pages 98 - 99 of the link below.)
http://www.saveseverntunnel.co.uk/First%20Greater%20Western%20Service%20Level%20Commitment%202.pdf

2) What do you think about the forthcoming deployment of Class 142 "Pacer" units on lines in your area?

This probably ought to be a separate thread... :-\


I don't think there's any immediate threat to the overall stopping pattern: there's no advantage in missing Umberleigh (because of the adjacent level crossing), and Yeoford is devoid of any other public transport (and may become a good deal busier if Dartmoor Railway start running between Yeoford and Okehampton). The extra stops at Copplestone haven't been a success, however, and it would make far more sense to have more trains at Morchard Road.

It's fair to say that the Jacobs Report has caused more than a little disquiet amongst the group. My personal opinion is that there is more than one station which serves no useful purpose and could probably be closed without causing significant hardship.

However, I certainly don't think it's the role of a User Group to propose station closures: if FGW, Network Rail or the DfT came along with a couple of closures in mind we'll look at the proposals and give a considered opinion. We couldn't agree to any closures without a guarantee of compensating improvements in the service, though.

We don't want them, obviously. Up to now we've been protected by a local Network Rail instruction that Pacers could only operate to Barnstaple once a week, but we suspect that's now been overruled (although no-one has yet admitted to doing so). The ride on jointed track is terrible (and especially bad just south of Umberleigh LC).

On the flip side we have raised the possibility of running extra services on the line - perhaps even getting an hourly service out of it - as compensation of our soon-to-be disgruntled users, which has not been rejected out of hand.

Slightly surprised at that view.


One of the things that does impress me about the Barnstaple line is that it has maintained the upward trend in Devon & Cornwall passenger numbers. Certain other lines (particularly St Ives) have shown concerning falls recently (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=565.msg1882#msg1882

Quote from the DfT Review of Community Rail Development Strategy (link below.)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/strategyfinance/strategy/community/revcomrail?page=3

"The Tamar Valley has experienced growth at least partly because it has been made easier for passengers to buy tickets through the carnet system. They can now buy tickets off the network at post offices, garages and other outlets using pre-purchased carnets of tickets ^ a system that has now been extended to the Tarka Line in Devon. These sales now make up 20% of tickets used on the line."

Has the Carnet system been a success on your line?

Don't forget that every train calls at Copplestone now - twice as many as Morchard Road - and this means only one passenger uses Copplestone for every three trains (and a fair proportion using Copplestone would rather use Morchard Road anyway). A 300% increase in a very small number still isn't very big - it needs to grow by as much again to get to Morchard Road's current figure:

---

The fares cut helped! Tarka Line Sample Fares (http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/Sample+Fares)


Seems to be so: again the price is a factor (particularly at Crediton: a Carnet Single to Exeter is ^1.25, compared to ^3 CDR. I think the bus is about ^4!) Tarka Line Carnet Fares (http://ndrailusers.wikispaces.com/Special+Offers#tocSpecial%20Offers4)

I recall that there was a proposal , put forward by your group , to turn Morchard Road into the same kind of station as Umberleigh (which has far more services calling there.)

For example , Umberleigh is "crossed" by the B3227 , which could make it an ideal railhead for those coming in from Great Torrington and South Molton. Similiarly , Morchard Road is close to the B3220 , which could allow it to act as a railhead for the Winkleigh , West / East Leigh , Coldridge and Down St Mary areas , as well as via local roads from the Morchard Bishop area. One would assume that it could also serve as a railhead for Copplestone , if service stops are transferred from there.

Has BRB (Residuary) land sale policy put this proposal in jeopardy to any extent? (link below.)
http://www.brb.gov.uk/property/property_listings?keyword=Morchard+Road

Just a note on this regarding FGW's apathy towards 'local' services. I was the conductor on an early train to barnstaple on said day, and the first i knew about the ^1 return ticket, was when a passenger got on at umberleigh and asked for it. FGW had not given any on train staff any info that this was happening! I did check when i got back to exeter by asking other staff, and checking all notice boards, but nobody knew about it, and there was nothing posted anywhere.......Brilliant! ???

I had a note about it in my pigeon hole but I dont work the barney branch very often which is probably why I had one!

got the info in my pigeon hole this week (16 th oct)....very helpful!