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The Bear Necessities! Paddington’S a Winner at the Community Rail Awards (Full Story Inside)

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The Bear Necessities! Paddington’S a Winner at the Community Rail Awards (Full Story Inside) Train Times No.56 - Autumn 2009 News, views & features from the world of Community Rail The bear necessities! Paddington’s a winner at the Community Rail Awards (full story inside) ALSO INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Community Rail Festival and Awards • DfT Diary CRP Spotlight • Cumbria Coast Partnership profiled • Letterbox In this Issue... Hello and Welcome... Page 2 Hello and Welcome When I write this column, I Page 3 From the Chair generally try to be upbeat about Community Rail - not Pages 4-8 Regional Round-Up for its own sake, but largely because I believe there’s a lot to be upbeat about. However, Pages 9-12 Community Rail Awards and there are occasions when a Festival 2009 more cautionary tone needs to be adopted, so please bear Page 13 Adoption Corner with me. Page 14 Up the Junction In this challenging financial climate, everyone in the rail Page 15 Local Hero - Ruth Annison industry is experiencing difficulty and Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs) are no exception. Page 16 CRP Spotlight Some train operators have agreed to support CRPs as part of their franchise commitment - several over and above what they promised. Others, who have no legal obligation to provide Pages 17-19 Partnership Profile - Cumbria anything, still do so because they continue to believe that CRPs Coast CRP are ‘A Good Thing.’ None of this is based on altruism alone - the TOCs consider that it makes good business sense. But of Page 20 Letterbox course, they need to continually justify this expenditure to their boards and shareholders, so CRPs need to keep a weather eye Page 21 Arrivals and Departures on what it is they’re actually providing for their TOC and how it can add value. Page 22 What is ACoRP?/Friends United CRPs aren’t just about the railway however - they serve the Page 23 Community Rail Partnerships wider community, using the railway as a tool to deliver other projects which meet wider government objectives in areas like Page 24 Community Rail Diary education, health and the environment. There will undoubtedly be an election in 2010, so ACoRP will be ensuring this message gets across to the main parties. Of course there’s no substitute ACoRP for local action and while ACoRP works at a strategic level, CRPs should be selling their successes to their local MPs and Association of Community Rail Partnerships The Rail and River Centre prospective MPs. Canal Side, Civic Hall 15a New Street Times are hard and they are quite likely to get harder, so we Slaithwaite Huddersfield HD7 5AB need to appreciate that our funders are also going to look for Phone: 01484 847790 more evidence of value-for-money. Fortunately, we still have a Fax: 01484 847877 few cards up our sleeves and this additional focus on other non- Website: www.acorp.uk.com Email: [email protected] railway work gives us plenty of opportunity to widen our sphere Staff: [email protected] of influence and, hence, our funding base. Complacency is not an option here, but neither is kicking at the traces. We should continue doing what we do best - moving with the times and Staff using that hackneyed but still vital phrase, ‘We Are Where We Neil Buxton General Manager 0777 979 5671 Are.’ My pride in the Community Rail sector is our ability to go Brian Barnsley Operations Manager 0779 180 0429 with the punches, re-adjusting or re-inventing ourselves to suit Dawn Wolrich Office Manager Philip Jenkinson Company Secretary the prevailing agenda. Yes, it’s going to be tough for a while Hazel Bonner Events Organiser but we need to stick in there because we DO add value, not just Susan Miles Community Stations Project Officer to the rail industry but more importantly, to the communities Paul Stevenson Project Officer we work with. Chair: Peter Roberts 0771 355 0377 22 Deira Close, Quarrington, Sleaford, Lincs, NG34 8UR [email protected] As if proof were needed, ACoRP’s recent Community Rail Awards in Carlisle highlighted all that was great and good about our sector. I love being there amongst my friends and Contributors colleagues, all of whom help support or deliver the future for This edition of Train Times was edited by Nigel Barber local and rural rail that we all so passionately believe in. Don’t ([email protected]). lose heart - we’ve got a great future, but only if we’re prepared Special thanks go to Lucy Tennyson and all of our contributors for to be flexible and innovative in how we work and how we see their ongoing hard work and support. ourselves. Design and production by: GWCC Media ([email protected]). Neil Buxton Front cover picture - Paddington Bear at Plymouth taken by Ian Dinmore of The Bittern Line Partnership - the winning entry in this year’s photo General Manager competition at the Community Rail Awards. 2 From the Chair Principal Funders and Sponsors North by North-West Association of Train Operating Companies Last month we travelled North by North-West to celebrate the Community Rail Awards and Festival in Cumbria. This was the DfT Rail fifth year of these ever-popular inter-linked events, which seem to get better each time. In Network Rail previous years we had visited Norwich, Darlington, Hastings and Plymouth, before coming to Carlisle for this year’s splendid Welsh Assembly Government awards dinner. Congratulations to all the winners in the various categories and thank you to all who entered for the awards. Another big thank you to our rail industry sponsors for supporting these events and thank you Corporate Sponsors too to the people of the local rail partnerships and rail groups for all the hard work that went into the Festival. Angel Trains Ltd As part of the weekend’s events, we had the opportunity to travel by rail and see the magnificent and varied scenery of Cumbria (from the Cumbrian Coast line, which very much deserves to be more widely known); take a ride on our old First Group favourite, the Settle and Carlisle route; visit Windermere on the Lakes line; and relive history, paralleling Hadrian’s Wall on the Tyne Valley line - all of this forming part of the ‘Great National Express East Coast Cumbrian Rail Experience.’ At the awards each year, we learn of the wide range of activities that take place across the country as part of the Greater Manchester PTE Community Rail spectrum. So a plea from ACoRP. Don’t hide your light under a bushel and only bring it out once a year as an awards entry. Please keep us informed of what you are Kilbride Community Rail doing on a regular basis throughout the year so that we can spread the word. I have said this before on several occasions and I make no apology for repeating it now. Kirklees Metropolitan District Council We need to know what you are doing, to learn of both your successes and your failures; of your problems and your achievements. Tell us and we can tell others. We are but a Lancashire County Council small team at ACoRP, but we work diligently to promote the Community Rail message widely and to support our members. To do this effectively, we need a two-way flow of information to and from the membership. We offer Train Times, Train on Merseyside PTE Line and our internet ‘chat group’ as forums for the exchange of information and points of view. From this, we can all make best use of the experiences of others, as well as learning from NedRailways examples of ‘best-practice.’ Looking ahead, our next event is in Cardiff on 4th November, supported by the Welsh Assembly Government. The theme is Northern Rail Sustainable Transport and Tourism - topics with relevance to many Community Rail lines and not just in Wales. A report of the same name is to be launched in parallel and a range of Passengerfocus perspectives will be explored in presentations at the seminar. This will also be the date and venue for our Annual General Meeting, at which I look forward to seeing as many of our members as possible; our strength - as with any similar Transpennine Express organisation - is in our members. Peter Roberts We welcome additional corporate sponsorship from the railway ACoRP Chairman industry. Please contact our General Manager Neil Buxton if you are interested in sponsoring us. 3 Regional Round-Up What’s going on in your neck of the woods... Volunteers add £27 million of value station adoption through to promoting train services, hosting trains for special events and leading guided walks - all of which New research into the work of Community Rail volunteers help to get more people onto lightly used trains. has revealed that they bring an incredible £27 million worth of added value to rail passengers and communities. Commented ACoRP General Manager Neil Buxton: “Community railways are community lifelines and this report shows just how Run by the Independent Rail Consultancy Group (IRCG), the much people are prepared to contribute to their long term study was commissioned by ACoRP, the Department for Transport future.” and train operator Northern Rail. All three organisations support strengthening links between railways and their local As well as the benefits to the railway and the communities that communities. they serve, the research found that the volunteers also get a great deal from their involvement, with all those questioned enthusiastic The report highlights the varied work of the volunteers, from about communities and the environment. Changes announced to tram-train trial Community Café for Burscough Bridge Passengers in South Yorkshire could be the first in the UK to take a continental-style tram-train.
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