Quarterly Magazine August 2011 No 125 Price £2.50 JOURNAL 30 Years of Success for FoSCL - Special Anniversary Magazine The Friends of the Settle - Carlisle Line FRIENDS OF THE SETTLE – CARLISLE LINE Setle Railway Staton, Staton Road, Setle, North Yorkshire BD24 9AA President: The Hon. Sir William McAlpine Bt. Vice Presidents: Lord Inglewood DL; The Bishop of Carlisle; Edward Album; Ron Coton; Ann Cryer ; David Curry; Philip Johnston; Eric Martlew; Pete Shaw; Ken Shingleton; Brian Sutclife MBE; Gary Waller; David Ward. Chairman: Richard Morris - richard.morris @setle-carlisle.com Commitee: Douglas Hodgins (Vice-chairman & Statons Co-ordinator) [email protected]; Mark Rand (Immediate Past-Chairman) [email protected]; Stephen Way (Treasurer) [email protected]; Paul Kampen (Secretary & Editor) [email protected] ; Peter Davies (Membership Secretary) [email protected]; Ruth Evans (Volunteers Co-ordinator, Events Organiser and Health & Safety Ofcer) [email protected]; John Johnson (Armathwaite signalbox & Carlisle representatve) [email protected]; Rod Metcalfe (On-train Guides Co-ordinator) [email protected]; Pat Rand (Customer Relatons, Trading and Setle Shop Manager) [email protected] ; Pete Shaw (Heritage & Conservaton Ofcer) Telephone 01274 590453; Nigel Ward (Hon Solicitor) [email protected] Postal Addresses: Chairman : Richard Morris – 10 Mill Brow, Armathwaite, Carlisle CA4 9PJ Secretarial Enquiries, Hard Copy for the Magazine and General Postal Enquiries: Paul Kampen - 74 Springfeld Road, Baildon, Shipley, W. Yorks BD17 5LX Enquiries about Membership: Peter Davies - 5 Dewhirst Road, Brighouse, W. Yorks HD6 4BA Enquiries about Volunteering: Ruth Evans - 49 Kings Mill Lane, Setle BD24 9FD or email as above. Enquiries about the FoSCL Appleby Shop - Kath Smith, 2 Betsy Lane, Temple Sowerby, Penrith, Cumbria CA10 1SF Telephone Numbers: Telephone Enquiries about FoSCL Maters Only may be made to Paul Kampen (01274 581051) or Richard Morris (01697 472084). Please note that steam and other charter train running, booking of tckets and on-train services (other than guides) are not the responsibility of FoSCL. Other FoSCL Contacts: FoSCL website: www.foscl.org.uk; FoSCL webshop: www.foscl.co.uk; David Singleton (Guided Walks Co-ordinator) : [email protected]; Nigel Musset (Archivist, Historian and Librarian) : [email protected] Other Useful Contacts: FoSCL Public Relatons Ofcer: [email protected] Setle-Carlisle Partnership Website: www.setle-carlisle.co.uk Northern Rail: [email protected] or telephone: 0845 000 0125 Group Bookings: [email protected] Steam Train Running: www.uksteam.info NEXT MAGAZINE: Copy date for the November 2011 magazine will be Friday 14th October . Artcles, news items, photographs and leters are always welcome. Views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the commitee. You can email the magazine at: [email protected]. For electronic (PDF) copies of the magazine please contact the Editor. Past copies of the magazine may be seen at: www.foscl. org.uk ADVERTISEMENT RATES FOR THE MAGAZINE: Full Page = £75. Half page = £45. Quarter Page = £30. Four ads for the price of three if booked at the same tme. Please supply on disk or by email; all standard formats acceptable. MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual member: £10. Junior member: £3. Family member: £12.50. Corporate member: £40. Life member: £250. Joint Life membership: £350. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Cover Photo: The 14.04 Carlisle - Leeds at Horton-in-Ribblesdale staton which is decorated with buntng to celebrate 25 years of restoraton of local trains and the re-opening of eight statons. 14/7/11. Photo: Pete Shaw Setle-Carlisle Railway Journal - Chairmans Report Chairman’s Report FoSCL Chairman Richard Morris writes: ’m delighted to start by giving credit to the people who have worked so hard over the past few months on the re-design of the magazine. Paul Kampen has spent long hours in mastering the new soware package that we now use, assisted by Rachel Grifths. She and Pete Shaw have also given valuable advice on layout. The results speak for Ithemselves! Three months – the tme between FoSCL magazines – is a long tme in the life of an organisaton. In May, we were congratulatng ourselves on being well on the way to achieving all the targets wed set ourselves in our Five-Year Vision in 2006. Since then, a number of things have happened. Weve had the 25th anniversary of the reopening of eight of the statons, well documented in the May magazine. FoSCL was 30 years old on 27th June, and on 1st May it was 135 years since the frst passenger train ran along the S&C. Our heritage is what makes this line unique, and we must never forget those who toiled and died to build the line, and those who fought so hard a quarter-century ago to save it from closure. And we’ve now got to build on the foundatons they laid down to ensure we get the service Englands Most Scenic Railway deserves. In May, the McNulty Report on Value for Money in the rail industry had just been published. Since then weve had a chance to read the summary (only 77 pages) and to try to digest how it might afect the S&C. At frst sight, nothing to worry about: the whole cost-saving exercise is to take place in the context of an expanding railway and Sir Roy is confdent that the 30 saving required can be made by 2018 from the efciency measures that he proposes. However, a bit further down he states that if Plan A fails, there will have to be a smaller railway. This is not the place to examine McNulty in detail – Ive started to do that elsewhere in this editon. But it does look as if at some point we might need to take some defensive acton. On 1st June the fnal version of the Northern RS (Route tlisaton Strategy – only 156 pages), was published by Network Rail. Mark Rand and I had contributed at some length to the consultaton on the Lancs and Cumbria RS in 2008 and were broadly satsfed with the outcome, a proposal for a two-hourly service on the S&C with three additonal services. This was carried forward unchanged to the dra of the Northern RS in October 2010. Imagine our consternaton, then, when we read in the fnal version ... the number of freight train paths means that capacity is currently not available for the extra trains.” Having consulted our rail industry experts, I wrote a leter to the Editor of Rail magazine statng that we intended to challenge this, and the leter was given pride of place. Senior management in Network Rail have since told us that the problem lies in the Aire Valley: with the 333s, freight, and Carlisle and Morecambe services, there are just no spare paths during the day between Shipley and Skipton. At least we now know the startng point for planning our approach to re-franchising. Looks like we might have to have some services turning round at Skipton. Or how about coupling Carlisle and Morecambe services together from Leeds and separatng them at Skipton What do you think Please do not forget to read the membership informaton on the gold message card sent with this mailing - you may be due to renew your membership at this tme. 1 Setle-Carlisle Railway Journal - Chairmans Report Immediately aer the May magazine it transpired that we had an unusually high level of non-renewals of membership for the May quarter. Sadly weve been notfed of a number of deaths among our members and in so far as we know the reasons otherwise, it sometmes comes down to increasing age and infrmity meaning people can no longer travel for a trip on the line. Times are hard for some people, too. But, Im consistently amazed at members generosity: membership income is greatly increased by donatons that many people send with their membership. Were very grateful for this and the extra income is most welcome, as we have budgeted this year to spend some of FoSCLs cash reserves on some major projects: Appleby Staton improvements and the exterior re-decoraton and repair of the Ribblehead Visitor Centre being the two largest. nfortunately we have to accept that were all geng older. Lets be honest, we need some younger members. Two initatves here: elsewhere in this magazine youll see an advert for a volunteer Membership Development Coordinator, and were looking to resurrect the schools’ packs that we’ve used in the past. And then there’s the sort of technology that appeals to younger people: weve just launched an S&C iPhone app and weve created a mobile phone front end to the S&C Partnership web site. Dont worry if this means nothing to you – theres no space to explain here, but well try to do so at some point. If in doubt, ask your children or grandchildren! Three months is a long tme. Ive been enormously busy since being elected Chairman but, in the words of my wife, its excitng. I should pay tribute to the rest of the FoSCL Commitee, who have also been working long hours without recompense to ensure the success of the many and varied enterprises were involved in along the line; and not forgeng all our commited volunteers who do so much, looking aer our heritage. Its really heartening to see how much is going on and just how actve all the organisatons in the Partnership are. And fnally, we do want to hear from you, our members. We, the Commitee, hope that were doing the right things, but we don’t get a lot of feedback on whether weve got our priorites right.