Community rail is transforming. Set up over 20 years ago, Community Rail Partnerships have been highly successful in bringing passengers onto lesser used lines, and raising ridership in catchments served per head of population. Enormous congratulations to those (some of whom read us here) who have achieved this. And building on that success, Community Rail is moving on to build on that strength with its four pillars that we share in our constitutuion. As part of that process, Community Rail Partnerships are moving from designation to acreditation, and are moving much more to being aligned with local authority and transport authority areas than with lines or services. It was notable to hear
ACoRP▸ 's operation manager for our area to talk about "Community Rail Partnerships" as organisations linking "Rail, local authorities and the community" at the recent
GWR▸ conference in Bristol - and with a background that significant funding is expected from the local authority. Following from that, we're seeing the local authority / local government area of Community Rail Partnerships is some places coming far larger and perhaps dominant or even overwhelming.
In many cases, this rebalancing may be exactly right - moving from the immediate need of getting bums on seats of empty trains that enthusiastic volunteers can help with so much to planning for the next 5, 10 or 20 years. It's hard to find volunteers with the necessary interest, knowledge base, skill base and mandate to set up the next genration of local rail or - we hope - local integrated transport. And I applaud the people who take that role.
But let's make sure we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater as we move on. For most lines and services, the well established volunteer teams and enthusiasm can and should be kept on - keep building use and traffic as that's very much helpful to the four pillars. And for a few, the old role of getting bums on seats - passengers on trains and a good penetration of the catchment - is still a vital necessity.
I've taken a dozen towns across GWR land and looked at their passenger numbers 20 years ago and today. I've looked at the catchment population, and I've evaluated whether they needed traditional Community Rail 20 years and, and if they need it now. Scores are based 50% on absolute passenger numbers, and 50% on journeys per head of population. As a red herring, I've also added a column to show the growth factor achieved over the 20 years. As a footnote, "Falmouth" numbers are the sum of all three stations there.
| Station | catchment | 1998 psgrs | 2018 psgrs | 20 year growth | 1998 av. journeys | 2018 av. journeys | Needed Classic 1998 | Need Classic now |
| Warminster | 20000 | 206409 | 365892 | 1.8 | 10.3 | 18.3 | *** | |
| Highbridge | 22000 | 64111 | 207186 | 3.2 | 2.9 | 9.4 | ****** | *** |
| Melksham | 24000 | 3868 | 75000 | 19.4 | 0.2 | 3.1 | ****** | ****** |
| Chippenham | 47000 | 945435 | 1890086 | 2.0 | 20.1 | 40.2 | | |
| Looe | 6000 | 65305 | 118308 | 1.8 | 10.9 | 19.7 | **** | ** |
| Barnstaple | 22000 | 201967 | 440404 | 2.2 | 9.2 | 20.0 | *** | |
| Avonmouth | 13000 | 41042 | 123932 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 9.5 | ****** | *** |
| Marlow | 15000 | 262874 | 275240 | 1.0 | 17.5 | 18.3 | * | * |
| Evesham | 25000 | 185098 | 246900 | 1.3 | 7.4 | 9.9 | **** | ** |
| Neath | 47000 | 461502 | 816748 | 1.8 | 9.8 | 17.4 | * | |
| BradfordOA | 11000 | 187957 | 525968 | 2.8 | 17.1 | 47.8 | ** | |
| Falmouth | 32500 | 152091 | 512152 | 3.4 | 4.7 | 15.8 | **** | |
Only three stations have seen no improvement in ranking over the 20 years. Chippenham was AOK anyway and Marlow was not far off. Melksham hasn't even come onto the bottom of the scale yet in spite of massive growth - passenger numbers remain poor (under 110k) and journeys per head of population also remain poor (averaging under 4 per head of population).
Huge congratulations to Falmouth and Barnstaple for moving (on my scheme) out of the low-needs-serious-look zones; Looe has done remarkably well for a relatively small town and will always benefit from Community support. Other such as Avonmouth have significant enhancement plans that should lift them out of the zone, and Evesham benefits from better service and brand new trains this year.
Views in this post are personal and should not be attributed as being the view of any organisation of which I'ma member. And there are elements which are more designed as food for thought.
