The Rages Rag Newsletter of Rail Action Group, East of Scotland www.rages.org.uk Issue No. 25 - April 2005 New Improved Timetable for Dunbar The Aims of RAGES GNER and Virgin CrossCountry have memorable two-hourly off-peak pattern, To improve the rail service announced that, following consultation with an improved evening peak commuter between Edinburgh and Dunbar with with the Scottish Executive, Strategic Rail service and more afternoon/early evening extension to Berwick upon Tweed at a Authority and stakeholders, a new weekend services Edinburgh to Dunbar. later stage. improved timetable for Dunbar will be To have East Linton and Reston introduced on 12 June 2005. Proposed Monday to Friday at stations re-opened for active use. Dunbar is currently served solely by Dunbar To improve the level of service to GNER services on a relatively ad-hoc North Berwick. basis and whilst the level of service is Northbound Southbound To consider the implications with above the Public Service Requirement 07.44 GNER 06.20 GNER regard to car parking and bicycle (PSR), the timetable has remained 08.52 GNER 07.25 Virgin storage at stations between Waverley unchanged for a number of years. 09.55 GNER 09.25 Virgin and Berwick upon Tweed. RAGES has, of course, been instrumental 11.45 Virgin 11.25 Virgin To keep under scrutiny the in the addition of some important 13.45 Virgin 13.25 Virgin standards of passenger facilities at additions. 15.45 Virgin 15.25 Virgin stations between Waverley and From June, Dunbar will gain more 17.45 Virgin 16.20 GNER Berwick upon Tweed, including North frequent services to and from Edinburgh 19.45 Virgin 17.25 Virgin Berwick, and to draw the attention of with trains at regular intervals throughout 21.46 GNER 17.50 GNER the relevant bodies to shortcomings the day. This boost to the 22.40 Virgin 18.25 Virgin which arise. Dunbar/Edinburgh timetable will be 18.55 GNER To re-open the branch line from particularly important as 92 per cent of 19.22 GNER Longniddry to Haddington. 21.22 GNER people using Dunbar station are travelling The group, being to, from or via Edinburgh. environmentally minded, will actively The timetable retains the morning GNER have dropped off the 13.12 and strive to encourage rail travel within direct service to London and late 17.05 north-bound and 07.20, 09.50, its geographical area. afternoon service from London and there 14.20 and 17.22 south-bound stops from will be more London journey their weekday services. opportunities (with changes at Newcastle The Virgin Trains Saturday timetable or York) including later weekend is expected to be: 5 minutes past the odd departures from London. Whilst there is a hours leaving Edinburgh from 07.05 to reduction in direct London services (five 17.05; and 45 minutes past the odd hours each day), there will be a wider range of Welcome to this issue of The from Dunbar from 1145 to 1745 to new destinations in England including Rages Rag, which we publish Edinburgh with two further trains at 19.55 Birmingham, Oxford, Southampton and regularly. It is the main means of and 22.05. There can be variations due to Bournemouth provided by Virgin communication with our members. engineering work. CrossCountry. The Virgin Trains Sunday pattern is Most of the calls by Virgin Inside Issue 25: not available at present, but there will be CrossCountry will be additional trains for Berwick News - Page 2 variations on individual dates depending Dunbar, plugging gaps in the existing North Berwick news and forum - on engineering work. timetable. Some others will substitute for Page 2 stops currently made by GNER at about RPC Scotland - Page 5 the same times. More details ECML franchise - Page 6 RAGES had raised the adequacy of Timetable Summary the seating capacity on the 17.05 from The editor invites contributions Edinburgh, but Virgin CrossCountry have which should be sent to him at the Over 40 extra services per week will re-assured us that they are planning to “Published by” address at the foot of stop at Dunbar. make this train a five-car Super Voyager page 6. The new timetable provided by GNER with 246 seats, as they reckon on fewer and Virgin CrossCountry delivers a Go to page 2 New Improved Timetable for Dunbar From page 1 than 100 people on that train at the moment. The peak for The Virgin Trains’ pattern on summer Saturdays is expected longer journeys from Edinburgh on the route via Leeds is to be virtually identical to weekdays in almost all cases, but the earlier in the day, so there should be room for the usual 100 to last Virgin north-bound to call at Dunbar (due 19.55 in the draft 150 Dunbar commuters that use GNER's current 17.00 service. timetable) is expected to be the 13.58 Bristol to Edinburgh. The Virgin CrossCountry trains that are earmarked to call at On fares, Virgin Trains report that with Dunbar joining their Dunbar run between Edinburgh and Birmingham New Street CrossCountry network in June, they will be rolling out their via Leeds with most continuing to/from Southampton or Value Advance First and Value Advance fares to cover this. Bournemouth with stops including Birmingham International, Work is on-going with GNER as whether or not Virgin will Coventry, Oxford, Reading, Basingstoke and Winchester. accept GNER’s Standard Class Off-Peak fares on Virgin’s On weekdays, our last north-bound of the evening is the services between Dunbar and Doncaster inclusive. 14.25 from Plymouth, with calls south of Birmingham New When these new services were announced, there was some Street including Exeter St Davids, Bristol Temple Meads, confusion regarding ticket validity between Dunbar and Bristol Parkway and Cheltenham Spa. Edinburgh, GNER has confirmed that the following tickets for Except for the 18.25 from Dunbar (18.05 Edinburgh- travel between Dunbar and Edinburgh will be inter-available on Birmingham) all the Virgin south-bounds call at Berwick, GNER and Virgin services: First Day Single/Return; Cheap Day which is served by all the north-bound ones that call at Dunbar. Single/Returns and all season tickets. Virgin’s other calls include Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, York, Leeds, Wakefield Westgate, Sheffield and Derby. RAGES also notes that this increased level of service does Their first in the morning from Edinburgh starts from not address the overloading of trains earlier in the morning nor Glasgow Central at 06.00, picking up at Motherwell and late night options for returning from Edinburgh, i.e. later than Haymarket, and the one to Edinburgh that calls at Dunbar at 21.00 and we will continue to press for further improvements. 19.45 runs through to Haymarket, Carstairs, Motherwell and Thanks are due to Virgin Trains and GNER for their Glasgow Central (due at 21.27). assistance in compiling this article. Alistair Darling MP, Secretary of State for Scotland and Transport, visited Dunbar station on 29 March to welcome the co- operation between GNER and Virgin Trains that will deliver extra trains from 12 June. He met GNER and Virgin Trains representatives and was welcomed by John Home Robertson MSP, Anne Picking MP and Councillor Norman Hampshire. Alistair Darling said: "Dunbar is an important and growing commuter town serving Edinburgh. I am pleased that the increase in trains stopping at Dunbar will reflect this importance." Photo: Ciaran Donnelly Berwick-upon-Tweed News By Geoffrey Evison I would like to begin my report by congratulating GNER on winning the East Coast franchise and wishing them every success in their endeavours. [Ed - See page 6 for more] Services have again run reasonably well since the start of the year. As many users of Berwick station are aware the last train from Kings Cross to Edinburgh on Sundays (18.30 departure) has not called at Berwick, however I can to report that GNER have confirmed that from the start of the summer timetable on 12 June 2005 this train will call at Berwick. Work on phase one of the Car Park is now complete and work on phase two, scheduled to last for a further four weeks, began on Tuesday 29 March. Unfortunately whilst work on phase two is in progress the number of car parking spaces has been reduced to approximately fifty six. However, alternative parking is available in the Castlegate Long Stay Car Park. I am sure we have our own aspirations about the future but personally speaking there is one extra service I would like to see provided during the next ten years and that is a weekday Kings Cross - Fort William and Fort William - Kings Cross train appropriately named "The West Highlander". I am sure this could be done initially on a trial basis i.e. during the summer timetable similar to the Inverness - Kings Cross "Highland Chieftain" train was when it first started operating. This would give more travel opportunities from this part of the country. 2 North Berwick Service News and recent Forum Service performance improved considerably over the late maintained by Alstom will be replaced during 2005 by an February /March period, although there were still occasional alternative type of train driven and maintained by First problems. On Easter Saturday, for example, a number of ScotRail (FSR). Meanwhile we must improve management morning services ran late or were cancelled owing to of our present suppliers, and with only one out of four trains mechanical and signalling difficulties, but at least passengers booked to go each night to the depot in Glasgow have were kept informed following the restoration of “long line” instituted more proactive checking of the three trains that announcements - indeed the ScotRail controller was able to remain at Waverley.