Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-10-20 19:20:59 - Graham Ellis
A very successful TransWilts Link meeting yesterday in Westbury. What we lacked in numbers of delegates we made up in quality of people and knowledge, and the discussions were really useful, forward thinking and brought together people from Bedwyn in the east to Westbury in the west, and from Royal Wootton Bassett in the north to Warminster to the south. The intent for this meeting is not to measure by attendee count, but rather to act as an over-arching. Full notes to be provided in due course (thank you for standing in to take minutes, Kevin from Corsham) but here is some personal feedback and diary updates. Please bear in mind these are personal recollections - I'm relying on Kevin's notes when they come through as I was far too busy to write much up.
No "big name" speakers ... but plenty of big names in the room, who updated from their viewpoint and spoke informally to a knowledgable group. A keynote / starting point [from a TransWilts community speaker]:
"When we held this meeting a year ago, we stood amongst the still-smouldering ashes of a burnt-out franchise system, with the fires dampened down by the dead hand of "nothing changes until we've sorted this out". An expectation / warning that the sort out was going to take a while and there would NOT be a fifteen year franchise, but rather an interim arrangement, and a knowledge that options such as the TransWilts that were in the bid (and 100% funded) were lost from the ongoing plans. And a sad knowledge that the funding via LSTF has a three year clock attached to it, which couldn't simply be delayed.
At that meeting, we came up with three issues that we felt were key issues that should not be simply put on hold for the period of the day - that the steady state would lead to a loss of opportunity or indeed stagnation.
1. That a mechanism should be found and implemented to allow TransWilts to go ahead
2. That further steps should be taken to maximise revenue protection - both to protect income, and also to ensure ongoing accurate data for future developments
3. That fare updates and changes should look to correcting complexities and inconsistencies, and in particular to ensuring that certain historic bargains are moved up to a viable level.
On No. 1... after a very great deal of hard work by many people behind the scenes, we look set for an appropriate TransWilts service to commence in December. On No. 2... we are pleased to observe the end of "cap and collar" in the new 2 year franchise, and we understand this means that revenue protection initiatives by the train operator will generate 100% extra income for the train operator rather than 20%. On No. 3... less good news; the reduction of the leeway give to train companies from the "inflation + 1% rises" has made great headline news for the government, but it's reduced what could be done on certain fares in our neck of the woods
Overall, it's quite remarkable and positive how far we've moved forward on our three key points over the year. Let's now look forward, working with all the bodies that have helped with this..."
And the subjects that came up included:
• Signoff TransWilts service improvement / FGW contract signoff is in published cabinet papers and will be discussed / should be agreed on 22nd. We had a cabinet member present, and although not the sponsor, it was indicated that it's almost unthinkable for it to not go through. The public cabinet papers look at elements of risk, in particular to the funding / handing of the time from the end of the 2 year franchise to the end of the 3 year service sponsorship, and also from the end of the three year LSTF funding to the end of the service sponsorship. These issues have been resolved. Another issue in the risk list is a formal objection by Go-op to the granting of train paths - however, as they are not in a position to run services from December, and indeed it would be tight timing for them to do so during the current franchise, this becomes something for a next agreement consideration. Personally (NOT discussed with others yet) I would be happy for the TransWilts train when it arrives in Swindon to carry on to Birmingham, or Bedford... and I would be happy with an hourly service too, as envisages by that report picked up by the Swindon Advertiser. I would be unhappy for a service that's built up over 3 years to be subject to the commercial vagaries of a service provide mainly or solely by an open access operator beyond that point; that could be cured by alternate services or by a guarantee of service / safety net.
When the signoff happens (presuming it does) on Tuesday, I understand there is a technical cooling off period of 5 days to allow minds to be changed - "has never happened" followed by a few final contract things to be agreed; I'm very much aware just how little time there was between the recent announcement of the new FGW franchise and it starting, and we may end up being pretty close again. HOWEVER...
• Marketing WITH ... There's an awful lot of work gone in (and that means money spent) by Wiltshire Council and by First Great Western into making the new service work. Staff, stock, marketing preparations, and so forth. And it's being done in a very positive and committed way from both sides. "Let's make this work" and "this can and WILL work" is the ethos, but also "We have to MAKE it work". I stand back slightly - in wonder and delight - at some of the things that over the years we have had to work so hard at moving towards are coming true, and indeed further than that - there are some very enlightened people out there who are now empowered to go beyond what we would have dreamed / thought of. I was walking round a day or two with a smile from ear to ear - "wow" - on something that will come out in time.
So - "Marketing WITH" - let the experts do their job. And the community to help fill in, inform, work with. Truely now a partnership rather than a discussion and co-ordination forum. AT THIS STAGE... I see the marketing being things like (a) assistance with community invite list for launch [we've done this already], (b) sourcing of local talent for ditto, (c) providing support for newcomers to rail use, (d) getting the message out around local businesses and groups, (e) Station travel plans including identification of new flows and looking at things immediately away from the tracks, (f) program of events and day out opportunities - on which we are encouraged to ask for "values added". (g) Potentially "hole filling" timetables as were once produced for Dilton Marsh, and has been produced in Wiltshire for Bradford-on-Avon. There is one specific flow, and one station, where the excellent work done already (and seen in draft) by FGW needs a filling - but it's a tiny filling compared to what we might have expected if we were "just being given a train service"
• Pewsey / Bedwyn / Westbury ... A really interesting and ongoing discussion of the requirements, worries and aspirations of three places on the same (Berks and Hants) line and yet with very different current services, and to some extent different Metrics. It's interesting to note that Bedwyn and Pewsey are perhaps the Wiltshire stations with the highest percentage of their passengers driving to the station (Chippenham is probably third), both have parking that's full (!) at the station and surrounding issues, and how services between the two are - err - not good. Making Westbury meetings from Bedwyn isn't easy (to put it mildly!) and whilst the same applies from Swindon, that changes / should change on 9.12. Connecting Wiltshire's travel planner also came up on these discussions, with no "drive to station then catch a train" suggestions being made. It was noted that "taxi to station" might provide a good way of implementing this, but the option has only been seen to be offered for Blaneavon and Llandyssul, neither of which is ;-) yet ;-) in Wiltshire.
On Pewsey / Bedwyn / Westbury, the very serious concerns and issues relate to post-electrification of the main lines from Paddington, pattern of services, etc; the semi-fast to Taunton / Exeter and express to Plymouth / Penzance (one proposal) looks goodish. Other options look less palletable, and the London traffic is key at these stations. TransWilts actually helps London to Westbury on current service by plugging the huge daytime gap for business men who currently drive to Chippenham. It also provides additional justification (as if that was needed!) for far west expresses to call at Westbury, in order to handle Swindon / Chippenham / Trowbridge to Taunton / Exeter / Plymouth / Torbay / Cornwall traffic
• Zigzag and Station buses This turned into two VERY interesting discussions. I'm writing up these issues separately - Station buses for our station group, and the Zigzag business as an example of the issues of looking at individual services rather than a network, and of how to interface commercial and subsidised services to the best benefit of the community of users.
• Area Boards The TransWilts CRP introduced itself to the Westbury Area Board last week, and in particular looks for local feedback for an via stations groups. See separate bullet point. The Trowbridge Area Board is on 14th November, and I understand we're on the agenda (no doubt we'll see when that comes out). For Chippenham on 4th November, and Melksham on 11th December, we wait to hear / see the agenda to see if we've been permitted a five minute slot.
• Station Groups ... to be the individual location eyes and ears and advocates of the CRP for each station. Actually to go a little further, in terms of things like station plans, which merit their own section. Where the CRP can, it will build on existing groups / organisations that are already undertaking the role and / or can take on the extras. In Melksham, that's the Melksham Railway Development Group. In Westbury, it's Westbury TrainWatch. In Trowbridge, Horrace Prickett was volunteered (! ;-) ) to assist at least with the initial meeting, in Chippenham we have a venue set up at the Bridge Brasserie, and in Swindon we're coming up with a date time and place with one of the Coffee Shop Forum admins. 25th October, Melksham. 6th November, Swindon. 7th November, Trowbridge. 12th November, Chippenham. 15th November, Westbury.
• Royal Wootton Bassett Delighted to have two gentlemen from "RWB" along, and to air difficult subjects which are so much better talked through than by email or other exchanges. We're all very much in agreement of aims, and can find ways that facilitate all those aims. A Transwilts service WOULD call at a station at RWB if there was one there - little question of that, unless it was on the South Wales only line. Whether it lies on both lines (nearer Swindon) or near the Skew Bridges (west of the junction) potentially has a major operational and cost set of consequences, and also consequences as to its usefulness and accessibility. With just a train every couple of hours (or every hour in the future), the TransWilts CRP recongnise and fully appreciate that a TransWilts service alone calling at RWB is likely at best to be a stop-gap; it will certainly not meet longterm aspirations. A train every 2 hours for a 10 minute journey to Swindon (for example) is unattractive,and if it did load well for that flow you've then got lots of seats all the way from Westbury (or Salisbury by that time?) to RWB which aren't very well filled just for a splurge of passengers for the final few minutes.
East of the junction - loops needed for capacity. West of the junction - wrong trains for the future, and not well sited for park and ride. Potential future traffic huge. Potential local electrics service west from Swindon and even some long distance trains calling. Input to be made to LEP / NR to at least ensure potential sites are known about as electrification happens.
• Re-opening in 1985 Good to meet, at yesterday's meeting, someone who attended the official reopening of Melksham station in 1985; I hope that he can make it along to the launch of a new service in December too.
• 7th February 2014 TransWilts CRP AGM, At County Hall, Trowbridge, with kind permission / facilitated by Wiltshire Council. The room will have limited capacity; any CRP member will be welcome but we'll ask people to register ahead of time and it will be much more of a systems and admin meeting than a volunteer's get together. We can do far better with that on the line and just off the trains.
This Franchise and beyond Here's a conundrum. We mustn't take our eyes off the ball for 2013 and 2014 - indeed, we need to have the service success in 2014 - in that ONE year. Yet we also need to look forward; come early 2014, we'll be talking about what happened beyond September 2015 when the current First franchise expires. There's already talk of a further 2 year extension prior to a full let beyond, but our key requests and cases need to be in there, and meshing. So this requires modestness in current requests, yet blue sky thinking and articulation of those blue sky request - thus talk such as the RWB, East-West rail, post electrification services, updating services south from Westbury, and even increased line capacity without being unrealistic in the shorter term. In "Control period 5" and 6 and so on, one's looking at better capacity at Westbury - an extra track at the station, and other things that came up - we need to talk of and prepare for these strategic issues - and yet also not overlook the short term, small tweaks etc, that also require full attention. "Move the 08:49 Swindon to Westbury back to 08:35, run it in the same timings within the hour as the new 17:35... and you'll satisfy many more flows" type of thing. With that example... you may end up making a platforming robustness issue at Westbury; something for us to keep an eye on.
A major subject for...
• 22nd March 2014 Date of next TransWilts Link meeting. We very much hope to have a more formalised mailing list, agenda and separate support for this series in place by then - expect to learn more about this in the next few weeks.
Draft Agenda: - How are we doing so far / what do we do within current franchise? - Linkages in, summer program, station plans. - Inputs for next rail franchise.
• How good is our data An observation really - the folks within the room held between them such a detailed know of past, present and future from so many different angles, and that makes for really joined up thinking between us all. And by sharing this information, each of the areas knows what it's interfacing to, and where a choice has to be made, helps it to be made in the direction that will help the whole. I learned a lot and I know that I imparted some data that was news to others.
• Connecting Wiltshire A look and a review of the web site. I'm afraid we identified a few issues in the journey planner, but we're heartened by the responsiveness already to inputs, and we look forward to it developing further. We celebrate the other aspect of the site, and the personal travel planning, etc; not only does this help inform people of what's available, but it also helps inform the teams about flows and travel requirements - not a formal at-station survey (those are important) but something which reaches everyone!
• The LEP. Funding. Feedback. Planning. I find forward looking a long way very difficult. And in order to look forward schemes have to be developed, strategies planned, funding identified for, applied for. We talked about the issues of getting projects "shovel ready" for short-lead major funding which seems to crop up from time to time... there's more LSTF funding coming up in December for example. Also goes discussions about working cross-LEP boundary, and applying for funding via the LEP. Much of the cross-boundary stuff in our neck of the woods relates to Bath / Bristol, where the logic of Metro services taking in Wiltshire via Avoncliff and Corsham. Extra platform at Westbury come very high up the LEP list, and really that could do so much for the economy of the area. An excellent "who would fund that" discussion, looking at who gets the benefits. TransWilts CRP to co-ordinate LEP inputs as we have the wider coverage, and our constitution allows us to look at TransWilks linked issues too... and as the line is the backbone of Wiltshire's transport, that's quite wide.
• Quiet train, but there for a reason Do you run a service with few passengers? YES, you might do so... an interesting discussion about return commuter train times. We're set on TransWilts from December for a 17:35 and an 18:50... but even at that latest time, some people may be put off by the absence of a later train just in case they have to work late. So that's why the 20:12 is so important. Oh - AND it connects off London, and we need to stress the 22:22 bus too as part of the total service.
• Actions:
- Station groups and action plans
- supportive marketing
- bus information / commercial to subsidised interface -> PJ
- Look ahead to strategy as well as tactics; NEXT franchise and next steps
- List value added (HoW rover extra, Bus interchange)