Hello everyone!
Very sorry I didn't see this till now.
You are right that the Post picked up on the one (to them) newsworthy point. We did send a press release to the Post which was in substance the same as I originally posted up here (Esther, me and Alan), but I tweaked it slightly as I knew that our first speaker Esther would be commenting on the Severn Beach Line cancellations over the past year, so I decided that in my preamble to the
FOSBR▸ Rail Plan I would first respond to Esther and then lead into the longer-term solutions listed in our FOSBR Rail Plan 2018. As we had just had a meeting with
GWR▸ on that subject, and we had had quite a few emails from FOSBR members expressing frustration with the Beach troubles and wanting "action", I felt we had a duty as a rail user group to respond to current concerns before going on to the blue-sky stuff.
In fact in the interests of a case study in press relations, here is my full press release I sent to the Post:
Begin quote:
Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR) press release
Tina Biggs 0117 9735000 Julie Boston 0117 9428637
Dear reader - Are you happy with the rail services in and around Bristol? Would you like to be part of our campaign to improve them?
Transport campaigners invite the public to join them on Friday 20th April 2018 in Alma Church Hall, St Johns Road, Clifton, BS8 2ES to hear how we propose to improve local rail services.
Esther Giles, whose daily journey starts from Sea Mills Stn and travels over the inter-city network : “Whose agenda – the rail passengers’ or the shareholders'?” with comments on the Severn Beach Line passenger service which has been consistently poor since the introduction of new Turbo trains in June 2017, nearly a year ago!
Tina Biggs (FOSBR Secretary) will respond to Esther and explain the FOSBR Rail Plan 2018; reporting back from meeting with GWR on Severn Beach Line performance issues and outlining possible courses of campaign action if the rail service does not improve. Public support is vital if we are to gain the attention of politicians on this issue.
Alan Morris (Bristol Civic Society): “Plans and more plans – seeing the way through the trees”. Alan will give an overview of
all the different Bristol local plans being drafted right now, including the Bristol Local Plan, the City Centre Framework and the Clean Air measures being discussed by Bristol City Council and how they impact on our railways.
Julie Boston: 'Fun Events Coming Up'; your opportunity to propose further FOSBR events and to let us know of your own campaigns and events around the region.
Date: Friday 20th April 2018
Time: 7.30 pm (arrive from 7.00 pm) until about 9 pm
Where: Alma Church Hall, St Johns Road, Clifton, BS8 2ES (same venue as for our
AGM▸ in January). For entrance to the Hall, walk 20 metres along St Johns Road from junction with Alma Road - look for the FOSBR banner on the iron railings to the left.
Refreshments: Hot and cold drinks with snacks will be provided
For further information and to join our campaign contact:
Tina Biggs on
general@fosbr.org.uk and Julie Boston on
campaigns@fosbr.org.uk<FOSBR Rail Plan 2018.pdf>
End quote
So as you can see, for the Post to leap to "Public meeting to protest...." is I think unjustified. And in fact some of the committee members were pretty taken aback, and I was certainly worried that angry hordes would descend.
But then reality set in. I thought, hey, how many new and angry people are really going to turn up. And then I thought, so what if there are a couple of cross commuters. They have a right to have their story heard. We had not invited any GWR or politicians for the public to crucify, and I felt I could respond to some of their concerns with the information we had just gleaned from our many meetings from GWR. What else is a rail user group for than to take the body blow, and then outline things they can do that would be constructive. Let's just roll with it and then take people with us. But at that stage I could not really offer a lot of reassurance to people that the meeting would not be sidestracked, except to say we had the original speakers all there ready to deliver their talks.
And so, I took a deep breath, did a handout with some acronyms explained, with a few key addresses for people to contact, tried to make it look halfway professional (despite my not having managed to sort a data projector) and got into my best campaigner outfit.
So thankyou Graham for coming, I hope we did the right thing in the meeting. There was precisely one person who turned up simply as a result of the press release, the rest were the same old faces, and people seemed to like the FOSBR Rail Plan postcards with its one addition as a concession to the day's new theme which I will leave you to ponder:
"A Cobra-style group to tackle delays and cancellations"
I would love to know from professionals what meetings already go on, and if anyone thinks there would be a place for an occasional, special, carefully-picked group to bring the issues to one place with the right people there to inform and decide on the courageous decisions - with the people there to authorise those decisions. I'm not asking to be on it though that would be nice; and I promise I would just listen in carefully and then pass on the decoded info to our members.
Graham has told me already what he thinks of this ("leave the professionals to do their job, and the rail user groups need to just be the ones talking to the public to decode the jargon") but the FOSBR cttee members also talk in terms of not making excuses for GWR and planning "action". But the word "action" bothers me. Some people hark back to the Fare Strike which some of you may remember. Is that the sort of thing that would really get the right decisions made? The campaigners at the time think so.
I know well the idea that we must not overburden the "big people", especially the ones with the technical knowledge and operational roles, but I would say there is a role for public pressure too, and that is to give the right decision makers ammunition, or justification, for big decisions, or releasing funds, or making a judgement call on something like the current issues of:
Are the Class 166 Turbos rail-worthy and suitable for running on suburban branch lines;
Are there alternative trains out there which would be better;
What needs to be tweaked or altered with the new
BASRE▸ signalling - is it just experiencing teething problems or are there ways in which it has not been properly thought through;
What maintenance needs to be done on the rail infrastructure to prevent points and signalling failures;
Can we use the cancellations penalty money to fund any of this;
Can we throw money at the staffing problems.
It's pretty late now and I have an early start tomorrow.
Thoughts welcome!
And Graham - yes I have asked FOSBR cttee if anyone can make the TransWilts AGM next week. I will be sailing the Severn in a Wayfarer and I don't want to let my skipper down as we have already missed several sailing weekends.
Tina Biggs
FOSBR secretary
