TransWilts Community Rail Partnership admitted as a full member of ACoRP

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I am delighted to announce that the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership has been accepted as a full member of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships - the national co-operation and co-ordination body for community support oranisations for lines and services away from "Inter-City" stuff.

Press release at http://atrebatia.info/acorp_press.pdf

A significant step as it will help us learn from others, and make it easier for us to be involved with national co-operative aspects.  I note already a meeting in the calendar for next month - briefing seminar at Marsham Street. Not only does this make us more effective, but it also makes it much more productive for the rail industry and rail industry govenance to work with us as we should now know a bit more about what we're doing, having been briefed from the centre.  Doesn't mean we won't continue to ask questions - we're all here for the passengers!

[John R]

Congratulations to all involved, and hopefully this will result in some more good PR^▸ (Public Relations) for the line.

It's a shame the quote from Horace Prickett contains such an inaccuracy. Apart from the fact that the service didn't ever stop, a meaningful service did exist from the mid 80s until Dec 2006 - Beeching isn't particularly relevant here.

[JayMac]

Most excellent news!

My hearty congratulations to all involved. 

[grahame]

Apart from the fact that the service didn't ever stop, a meaningful service did exist from the mid 80s until Dec 2006 ...

It's not a clearcut "did / didn't" ...

Even from 1966 to 1985, a service ran - summer saturday only, one non-stop train on its way from variously Derby / Wolverhampton etc to Weymouth.    From 1985 to 2001 a commuter service to Swindon ran and there was nothing useful (as stated by HP) to Trowbridge / Westbury most of the time.  2001 to 2006 I'm going to describe as marginal, dealing well - in theory - with the single flow "commute to Swindon" but being infrequent the rest of the time and unreliable as it was always the first thing to cancel.  Also unadvertised

2014 is the first time since 1966 that we've seen a truly tuned, advertised, robust, appropriate, marketable service looking not only at running a train but also at providing a good flow-handler for most of the passengers in the corridor.

[grahame]

Further correspondence ...

The first from about a week ago. I have been tardy in posting and the delay in passing on congratulations from Paul Johnson is entirely mine.

Hi Graham
Delighted to see that the ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) membership came through at last, congratulations to the team - bound to have benefits being part of a larger group with better access/influence and experiences to share.
Glad to see continuing encouraging numbers on the service.
best regards
Paul

And from Jane Scott, leader of Wiltshire Council, received during the past couple of days

Dear Graham
 
I have just heard from Horace the good news that the TransWilts line has been approved for membership of the association of community rail partnerships.  Very many congratulations on this.  I know it is something you have been trying to deliver for some time.
 
 
 
Kind regards
 
Jane
 
Jane Scott OBE
Leader
Wiltshire Council

[grahame]

News at ...

http://www.modern-railways.com/view_article.asp?ID=7904&pubID=37&t=0&s=0&sO=both&p=1&i=10

... and Lee and I went to an ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) meeting hosted by DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) in London last week;  I've had another CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) meeting yesterday and we have several next week.  Looking now to support passenger growth, and retain customer satisfaction and services for the future.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Indeed: I, too, congratulate grahame and his team here on gaining membership of ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) - it was worth the effort, and we look forward to developing our TransWilts community rail partnership with the support of many other established and experienced partnerships.