Blackmore Vale Line Community Rail Partnership
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BLACKMORE VALE LINE COMMUNITY RAIL PARTNERSHIP NEWSLETTER BVCRP covering the stations and route from Tisbury, Crewkerne, Gillingham, Templecombe Yeovil Junction and Sherborne Autumn/Winter 2019 Thanks to everyone who has contributed items for this bumper edition of our newsletter. An eventful “Blackmore Vale Line time for us all and we have been busy producing a Community Rail commemorative First World War book and our first Partnership - Line Guide. We are also working closely with our Local people & businesses partners, new and established, on a number of working in partnership with exciting projects. the railways.” Follow us and find out what we The hard work of our station volunteers has been are up to on Twitter acknowledged and at this year’s regional South West in Bloom awards Templecombe, Gillingham Blackmore and Crewkerne stations all received ’outstanding’ Vale CRP status. Templecombe is the ‘Best Small Station’ in The newest recruit at the UK for 2019, attaining the official recognition Templecombe Station is @crpVale at the National Rail Awards. clearly a keen recycler! Well done Chris! Congratulation everyone! In this Issue Friends of Gillingham Station receive a helping hand with a cheque presented by Alex Green from the Gillingham Freemasons. “The local Masons had raised the sum from • All Change Chairman their regular meetings of Kings Court Lodge in Station Road (Lower) and wanted to • Commemorating the help the Friends improve the ambiance of the station. Belinda leads a team of 17 fallen of First World War volunteers tending the floral displays and making improvements to the waiting room and explained • News from our ‘Friends’ that they were groups hoping to use the money for a bee- • Bees and Butterflies friendly flower bed using flowers • Dark Skies to encourage the • Heritage Steam threatened insects so • Ghostly goings on at necessary for our Templecombe agriculture whilst at the same time • Christmas competition giving pleasure to • And much, much more! rail users.” Photo L-R Anne Tobin, Alex Green, Richard Hart, Belinda Ridout and Linda Hart www.blackmorevaletrains.com All Change at BVCRP as our chairman Gail Coleshill At the same time some of the hands over to John Whitfield. stations have agreements with Network Rail who have also changed some of the license Report by our outgoing agreement criteria. This has chairman, Gail Coleshill led to some difficulties with This year has seen a lot of activity volunteer workers who have between the stations on the line had to either change patterns between Tisbury and Crewkerne. of working or – in the case of Notwithstanding reorganisations Crewkerne - have the agree- within the staffing of South Western ment looked at more frequently ‘A barrow of fun!’ Tony, Railway. The volunteer partnership because of ongoing develop- Heather, Jo, Mike & Sue has made good progress on a ment by the station. number of items. One of the aims of the CRP is to get more people Newly appointed Community Rail travelling between stations and making visits to the Manager Andrew Harrowell has towns along the line. Each town has unique been a constant visitor and advisor attractions from shopping to history to leisure to all the stations. He has put in funding applications to activities and we are very keen to promote them to Government bodies and helped the CRP volunteers and the wider population. We have organised trips by the officers with grant applications. station groups to most of the towns on the lines and Sadly we failed to get DFT then invited others to join some of these trips. One funding for disabled access at such was to link with the Yeovil and Gillingham but will be Farmers’ Market and trying other pathways. Antiques Trail in Crewkerne. The Town Council allowed an Starting with the end of the year antiques market along- all of the stations had magnifi- side the Farmers Market Footbridge at Gillingham by Paul cent Christmas decorations and in their car park and one Blowfield some of them had activities to of the Antiques dealers celebrate from Mince pies at Crewkerne to brunch at funded a community bus Crewkerne Voluntary Transport Templecombe. Every station had a speciality from hand to travel from the station crafted decorations to decorated Christmas trees and every to the town. We would like to see more of these station won an award for their best effort. In addition the special promotions next year. travelling public were asked to vote for the best feature at their station and the station with the most votes carried away The major achievement this year has been the the annual cup. This year Crewkerne won the cup and it is no production of a Line Guide which has been written by coincidence that participation by the station staff helps get Caroline, using information of interest about the towns more people to vote. The resulting Newsletter produced by and villages from the station volunteers at each CRP officer Caroline Rowland had some magnificent station. It has also been put together by Caroline with Christmas photos. professional help from Zoe at Shaftesbury. We are pleased that it has been distributed by South Western Partnership Officer Caroline was able to use her World War 1 Railway to all the stations in their southern area. It research into the memorials for railway workers into a locally has been much admired and has been short listed for interesting and moving memorial book an award. of station workers who died in the First World War. A launch of the book was Community Rail Partnerships that are accredited by held in Sherborne Castle Garden Cen- the Department of Transport are able to apply for tre with a playing of the last post and it Government and other grants and have more status. is now on sale at all the stations. South We have started the move for Accreditation for the Western Railway has supported the BVCRP. project with funds and information. Gail has done an exceptional job Andrew Harrowell has facilitated a new as our chairman, hard working and Community Rail Partnership agree- ment with all of the stations. As it was dedicated and a great ambassador designed for new partnerships there for the rail partnership. were a number of problems with some of the well established volunteers groups who already had methods of working which A BIG THANK YOU did not fit into the new agreement. Andrew has worked with the groups to iron out the problems to everybody’s Gail from all of us satisfaction and there is more work to do in individual cases. My first article as Trains are likely to comprise of more carriages with trains Chairman of splitting at Yeovil and some remaining at Yeovil Junction Blackmore Vale CRP overnight. There will also be alterations to the buildings on Platforms 1 We are fortunate to have a & 2; the Station Master's office is being re-assigned (not group of enthusiastic station aware of all details) but we understand the Station Master will representatives and teams that be relocated to the old signal box at Templecombe. have built a working relation- ship with SWR employees and the local communities. I would also add that I have found SWR staff, at all stations, extremely helpful and customer focussed. A special thanks to Andrew Harrowell for getting all stations ACoRP membership. And not to forget our Partnership Officer Caroline Rowland who keeps us all in order and does a tremendous amount of work "behind the scenes". My "own station" is Yeovil Junction; The ‘Art Deco’ Signal Box at Templecombe by Paul Blowfield The establishment of the As the access to Platform 3 will be via the existing barrow Driver's and Guard's Depot at runs, we have suggested that the complete replacement bridge Yeovil Junction is progress- to Platform 3 with ing. We are not aware of lifts is put in to exact details but advised that provide both they will be based on disabled access to Platform 3. I understand that the station and safer 10 will be on site in October, (and drier) access 30 by the year end and it is for the staff to planned to be 100% platform 3, at this operational by May 2020, time; sadly unlikely with 70 drivers and guards to be done due to plus support staff. financial limitations. We are also discussing with "Heart of Wessex" to jointly adopt Yeovil Pen Mill; more of this in future newsletters. Anyone wishing to become a friend of Yeovil Junction; please contact me on [email protected] The ‘Art Deco’ interior of the Rocket Café at Yeovil Junction by Brian Haigh Blackmore Vale Community Bee and Butterfly Policy Rail Partnership signing at Crewkerne Station by Gail BVCRP proposed in 2017 to make Coleshill our stations Bee and Butterfly Friendly. This was based on the One of South Western Railway’s work done at Gillingham and Franchise winning strategies was adopted by the Friends of to encourage existing station Gillingham Station adoption groups and develop more Community Rail Gillingham Town Council has Partnerships on their network. Chair of FOCS Tony Reese adopted a Pollinators Action Plan and Gillingham was pleased to welcome new CRP Manager Andrew Station is a partner in this new venture, adopting a Harrowell local partnership officer Caroline Rowland and Bee and Butterfly Policy for new planting. It was AcoRP (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) proposed that our stations groups consider the plan representative Daniel Wright to the station on a Volunteers for adoption at stations. It could be mean forging working day to sign the new CRP agreement. stronger ties with town and parish councils by encouraging them to also adopt the plan and for They were also able to see what has been achieved by the towns and village to become ‘Bee Friendly.” Friends of Crewkerne Station.