Thank you all for your supportive comments.
In this day and age, if you are not willing to engage people with social media then you are unlikely to be successful in engaging with enough of them by other means to make a difference.
It's not that I'm unwilling to talk to people on social media about the campaign; it's just that I wouldn't know how to use it effectively to reach people. I've just tried to sign up for Twitter; I hope it goes well.
do you know whether the design is now cast in stone (or maybe that should be cast in steel, or aluminium)? Or so far down the track that nobody would consider all the design and contractual rework necessary to make the change.
Good question. The new fleet is a long way from being cast in metal as far as I am aware. If I recall correctly, intended service entry is spread from 2022 to 2024 and I believe the Newport factory where they will be built/assembled will be doing the class 196 fleet for West Midlands Trains first. My best guess (and it's sheer guesswork) is that the earliest construction of the units for Wales & Borders could start is sometime in 2020, allowing for testing in 2021. Other than physically cutting steel/aluminium I've no idea what constitutes the point of no return for a new train design.
I agree with you that a suburban door layout makes for a less appealing passenger environment, but I'm not sure I think its something to be outraged about. I'd be more concerned about the quality of seating to be used if I'm honest, thinking about recent new stock I've been on.
I agree that the seats are an important issue too. I did raise a number of issues in my e-mails to Transport for Wales, of which the seats were one. On the seats, there was mention of "future consultation around the details of certain aspects of the design. However, the exact nature of this is not yet confirmed". Could that be a variation on the
'long grass' issue, saying there will be a chance to have a say later in the hope that I then miss that chance? However they are seemingly unwilling to make changes to the "bodyshell of the trains, including the positions of the doors". I therefore focused my question here on this matter, as the one which my current method (e-mails) appear to be having least effect.
Clearly it would have been better to have secured a suitable bodyshell at an earlier date... Which is why I spent many hours responding to various consultations on the franchise before it was relet (and got very stressed in the runup to the deadlines) in an effort to get the Welsh Government to put this in the specification. If I hadn't put all that effort in, only to be ignored, I might be meerly disapointed rather than 'outraged' (which
is possibly too strong a word, but I am certainly at least a little angry).
10. Consider negative effect on campaign if failed to gather signatures
Concern about my ability to gather signatures is one reason I've not started a petition so far; I went directly to writing e-mails but that's clearly not working so what other options are there?
I was involved with a petition in the early days of such things and it certainly got noticed. From that out-of-date experience, were I setting one up today I would look to ...
1. Have it as something that as wide and audience as possible can identify with and agree
2. Keep it simple so that people undertsand it
3. Have emotional appeal (wow factor) / clearly righting a wrong
4. Avoid contravesial bits that put people off
5. Have a wide geographic spread
6. Be clearly achievable
7. Have an excellent and active backup site / presence with punchy URL
8. Get any famous names to back you / see if they will be open in publicity
9. Avoid competing with another similar petition
11. Set realistic (perhaps [initiallly] personal targets
12. Exhibit passion and committment
As for constructing a petition, I think this campaign can comply with items 1, 3, 4, 5 and 9. I think I have the passion, but not sure about my ability to exhibit it. However, in trying to express 1 and 3 . On item 6, I can point to the
class 397 which comes from the same product family but has single-width doors at the vehicle ends. Not sure if that makes it "clearly achievable", but perhaps more-achievable than an Electrostar or Turbostar with single-width doors would have been.
Here's the beginings of a first draft:
We, the undersigned, call on XXXXXXXX to reverse the planned downgrade of rolling stock for long-distance services across for the Wales & Borders franchise. A fleet of new CAF Civity trains are planned for these services, however the proposed design is of inferior quality compared to the existing long-distance units they are intended to replace. This must be corrected; in no respect should the new fleet be of a lower quality to the existing fleet.
Areas where the new trains, as currently proposed, fall short of the high standard passengers expect including the following:That probably needs more emphasis on the wrong that needs righting, and the next bit was so bad (read: a bit technical and far from simple) that I've not posted it here. Also obvious from this is that I don't know who I should be aiming the petition at; Ken Skates (Welsh Government transport minister), the Welsh Government as a whole, Transport for Wales (the government-owned body) or Transport for Wales Rail Services (who I believe are the private company actually running the trains). Or is this actually a
ROSCO» (rolling stock leasing company) decision?
My first thought on reading the heading was appropriate for who? The 158 style seems more difficult if the service is very busy (rammed?), as I am sure experience on the service that runs from Southampton to Salisbury (and beyond) shows. Also not very bike friendly (but you would expect me to say that). Neither of these might be a problem in Wales.
More-appropriate for the 'long-distance and rural' services these units are intended to work. As you say, wider doors are better for busy commuter services (if only because you have more room for standees before it becomes absolutely rammed) but on long-distance services the train should be long enough to avoid this (and this is one of the things addressed in the replies I've had from Transport for Wales; they claim they have ordered enough trains to eliminate the need to stand). If nobody has to stand, then the extra space around the doors is wasted-space for the entire time that the train is in motion. I would have thought that the class 158 layout (with the doors slightly away from the vehicle ends) could potentially allow an increase in bicycle spaces; on a 158 the small toilet is on one side of the aisle with bikes on the other side. The other coach on a 2-car 158 has the larger (wheelchair-accessible) toilet, so no room for bikes, but presumably on a 3-car unit there are another 2 or 3 of those bicycle areas in the centre coach.
To me the bigger problem is the specification of 51 2-car and 26 3-car units. Seeing as the 3-car 175s are barely adequate and the 2-car ones get horribly overcrowded, to accommodate traffic growth the order should be for 4- or 5-car sets. There is certainly no point in ordering 2-car units.
I'm not sure I completely agree. One of the routes the new units will be used on is the Cambrian Coast line; I'm not sure but I doubt the 2-car class 158s they currently have along there are filled very often. They do fill up in the summer sometimes I think but I wouldn't be too worried about a few 2-car units given that they have unit end gangways so that they can be coupled together to form a longer train. I would however be more-encouraged that the franchisee has done their sums right if there were more 3-car and fewer 2-car units in the order to allow more 5-car formations. The short
class 175s are more of a problem because even if coupled together they are effectively two seperate trains; were it not for that I would be arguing for fewer new trains and the 175s to stay on but mostly running in pairs.
There also seems to be a policy of ordering short multiple units rather than trains long enough to meet present and reasonably expected demand.
On a route where two car units are very inadequate, and 3 car units somewhat inadequate, it seems that future trains should be at least 5 car, and that 6 car should be considered.
Not likely to happen though, "lets order some more 2 car and 3 car units"
And yes I know that they can run in multiple, but previous experience suggests that if the TOC▸ has available shorter trains, that single unit operation will feature regularly.
It's not quite like that on the Wales & Borders franchise. There's a fair bit of portion working planned; in addition to the current Cambrian line services (2 coaches each for Aberystwyth and Pwllheli, ensuring a 4-car train between Machynlleth and Birmingham) the Manchester - South Wales service is intended to split at Swansea and the Liverpool - Chester to extend to both Cardiff and Llandudno with a split at Chester, giving a longer train from Chester to Liverpool. That could perhaps do with 3-cars rather than 2 beyond Chester on at least one of those portions though.
Re. the comments on the merits or otherwise of the split at Swansea; that's a whole different campaign. Because of the long journey time, I feel that services might as well terminate at Swansea from both directions, with new express services from Carmarthen (calling at only Llanelli and Port Talbot) to maintain through links to Cardiff with no changes.
You might also contact Railfuture Wales - they'll likely know how far down the design route TfW have got & whether, therefore, your campaign might get somewhere, or it's too late....
I actually wrote to Rowland Pittard of Railfuture Wales for a second time a week ago asking for his comments, having not had a reply from my first e-mail a few weeks earlier. I've still not had a reply; is he still at Railfuture Wales?
- First get your family and friends to sign it.
- Then compile a list of user groups, campaign groups, CRPs▸ etc and ask them to get their members and supporters to sign it, and put a link to the petition on their website/social media.
- Then compile a list of MPs▸ , AMs, Councillors etc and ask them and their supporters to sign it, and put a link to the petition on their website/social media.
- Then compile a list of local printed and online media and ask them to ask their readers to sign it, and put a link to the petition on their website/social media.
Some will sign, some wont, but each signature will potentially be a lead to another, and they all count. Do it in this order, as each step will require you to prove more that you are capable of getting people to sign your petition.
Ah, is that where I went wrong with the e-mails, going to the AMs first and user groups only when that didn't seem to get me anywhere? I will try to keep this in mind if I do manage to write a suitable petition text.
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