Great Western Coffee Shop

All welcome to our first quarterly meeting this year. We will be discussing the FOSBR Rail Plan 2018 http://www.fosbr.org.uk/files//20180100_railplan.pdf (http://www.fosbr.org.uk/files//20180100_railplan.pdf) - costings, how to muster (and gather evidence of) public support, how to build the technical and business case to feed into the WECA Joint Local Transport Plan consultation in June 2018.

We will also have a debate on "Whose agenda - the passengers' or the industry's".

For further details, and comment on our Rail Plan, please email me, Tina Biggs, on general@fosbr.org.uk

Tina Biggs
Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways

Don't worry about the odd "learning post" duplicate ...

The Delete Post and Delete Thread facilities on the forum are enabled only for administrators and moderators.  For the most part, forum policy is to maximise what members can do for themselves, but in these cases a couple of past experiences have lead us to limit their use.     There is nothing to stop you editing your post(s) that you want deleted and change the content to just "Please delete me" or words to that effect. 

Thanks, Graham, very kind. Consider me educated for next time!

Planning to get along ... a month today.  Even though I won't get home until midnight, even within the Bristol travel-to-work catchment ...

Is there a motion for the debate?   Who have you lined up to speak for and against?   Is your intent for it to be a UK general debate, or one that looks at Bristol specifics?

Many thanks for the follow ups ... alas lost in the server crash, but in summary all welcome and promises to be an interesting evening - have I got that right??

Yes - we now have three speakers lined up:

Me on FOSBR Rail Plan 2018 and how to help us launch it

Esther Giles, frequent rail passenger on "Whose agenda - the rail passengers or the stakeholders" - she's got involved with the We Own It renationalisation campaign and some of their media stunts.

and now Alan Morris, Civic Society Bristol, on "Plans and more plans - seeing the way through the trees". He does excellent work on keeping track of Bristol City Council's Local Plan, City Centre Framework and Clean Air legislation and keeping us in touch with what other environment groups are trying to achieve.

We will also know the outcome of the recent Green Capital election...


Tina

From The Bristol Post (https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/public-meeting-called-discuss-unreliable-1474598) - just appeared in my feed



Not clear to me if

1. This is added to the agenda for this evening

2. This replaces the meeting this evening

3. This is a new meeting

Can someone from Bristol / FoSBR / in the know please follow up?  Thanks!

Morning I saw this late last night
Looks very much like The Bristol Post are mixing things up again
The topic may well be added to the agenda for tonight but I wouldn't think that it's going to be a whole new meeting at such short notice.

Partly answering my own question - a post last night from Christina Biggs FOSBR on Facebook makes it clear that this meeting is tonight's ... and it's clearly worded such that discussing frequent delays and cancellations now tops the agenda.

I had planned to go ... now in some doubt; meeting up with friends ahead of time, but I'm not sure that I'll find it worthwhile hanging round for what's being morphed mainly into a protest meeting.

And while I was writing the above .....


I would agree with you. The post from the meeting organiser on Facebook that shared the article - Christina Biggs FOSBR


Pretty conclusive to me that current woes have taken over as top story.

Probably Bristol Post re-circulating again an old story on a slow news day.

I would agree except ...

1. What a co-incidence it came up the day before the meeting

2. A post from the meeting organiser which starts "Our FOSBR Quarterly meeting is tomorrow with a focus on the Severn Beach Line troubles and "

Hello everyone!

Very sorry I didn't see this till now.

You are right that the Post picked up on the one (to them) newsworthy point. We did send a press release to the Post which was in substance the same as I originally posted up here (Esther, me and Alan), but I tweaked it slightly as I knew that our first speaker Esther would be commenting on the Severn Beach Line cancellations over the past year, so I decided that in my preamble to the FOSBR Rail Plan I would first respond to Esther and then lead into the longer-term solutions listed in our FOSBR Rail Plan 2018. As we had just had a meeting with GWR on that subject, and we had had quite a few emails from FOSBR members expressing frustration with the Beach troubles and wanting "action", I felt we had a duty as a rail user group to respond to current concerns before going on to the blue-sky stuff.

In fact in the interests of a case study in press relations, here is my full press release I sent to the Post:


Begin quote:
Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR) press release

Tina Biggs 0117 9735000                   Julie Boston 0117 9428637

Dear reader - Are you happy with the rail services in and around Bristol? Would you like to be part of our campaign to improve them?

Transport campaigners invite the public to join them on Friday 20th April 2018 in Alma Church Hall, St Johns Road, Clifton, BS8 2ES to hear how we propose to improve local rail services.

Esther Giles, whose daily journey starts from Sea Mills Stn and travels over the inter-city network : “Whose agenda – the rail passengers’ or the shareholders'?” with comments on the Severn Beach Line passenger service which has been consistently poor since the introduction of new Turbo trains in June 2017, nearly a year ago!

Tina Biggs (FOSBR Secretary) will respond to Esther and explain the FOSBR Rail Plan 2018; reporting back from meeting with GWR on Severn Beach Line performance issues and outlining possible courses of campaign action if the rail service does not improve. Public support is vital if we are to gain the attention of politicians on this issue.

Alan Morris (Bristol Civic Society): “Plans and more plans – seeing the way through the trees”.  Alan will give an overview of
all the different Bristol local plans being drafted right now, including the Bristol Local Plan, the City Centre Framework and the Clean Air measures being discussed by Bristol City Council and how they impact on our railways. 

Julie Boston:  'Fun Events Coming Up'; your opportunity to propose further FOSBR events and to let us know of your own campaigns and events around the region.

Date: Friday 20th April 2018

Time: 7.30 pm (arrive from 7.00 pm) until about 9 pm

Where:  Alma Church Hall, St Johns Road, Clifton, BS8 2ES (same venue as for our AGM in January).  For entrance to the Hall, walk 20 metres along St Johns Road from junction with Alma Road - look for the FOSBR banner on the iron railings to the left. 

Refreshments:  Hot and cold drinks with snacks will be provided

For further information and to join our campaign contact:

Tina Biggs on general@fosbr.org.uk and Julie Boston on campaigns@fosbr.org.uk

<FOSBR Rail Plan 2018.pdf>

End quote

So as you can see, for the Post to leap to "Public meeting to protest...." is I think unjustified. And in fact some of the committee members were pretty taken aback, and I was certainly worried that angry hordes would descend.

But then reality set in. I thought, hey, how many new and angry people are really going to turn up. And then I thought, so what if there are a couple of cross commuters. They have a right to have their story heard. We had not invited any GWR or politicians for the public to crucify, and I felt I could respond to some of their concerns with the information we had just gleaned from our many meetings from GWR. What else is a rail user group for than to take the body blow, and then outline things they can do that would be constructive. Let's just roll with it and then take people with us. But at that stage I could not really offer a lot of reassurance to people that the meeting would not be sidestracked, except to say we had the original speakers all there ready to deliver their talks.

And so, I took a deep breath, did a handout with some acronyms explained, with a few key addresses for people to contact, tried to make it look halfway professional (despite my not having managed to sort a data projector) and got into my best campaigner outfit.

So thankyou Graham for coming, I hope we did the right thing in the meeting. There was precisely one person who turned up simply as a result of the press release, the rest were the same old faces, and people seemed to like the FOSBR Rail Plan postcards with its one addition as a concession to the day's new theme which I will leave you to ponder:

"A Cobra-style group to tackle delays and cancellations"

I would love to know from professionals what meetings already go on, and if anyone thinks there would be a place for an occasional, special, carefully-picked group to bring the issues to one place with the right people there to inform and decide on the courageous decisions - with the people there to authorise those decisions. I'm not asking to be on it though that would be nice; and I promise I would just listen in carefully and then pass on the decoded info to our members.

Graham has told me already what he thinks of this ("leave the professionals to do their job, and the rail user groups need to just be the ones talking to the public to decode the jargon") but the FOSBR cttee members also talk in terms of not making excuses for GWR and planning "action". But the word "action" bothers me. Some people hark back to the Fare Strike which some of you may remember. Is that the sort of thing that would really get the right decisions made? The campaigners at the time think so.

I know well the idea that we must not overburden the "big people", especially the ones with the technical knowledge and operational roles, but I would say there is a role for public pressure too, and that is to give the right decision makers ammunition, or justification, for big decisions, or releasing funds, or making a judgement call on something like the current issues of:

Are the Class 166 Turbos rail-worthy and suitable for running on suburban branch lines;

Are there alternative trains out there which would be better;

What needs to be tweaked or altered with the new BASRE signalling - is it just experiencing teething problems or are there ways in which it has not been properly thought through;

What maintenance needs to be done on the rail infrastructure to prevent points and signalling failures;

Can we use the cancellations penalty money to fund any of this;

Can we throw money at the staffing problems.


It's pretty late now and I have an early start tomorrow.

Thoughts welcome!

And Graham - yes I have asked FOSBR cttee if anyone can make the TransWilts AGM next week. I will be sailing the Severn in a Wayfarer and I don't want to let my skipper down as we have already missed several sailing weekends.


Tina Biggs
FOSBR secretary

I should make it very clear indeed that I have been paraphrased, and that such a view is limited to certain situations and certainly is NOT a general position at all.

Harking back, campaigns such as "more train no strain", and the work done by such groups as the ones at Severn Tunnel Junction and Bedwyn were very effective in promoting their case / situation and all three of these examples achieved their objectives far quicker than we did at Save the Train / TransWilts.    I sometimes wonder / compare and can't know whether  there's any correlation between the fact that we took years and the approach of our campaign - could we have done (and do) better if we were more spiky?

I was going to leave it at that - but it's still not clear of my mind.   Let me give you something you may quote in full: "Tempting though it sometimes is to quote what you believe people would say / might think, it's liable to make them livid if you get it wrong - as has happened here.  And then it is detrimental to trust and ongoing relationships. Counterproductive"

Ironic that I'm making this post in response to Christina Biggs FOSBR when her post (in which she put words in my mouth) was largely a complaint about the Bristol Post manipulating her words and the damage that can/could have done.

Hello folks,

Very sorry to have grieved you, Graham, and I should say I did understand your later point about "two-way feedback", with the end of the feedback towards the industry being "controlled and focused" and "wafting". It's also kind of you to leave open the question as to how effective a "spiky" campaign is compared to a gentler approach.

I should also say that my reflection on the difference between the two kinds of approach - encouraging and understanding, with the risk of being seen to make excuses for the rail industry, versus a more "protest-based" and confrontational approach, also like you was self-questioning as I find an emotional dissonance there which I too don't really know the answer to. I am personally also more comfortable with the "Friends" bit of FOSBR, which we talked a lot about at the FOSBR meeting on Friday, but as Secretary of a committee that also talks in terms of "action" and "no excuses" I felt bound to defend the more confrontational approach too.

I'm sorry I responded defensively to what I felt was a type-casting of the FOSBR approach with what can be seen as a return, and unfair, typecasting of yours, Graham.

The proof of the pudding is that TransWilts have achieved a 400% increase in train services. The only concrete achievement of FOSBR is still the 2008 Severn Beach Line enhancement, and the Filton Bank four-tracking. The only subsequent achievement was the introduction of the 21:37 evening service to fill the 100-minute in the timetable which I should say was the idea of my husband and was definitely a Chinese drip-drip-drip style campaign. The Portishead line opening is clearly in the pipeline but I would say the bulk of the credit for that is with North Somerset and the Portishead Rail Group working together, plus Pip Sheard's "Portishead Now" campaign. Indeed WECA are listening to our Thornbury proposal, but is that just a pipe-dream that the politicians will just use to say they have at least tried? Whereas there are defeats a-plenty - Pilning and the Henbury Loop in particular. Each time the committee meet we wonder where we should expend our energies and whether any of our projects will ever see fruition and within the committee itself are many approaches which I try to listen to and keep us together on.

Many times I have wondered if the rail industry listens to FOSBR or whether they just regard us as wild and hairy barbarians to be fobbed off with a hunk of meat. Certainly it's funny how many meetings we don't get invited to! I wish people would give us credit for the knowledge we do have, even though our depth of expertise is not as extensive as that of our friends in the "far east".

I would still like to hear people's ideas for a nuanced and constructive way forward: what does Graham's "two-way feedback" approach look like? Do we need a "Cobra-style" group of humans to try to tackle head-on the day-to-day problems, rather than relying on the blind cancellation penalty computer-driven system we have? While accepting that many working groups meet behind the barricade to work, is there a case for having observers from the outside world present to relay and decode and publicise the action plans that I know from first principles are being drafted? In short, what is the most constructive way in which rail user groups can do their bit to solve the big issues in rail?


Tina Biggs
FOSBR

In turn, I'm sorry you see it as unfair typecasting, Tina.   You'll have noted upthread my concern at the adversarial slant put on the meeting by the Bristol post, and my sad conclusion that there was multiple published evidence from FoSBR that such a slant was not purely an error of translation by the newspaper.  The meeting itself was a tricky one for you - a veritable flood of topics which probably could not be put off to another meeting,  and a vocal audience, members of which made it very clear that they were such a mix that there was little common level ground even if the overall sentiment was a desire for transport improvement.

I think what I was reacting to was the implication that by even having a meeting with GWR the day before, so that I could report back to the meeting some of the reasons (some new) for the March cancellations, I was taking valuable energy and time away from those two GWR staff members to actually sorting out the problems. There was also the idea that we were not adding value to the situation by asking for the real reasons for some of the delays and trying to elicit a judgement from them as to the fitness of the Class 166. In defence, I would mention that we had also invited SCRP to the meeting and there were some very insightful points from them at the meeting. I was not personally there as my daughter was ill but I had written the agenda and trusted the two FOSBR representatives to ask all the questions and record the answers which they did. As you know I then fed this information to someone we both know, which obviously will take up some of his time too, but I would argue that person is paid for that precise role, and that that would not have taken time away from solving the problems. Or maybe it would and as I commented elsewhere "you can't win".

In terms of "multiple published evidence" from FOSBR - well, "protest meeting" does not necessarily mean adversarial, it implied that we were going to be welcoming passengers to give their story and state what for them were the most distressing aspects of their passenger experience. That for us is a valuable part of understanding what passenger priorities and in turn would be part of what you call the "two-way feedback" - so in our Thursday GWR meeting we invited a regular passenger along who explained his issue of not being told until the last minute whether the train was being cancelled or "merely" late. Obviously this could be unavoidable as GWR delay the decision to cancel altogether until the last minute because they don't want to unnecessarily turn back the service, and it was very useful for the passenger to then meet the very GWR person in that uncomfortable situation. But then again, we are taking him away from his job. Except - could it not be useful for both of these two people to meet in a small room, with people around, to appreciate how the other feels? And could that then not inform the policy of when to cancel and more crucially, when to tell the passengers that the decision has been made to cancel?

Ok, let's get to the crux - a certain FOSBR spokesperson saying GWR had "done nothing". Well, at least the Post attributed that opinion to the right person, and I can also say that person did indeed have that opinion. "Nothing" can be interpreted in terms of "nothing really game-changing" and perhaps the knowledge that GWR were swapping in trainsets like mad across the network to keep the Beach afloat might not have made much impression on that person. One could argue that swapping in and out is not a very robust solution as a convenient train is not always there, and the management should have got to work on a more robust solution, and looked either at the rail-worthiness of the trainsets (and made a call as to whether they are up to scratch or were just too clapped out) or getting more flex into the timetable so there is less tight turnarounds and a more resilient timetable. We knew early on that changing the timetable was not an option within the franchise, but one result from the January DfT meeting was that if you go high enough in the hierarchy, you can have authorisation to change the timetable. But it was only at Thursday's meeting that we were told "now X is interested, we might be able to do Y." Why have they not acted before? I can answer that, as for a long time we were told that as the Class 166 cascade was expected in January all would be well then - and four months later we are told that the cascade has not happened as quickly as thought. Maybe the passengers would not have tolerated a "In May all will be well". Sure thing, I understand. But as this is all going on, temporary workers in Severnside on zero hours contracts are losing a day's work here, perhaps not being re-employed - this week SevernNet have got in touch with me saying they want to write letters of concern, and who should we write to??

But I am not here to bash GWR but defend FOSBR. So what other published evidence is there that we have a fundamentally adversarial attitude to the rail industry?

So I would say that GWR meeting with us and our rail user members can help to crystallise the important issues for both the management and also the passengers. It can represent a vantage point for the management to look back, make a judgement and make a decision. But for costly decisions I would say that the management needs evidence that this is a big issue for the passengers, and that many people's jobs are being affected. That is why at the meeting I encouraged concerned passengers to write to two people - I picked out the two I considered to be people whose job it was to receive such letters, who were already knowledgeable of the issues and concerned about the situation, and I just thought that they would put the letter on a pile to be counted up and used to give more weight to their requests to people higher up.

Have I cleared the fair name of FOSBR? I should add finally that yes, we have a great mix of types in our membership and in the committee. I think it is one of the glories of our group that we rub along together, that people's angry views are heard, that some of us like to do protest meetings and listen to the rail unions, and others like to meet with the industry management (and I have been told off for asking to meet with GWR rather than planning "action"!) I think some of us have a great instinct for what is important for passengers and what the media will be interested in. Everyone knows that media coverage is almost invariably a poisoned chalice and you just sometimes have to allow them to change reality and the purpose of a meeting and just roll with it. After all, who really knows the absolutely most efficient way to direct the energies of 200-odd people? But at least there are many people in Bristol and around who love some of our more colourful characters and we censure, gag or reject those people to our great cost.

Tina

When you have an operator as woeful as GWR, sometimes the only option is adversarial. When the voices of protest get loud enough those in a position to do something have two choices. Fingers in the ears going "la la la la" or pulling their finger out.

What certainly doesn't help is spokespersons for two campaign groups having a public spat.  ::)

There are very much times that protest is necessary / required, but then there are times that partnership is the best way to work, and there are times that it's best to let people get on. And with so many different things going on, there will likely be a mixture of these at any one time within groups and between groups. And it's really useful for the various groupings of us to take a look at those elements and balance their strategies. 

I would not agree with a blanket "public spat". That's not how I characterise this discussion. We are talking on elements of approach which differ between FoSBR and what I'm used to, but then each group has different local circumstances and each group is nothing if not creations of said local circumstances.  How it chooses to focus and act then may have an element of influence over how those local circumstances can change, though almost inevitably it's a process that's many times slower and many times more frustrating than almost everyone involved would like.  And, yes, the local economy including people's jobs suffer as the wheels turn so slowly; make no mistake that the current woeful failure to provide at least 49 out of 50 timetabled services, around which people have planned their lives, pales our discussion on this thread into insignificance.  Who's woeful failure that is -  GWR's or its provider's - is another topic.

Do you sometimes think that some conversations are better held face to face, or at least over the phone, in order to avoid any perceived ambiguity or misunderstanding/misinterpretation?

The forum is great, but it's necessarily one dimensional.

Yes. Please do not assume that there have been no such conversations.

I was not anticipating waking up to the two overnight responses on this thread.

I'll be honest, based on my experiences of the Severn Beach line over the last 8 months or so (visiting friends who moved out to Shirehampton), I do not blame anyone for taking an adversarial stance with GWR. The service has sometimes been appalling with passengers treated with either utter contempt or simply ignored. On multiple occasions I had have had to get a bus, putting myself out of pocket, and I would be surprised if I was only person in that situation.

For a great example of how it seems like GWR treat passengers - the bustituation that happened at the end of November and beginning of December took the biscuit, with them toing and froing between blaming engineering work or blaming the fact the rolling stock had to be used to provide extra capacity for the Bath Xmas market. Now that may have been genuine miscommunication from GWR. But how do you think that appears to passengers when that happens multiple weekends in a row, with staff telling passengers it won't happen next week, only for it to happen next week!

I get GWR currently have a very difficult job, but with all this going on, I really don't think you can blame anyone who feels a "protest" meeting or whatever is the only way to get themselves heard.

As an aside - I do find it quite interesting to see how different groups attempt to essentially solve the same problem. Coming from my own bubble, where I don't really have the confidence or ability to feel like I can make a difference, I just hope no one is disheartened from trying to make things better, just because different groups have different views!

I certain that's the case for lots of people who need to use the Beach line on a daily basis
Don't let the fact that people have different ways of approaching this subject become a worry, we all hope for the same end result and will be working to achieve a solution,in which ever way feels best to the party concerned
There is a light at the end of the tunnel,which will arrive hopefully sooner than later.

Which, hopefully, is a train from Temple Meads approaching Montpelier on time, and not due to be turned back at Clifton Down.  ;)

Thanks folks!

I would like to put on record that I find these reflective conversations (both in public and private) helpful as within our FOSBR committee we do express to each other feelings of dilemma over what approaches to use. And despite my defensiveness, I do recognise that negativity is draining, and hurtful and tarnishing to the rail user world and (as someone has suggested to me) maybe puts people off getting involved. So perhaps I should attempt to stand up to this internally and try and resolve feelings before it gets to the media, but I can assure you that we have all tried in the past and there is no quick-fix, apart from outright rejection which I think would just backfire.

Thinking over the last week or so, my thoughts over the usefulness or not of our meeting with GWR middle management, and the usefulness or not of encouraging members to email decision makers, is returning back to my proposal of a "Cobra-style group". Surely by selecting the right level of management, and the right mix of executive decision makers, experts, providers and representatives of the travelling public, the present situation is a problem that at whatever government level necessary and funding pots around, is solveable? Are we not the human race that has got to the moon, split the atom and sussed out how to engineer DNA?


Tina

But these are (or were) started out as one-off capital projects with a very few people involved. Just twelve highly trained people landed on the moon and no-one is going back there, but 310,818 untrained [in travel] for the most part want to go to or from Severn Beach every year.  Far harder than getting a few to the moon??


So do I ... and I feel they are a sign of an excellent and worthwhile consideration of where I/you/we are headed - showing signs of not being stuck in any rut but looking to move forward in the most appropriate way!

I've read and heard some pretty fatuous excuses for a poor train service, but comparison with lunar expeditions is probably the most tenuous.

Seriously grahame and Christina? Running a train service is about as far removed from rocket science as one can get. ::)

It all depends on the nature of the move to alternative fuels as diesel is phased out.  From The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/jan/07/spaceexploration.theobserver)

I've spilt my coffee all over the place now....... :D

Forgive me for being a pedant, but 310, 816 people a year go to or from Clifton Down. One person goes on to Shirehampton, and one goes all the way to the Beach.

Erm yes. I think I have been misunderstood by at least one person here...

I do happen to know someone in NASA, but I have also had the most wonderful idea....


Maybe it will be more entertaining to leave you gentlemen to speculate before I let you out of your misery - besides, making the idea public might spoil it!


Tina

Ah - I've looked at ticket sales and I think there may be a reporting distortion?