Annual Report 2019 Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership www.bishopline.org Key highlights for 2019 8 1 Community engagement Awards Successfully meetings shortlisting accredited by DfT +17.5% £21,000 External funding More secured tickets sold +33% +22% More More facebook twitter followers followers Contents 01. Foreword by chair 4 02. Partnership objectives 6 03. Results 8 04. Station and station adoption news 9 05. Service news 14 06. Community rail news 16 07. Community engagement 18 08. Advertising, marketing & events 20 09. Media releases 27 10. The coming year 29 11. Partnership members & funders 31 01. Foreword by chair Welcome to the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership annual report for 2019. Firstly, I am pleased to introduce you to our new community rail officer, Felicity Machnicki, whom many of you may already know. She has an excellent level of knowledge and enthusiasm for the role. Her priority for this year and next is to increase engagement with the wider community along the Bishop Line and grow the partnership in a diverse and inclusive way. She has already met with several members of the Bishop Line community to this end. Prior to holding this role Felicity delivered the partnership’s marketing campaigns including the hourly service campaign in 2018. So well received was the campaign, that it was shortlisted by the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP) for an award. As will be seen later in the report, the hourly service has proved very popular, with a year on year increase in ticket sales. The partnership undertakes an annual survey with our train passengers and with local bus and car users. We gather data on travel behaviour as well as feedback on what would make travelling by train more appealing. This enables us to work with our train operating company, Northern to develop a service which suits the needs of our passengers and our community. In this respect we were pleased that the dated ‘Pacer’ diesel units have been removed and replaced by newer units which give a smoother ride. In terms of service we have been fortunate throughout 2019 that the Bishop Line has not seen the difficulties experienced elsewhere on the network and Northern has provided a reliable, friendly service with few delays and cancellations. The partnership has been working with our local heritage line Weardale Railway to improve connections from the Bishop Line to their services. We were successful in bidding to the ACoRP community rail development fund for a connecting pathway between the Weardale Railway station (Bishop Auckland West) and the Northern station at Bishop Auckland thus providing a user-friendly link to the heritage railway. Work is due to be complete at the beginning of the 2020 Weardale Railway season. 4 | The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Annual Report 2019 Two Heritage Action Zones (HAZ) have been created by Historic England in our area, firstly the Bishop Auckland HAZ which covers the town itself, and secondly the route of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). We are pleased to be involved in two of the S&DR heritage programme workstreams and sit on the project board, this means we can represent the community that our railway serves in relation to this historic celebration of its 200th anniversary on 27th September 2025. The National Railway Museum has proposed exciting improvements, including a new building, to its site at Shildon which will house more of its collection and these are due to be completed in the next few years. This together with the Auckland Project and the exciting plans for Darlington Railway Heritage Quarter at North Road Station will provide much improved visitor destinations and the Bishop Line is perfectly placed to travel to them. In April 2019 the DfT launched a new accreditation scheme for community rail partnerships and I am absolutely delighted that our partnership was awarded accreditation status in November. This underlines the great amount of work which has been undertaken by the community rail officer and the partners. As can be seen from the report this year has seen quite a lot of change for the partnership. I retired from the role of community rail officer and was promptly elected chair some months afterwards. The previous chair, Charlie Walton, has now taken on the role of vice chair and I must thank him for his dedication and hard work for the Partnership. Robert Whitehouse Chair, Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Annual Report 2019 | 5 02. Partnership objectives The partnership’s overall aim is to raise awareness of the Bishop Line - locally, regionally and nationally and in turn increase its patronage. In addition to that the partnership has set objectives in line with the new Department for Transport community rail strategy which will be delivered in the short and long term. Long term strategic aims of the partnership as set out in the constitution 2019 (5-year timescale) A. Promoting the Bishop Line and its service including identifying and developing new markets. B. Supporting development of the Bishop Line service and infrastructure to better meet the needs of local residents, visitors and businesses. C. Ensuring the continuance and improvement of services through to destinations beyond Darlington. D. Promoting the Bishop Line’s unique social and industrial heritage. E. Bringing more tourist income to the area developing the Bishop Line as an attraction in its own right as well as a means of access to a range of other visitor attractions. F. Improving access to the Bishop Line services by bus, cycle, on foot and to/from the national rail network at Darlington. G. Work with the Weardale Railway to maximise connectivity between services at Bishop Auckland. H. Promoting community action at stations - e.g. school or community station adoption schemes. Station adoption to cover all stations in Tees Valley and South Durham by March 2025. I. Putting the railway at the centre of local regeneration partnerships. J. Generating funds for rail-based projects. K. Encouraging local businesses to sponsor environmental enhancements at stations or other locations along the line through the Northern managed station adoption programme. L. To work effectively and without prejudice within the emerging devolved franchise governance fostering appropriate relationships with Rail North and the North East Rail Management Unit (NERMU). 6 | The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Annual Report 2019 Short term aims for 2019-21 1. Partnership Recruit a more diverse and active membership by end March 2021. 2. Customer engagement Continue to carry out the annual customer survey and introduce quarterly concise passenger surveys. 3. Community engagement Work to understand the needs of the local community in terms of rail through station and community events and engagement meetings. 4. Stations Work towards achieving station adoption at all stations in Tees Valley and South Durham by March 2025. 5. Tourism Promote travelling by train to tourist attractions along the line such as The Auckland Project, Locomotion, Head of Steam Darlington Railway Museum and Darlington Hippodrome. 6. Heritage lines Work with the Weardale Railway more collaboratively to promote connecting services. 7. Freight Encourage freight movements without disruption to passenger services. 8. Service Work with the train operating company to provide a half hourly service by December 2021. Aims for partners Northern - Rolling stock fit for purpose by end March 2020 and station improvement work to continue to improve safety on stations. Network Rail to ensure line is satisfactory to support a half hourly service. The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Annual Report 2019 | 7 03. Results In this annual report we outline activity within the 2019 calendar year and performance for the same period. The rail reporting year runs from period 1 (starting 1st April) through to period 13 (ending 31st March) so our charts show period 11 (Jan) through to period 10 (December). Rail reporting periods Period 1 April 1-27 Period 6 Aug 18 - Sep 14 Period 11 Jan 5 - Feb 1 Period 2 April 28 - May 25 Period 7 Sep 15 - Oct 12 Period 12 Feb 2 - 29 Feb Period 3 May 26 - June 22 Period 8 Oct 13 - Nov 9 Period 13 Mar 1 - 31 Period 4 June 23 - July 20 Period 9 Nov 10 - Dec 7 Period 5 July 21 - Aug 17 Period 10 Dec 8 - Jan 4 Ticket sales We are pleased to be able to report on almost 3 full years of ticket sales data as supplied by Northern. Ticket sales reports the number of tickets sold on a certain date rather than the number of passengers travelling so is not a true representation of patronage, however annual figures can be tracked. The report shows the number of passengers travelling Annual Ticket Sales 2017-19 between any of the stations along the Bishop Line 350,000 including passengers joining the Bishop Line at Darlington 300,000 from a journey starting outside the line e.g. Middlesbrough, 250,000 Newcastle or York and leaving the train at one of the 200,000 Bishop Line stations, and passengers starting their journey 150,000 at one of the Bishop Line stations and continuing their 100,000 journey further than Darlington to a station outside of 50,000 the line. 0 2017 2018 2019 Ticket sales continue to increase year on year. Bishop Line Ticket Sales 2017-19 2017 2018 2019 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 P01 P02 P03 P04 P05 P06 P07 P08 PO9 P10 Performance Due to the change in franchise, performance is no longer reported. 8 | The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Annual Report 2019 04. Station and station adoption news Darlington mainline station Darlington is a congested location on the railway network with no capacity to accommodate more trains.