Great Western Coffee Shop

I have been asked to let people know of WECA meetings on 27th July (by D.R. who many of you will know).  Can't attend myself, but useful meetings to get public points across / into the minutes

See https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/category/meetings/


Noting that this message has been brought to us from the future .... "was"  ;D  . Perhaps the minutes of the meetings have been written too, and are awaiting publication later on the day of 27th?

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bristoltardis.jpg)

And I thought this was going to be a reference to:
(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/77105000/jpg/_77105776_img_3947.jpg)

 :D

And there was I thinking what on earth Has Marvin come up with now !.

Apparently when you flush it makes Tardis sounds outside. Not tested it myself yet but seen it down on the footpath/cycle way past the Avon Valley Railway.

Warmley. And isn't it a 'Turdis'?

I'm desperately trying to work out an acronym for that. 😁

There was I thinking that this was to be Marvins answer to relieve all those residents and visitors to Bristol of the pain they are suffering by his decision to lock shut all the city's public loos as a cost saving measure.

VISIT ENGLAND, ANYWHERE OTHER THAN BRISTOL.

I'm ashamed to say it of my birth city but that is how I feel over this crass stupid measure when there are other measures which would achieve even more savings than this.

Did

#joinusinamasspissintothecityhallmoatasaprotestagainstmarvinsmassclosureofthecityspisshouses

take place, does anyone know.

Thanks grahame - as you may imagine, FOSBR is on the case. There is also WECA
Scrutiny two days before on Weds 25 July, 10.30am at Somervale Pavilion, Keynsham which I usually attend as well to get more detail and informal contacts before the decisions at WECA Committee - well worth the extra day and still time to hone the final WECA statement by the Thursday 26 July 12 noon deadline. Also a bit closer for our friends from the Far East?
 
Friday 27 July is billed in the WECA Business Plan 2018 as a "gateway decision" on MetroWest Phase 1
- hopefully they will have come up with a proposal for further funding
bids for Portishead as I don't think the N Somerset councillors will
have changed heart on the issue of joining WECA. We are attending a Scrutiny meeting in Weston super Mare tomorrow 11am Weds 18 July at Weston super Mare Town Hall - held by N Somerset Council who are very much looking for ideas. I'm going to suggest they hire a consultant to make the technical and emotional case for private investment as some commentators have felt the present application did not make the financial case for investment effectively enough to beat the rival Highways England bids for the first DfT-recommended pot of funding. Although the Portbury Docks seem to have entirely stopped using the freight line, the argument that they have purchased paths against future eventualities still stands, and having re-scoped once, no-one will have the appetite for finding further savings on the £48 million price-tag still outstanding. So I think we just have to search high and low for 48 millionaires, or one Bill Gates-type person who fancies keeping his passion wagon in Portishead Marina and commuting by steam train?
 
I think it would be also timely to have presentations on Pilning, receiving a boost from the current Clean Air preoccupation, as a good surgical intervention to alleviating air pollution at the bottom of the
M32 where it stops in Bristol - ie get the the cars off the road before they even get on the M32. We had a great meeting with DfT today at Bristol Parkway at their last roadshow for the XC Franchise consultation (deadline 30 August) as we are working up a submission to ask for the once-daily 07:00 Cardiff to Manchester train (reversing at Temple Meads) to make a stop at 07:32 at Pilning. This is because it was the top time choice for local commuters into Bristol when we held our first pub(lic) meeting at the Plough Pilning in 2016. We are hoping that the modest nature of our request (as this once daily service stops at every station on the stretch from Newport and Filton Abbey Wood anyway), plus the increased slack on XC timetables and their pre-eminence in the Automatic Route Signalling software we are fighting for Severn Beach Line, will make a good case for a 24-month trial. UWE have done us a Cost Benefit Analysis for Pilning for a variety of footfall scenarios, and we now have maps to show that the 2019 planned M49 junction will be very close to Pilning and that there will indeed be a way in to the Western "Wall" commercial development to the south of the M49 junction.

Also I think there is a need to demonstrate substantial public support for Thornbury. Do
you lovely people have contacts in Thornbury we can alert? David Carter the new WECA
Infrastructure lead has been to Tytherington but I think WECA and S Glos need
evidence of public support before they actually put it in the West of England JLTP (Joint Local Transport Plan) consultation draft in September 2018. From the general silence from "our man in Thornbury" I fear it's falling prey to politics around the proposed Buckover Village development - a group called TRAPP'D are so passionately against any further development they are perhaps regarding the Thornbury Rail idea as a lure to get them to succumb to Buckover, only for the rail project to be cynically withdrawn once the JSP is approved.
 
Thoughts welcome and see some of you on Friday 27 July if not Weds 25 July as well?

Tina Biggs
FOSBR Secretary
general@fosbr.org.uk

Is this another classic case of a public body performing yet again A FAIT ACCOMPLI.

Having attended a couple of the WECA meetings recently to make an input on cross-border buses into Wiltshire (have your passports and visas ready!) I do questions whether some meetings are so pre-planned that anything that happens on the day has little or no effect on the outcome.

Having given that jaded comment, a stream of comments, meeting after meeting, which differ but all encourage WECA along in the same general direction, may in time help the ball to roll along.    After all, what better way to move forward tun to work with the community, for what the knowledgable members of the community are looking to achieve, and to be able to tout the support of those community members and what you've achieved together when you come to be re-elected.

Thanks Graham. We do seem to be getting somewhere by simply turning up time after time over almost ten years in my own case, and trying to tailor our statements to current issues, if only in terms of personal trust and mutual respect with both officers and elected members.

In terms of why I regard the Friday 27 July WECA Committe meeting as particularly worth turning up to, it's just that I've been advised that if we just wait for the consultation draft of the Joint Local Transport Plan in September 2018 it will be very hard to persuade WECA to make changes then (despite it being a consultation) - so I'm hoping that bringing along some real people (as opposed to usual suspects) upstream of the draft being finalised. I'm hoping that new faces may yet persuade officers to put in more elements of the FOSBR Rail Plan. In fact I have heard that they about to publish a rail study into capacity of a series of proposals across the region, which I hope will include some of our many aspirations. I'm not expecting all of our recommendations to be followed, but I find that by presenting a varied menu of starters, main courses, regional delicacies and delicious small bites (like Pilning) as well as great fat porky propositions like Thornbury and old sour grapes like Henbury Loop, some may entice the appetite. Indeed one of the WECA officers told me he'd been to Tytherington....

Tina

Consultations are but a step.  If you can help WECA (or any other body) include the right questions in the first place - consult and discuss between various options that the public or sections of the public want - so much the better for everyone.  If you / we are seen around and seen around with positive, co-operative and co-ordinated depth, it gives the specifiers of the consultations confidence that ideas put forward will be supported into the future and they and their colleagues won't be left holding someone else's baby alone.

"Consultation" got something of a bad reputation with MetroBust, becoming more a case of telling people what they wanted or thought would work, then asking why we all agree with them.I would hope that WECA and the Western Super Mayor go a long way to repair that damage, although "hope"may be the wrong word to use.

In my front line railway union rep days we were always taught that 'Consultation' mean't "Hard luck, this is what you are going to get" and 'Negotiation' mean't "Now then, what would you like?".....

I forgot to mention that my own Tardis is playing up of late. I can't understand it - it was working fine next month.

Let me know if you want to use my sonic screwdriver .

I think it might be the retro-fitted diesel engine and generator fitted to enable it to travel through the parts of the space and time continuum not yet equipped with power sources compatible with your on-board crystal

You might be right. It was supposed to be electrified in the 1990s.

Well I hope it won't just be me turning up on Friday!!! I don't think they listen to the usual suspects any more - but they do definitely like it when new faces - "real people" who actually live near the proposed rail stations - actually come.

Not too late to put in a statement, even if you can't attend to speak to it.

Email democratic.services@westofengland-ca.org.uk by the Thursday 26 July 12 noon deadline.

I like the suggestion of suggesting consultation questions - great idea. Why don't you wise men come up with some and submit them as a statement (too late for formal questions now I'm afraid!)?

Re your TransWilts statement, Grahame - why don't you just email James White direct? Or you could come to a meeting with the new WECA Infrastructure head once the WECA Head of Transport has been appointed - he's interested in meeting with the rail people - he's even been to Tytherington and started to think about Westerleigh Junction!

Tina

Err ... I find that a it inconsistent. Or have I missed something?

The truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes.   On one hand, respect and understanding is built up, and a re-assurance of continuity should the future be routed in the direction you advocate.  But there is also an desire to see the wider support for what you're suggesting to double-clarify that you / we / whoever are not just noisy pressure groups who's volume is disproportionate to their size.

Yes - "they" like it when they get new (and strong and overwhelming) inputs in a particular direction.   The wider base of inputs from both old hands and new helps decisions along where there's a real choice, and bearing in mind that those decisions really have to stack up and make the grade.  And that latter is hugely difficult to achieve in suggestions put forward by interested and bright people - but people who don't and can't have the total picture prior to making their inputs.

I am - relieved - that the "red franchise" and "blue franchise" split proposed in the GW Franchise consultation has been decided against.  Lots of reasons, amongst them I'm sure that there was a flood of inputs saying "no" to only a trickle saying "yes please"; had the balance of inputs been the other way, I suspect the decision would have been a different one.  So these various inputs do make a difference.  Look also at the Severn Beach line; as I recall, the service step to 3 trains every 2 hours was very much a community supported / suggested idea and it's worked a treat, and on my own local line I suspect we would not  have had a service improvement without support displayed from the terriers amongst us who keep at it, and the greyhounds who sprint through - briefly seen between long periods of sleep, but there in the background at other times (I am writing this with a greyhound asleep - head on my feet!)

Thanks for the encouragement Graham - yes, I think I meant what you said - they like the continuity of attendance but they also like getting confirmation that the outside world does indeed care about what they do.

Thanks also for the acknowlegement of the 40 minute service win in 2008 - something I was not part of as I arrived the year after the instatement of the service - in fact was recruited by attending the 1-year anniversary party. I do hope though that we will see further wins, though they seem to be taking a long time in the pipeline.

But as I said to James White, I guess if I stay in Bristol I'll be making statements into my nineties - such is the timescale of rail!

Tina

Oh - I intend to be around encouraging public transport use into my 90s.  That's because I believe in good, sustainable mass transit with micro connections, because I enjoy doing it, and because I want to re-assure anyone I come across who picks up the things I'm helping advocate that I'm not just a fair weather friend.

Well, in the end only the usual two of us (DR and me) turned up to WECA despite lots of emails - though two of our allies put in statements and questions, I know from past experience that there will not be a lot of impact from that.

Next WECA meeting is Friday 28 September - it will be where WECA will publish the consultation draft of the Joint Local Transport Plan. We'll be checking the online agenda a week in advance and hope to have some real people shovel-ready (as such) though it will fall between the stools of interacting upstream of WECA and having time to put together a proper business (and public support) case for the stuff not included. We will hopefully have recruited our two MSc students from UWE by then so at least they can attend.

Tina

I was there too, where, the WECA meeting.

Expect more MetroBust, following the soaraway success of the one that actually opened.

That should read ;-

Expect more MetroBust, following the "soaraway success" of the one that actually opened.

Actually mention was made at the WECA meeting of a deal being done to provide some support to First to operate the Long Ashton - South Bristol Link Road - Hengrove section and for making an approach to the charity that will be running the M1 route to run the 10 which is being abandoned by the withdrawal of Wessex from September.

Re: people who turn up at these WECA meetings. I've never been to one but I have a feeling the majority of people there (apart from those attending on a professional basis) were men in their 60s. If they didn't schedule these meetings during the working day, they might get a wider and more varied input.

I've attended a couple of WECA meetings and the 'public gallery' is far less biased towards recently-senior males than many meetings of other groups - even those that meet at weekends or in the evening. I was a bit surprised.

I'm not sure how you best get wide engagement on pretty technical stuff from people who are not doing it as a profession. Your railway/bus societies (including some "user" groups) have a club / old buddies / social element and atmosphere which is absent from WECA meetings.   And your WECA meetings need considerable reading in and preparation if you're going to use them as an effective input tool.

Okay, that sounds encouraging.

I don't know. Clearly the more technical the item under consideration, the more engaged and knowledgeable you need to be to give any useful input. The non-technical attendees can still be useful to give a sense of what end-users would like; subject to all the caveats about representation.

Often, it isn't the pure technical side that is being discussed, if the papers for the meetings are anything to go by. And after all, you don't need to know why there are 24 blades in a Rolls Royce Trent 900 engine* to tell easyJet that their Croque Monsieurs stick to the cardboard in the packet when heated.

(*I don't know either.)

Something about optimal balance V weight distribution iirc.

I've just counted the blades in the Trent 900 I've just finished mounting in my Norton Commando (handles like a pig, but goes like stink) and I can tell you that there are a lot more than 24. However, if we just count the fan blades...

There are blades and blades and blades in a RR Trent 900 cos there is the Low Pressure Compressor, Intermediate Pressure Compressor and High Pressure Compressor and then there are more blades or to use the technical term for them at the back end, stators, on each of the High Pressure Turbine, the Intermediate Pressure Turbine and the Low Pressure Turbine. Most of the air that goes in at the front end of the engine passes over the bulk of the engine and sort of forms a noise absorption barrier to absorb the majority of the noise that comes out of the back end. It is known as a Turbo Fan or triple spool engine. Hence all the positive comments when RR's 211 came out on the L-1011, comments on how quiet it was. Compare it to the Olympus used on Concorde, a twin spool engine. 

Quite so. Lockheed weren't all that delighted when RR went bust though, and it is no coincidence that the TriStar marked the end of Lockheed as a commercial jet maker.

Just to be clear, blades go round and stators/vanes stay still and direct the gases. There are plenty of each at both ends of an engine, generally taking turns.

Rolls-Royce did not go bust, what happened was that problems with the RB211 meant that had Rolls-Royce continued as they were, warranty claims would have pushed them "over the brink" and the then Tory Government were informed and advised that the company be liquidated. So on 04 February 1971 the original Rolls Royce was placed into liquidation and Rolls Royce (1971) was born. It is true that many suppliers to the company lost large sums but I suppose the situation was one of which one could describe as which was the "lesser of evils".

Hi Marty, not sure I remember seeing you there on Friday 27 July, or is this Tardis-speak for Friday 28 September?

Tina

We had coffee together and I brought one back 4 DR,

OK, they would have gone bust if they hadn't been seen as 'too big to fail'...

I started working for RR in the 1970s and was there when it was privatised. I couldn't imagine why they would want to move from a 'cost-plus' basis, where they estimated the cost of a project and were then paid 10% over by the government, to a commercial basis where they took their own risk (up to a point) and made their own profits.

There is a parallel here with out present nationalised railway: The nationalised RR Ltd would see a business opportunity, set a budget, and then wait months or years for Whitehall to assess the benefits. By the time funding was agreed, there was a good chance that the requirement might have changed or disappeared, so it had to go back to the committee for more second-guessing; on the other hand sometimes they'd do most of the engineering work on a project only to have the funding pulled for political reasons.

I started there when it was still Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited, was there to hear the fateful announcement in 1971, was there when it was re-privatised and took full advantage of the free and matching offer in the share sale and followed my fathers loyalty in obtaining my long service award for 25 years service too, a gold watch from Garrards, the Queens jewellers.

Listen, I said I didn't know! I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition.

No one does !.

Our chief weapon is the GRIP process...

... and Control Period spending... Our two weapons are the GRIP Process and Control Period spending... and a ruthless inefficiency... Our three weapons are the GRIP process, Control Period spending, a ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to Chris Grayling...

It will be the Comfy Chair for you next time BNM.

Only if he takes a car...

Paul

Undoubtedly eating a meal of Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans and Spam - without the Spam.

Not like spam, then? I looooove spam.

I do empathize: I remember retrieving his empty coffee cups from under DR's wheelchair for him at the GWR CRP meeting in Barnstaple last year.  ;)

An opportunity clearly missed by GWR catering. 😀

One amongst many.