Yes indeed - and I have had the pleasure this decade of meeting you as the legend my husband spoke so admiringly of. FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) salutes you, Grahame!

As for next decade, I met the Mayor of Salisbury (dressed as Caesar Augustus) at the Crib service in Salisbury and put in a good word for Wilton Parkway. Friends of mine who live in Coombe Bissett "can't wait for" it: something we could achieve in the next decade?

Tina Biggs FOSBR (general@fosbr.org.uk)

Ok trying to find a suitable place to post this.

On Sunday 9 June, at 2pm at Redland Station, FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) are holding an event to a) celebrate the returned reliability on the Severn Beach Line (and elsewhere) due to Filton Bank four-tracking (a 15 year campaign!!) and b) to launch our petition for MetroWest Phase 1A (hourly from Severn Beach, half hourly from Avonmouth to Temple Meads, Bath and hopefully Westbury, in the May 2020 timetable.

All welcome. There will, as is FOSBR tradition, music (ukulele and singing), placards and a photoshoot for the press release, and we will be taking a train to Severn Beach where we will be met by our very good rail friend Peter Tyzack and other Severn Beach denizens.

More details on FOSBR website www.fosbr.org.uk and Facebook page (search for FOSBR)

Or email me on general@fosbr.org.uk

Tina

I've just had a complaint from a Bristol resident about trains idling for "nearly 15 minutes" as they wait on the double-tracked section outside Clifton Down station waiting for the Redland train. I guess the cumulative impact of trains every 40 minutes doing that might be as bad as one sitting once a week for five hours, but if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) think they couldn't shut down a 5 hour idle  (until there was a complaint) what hope is there for fifteen minutes??

Tina

Great stuff - sorry we missed it. Perhaps next year give us a shout about a month in advance?

Tina

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

Tina

Well, in the end only the usual two of us (DR and me) turned up to WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about) 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

Ah, that was a guard of honour for you Grahame (and your dogs) that was!

Esther much smaller and me with a lot longer hair! Both Brendan and Bernard there.  (When Brendan and I first started going out I kept calling him Bernard so now when there's a case of mistaken identity his reply is "must have been Bernard" - but with both alibis in the photo what is one to do?


Tina

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

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^» (West of England Combined Authority - about) 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

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^» (West of England Combined Authority - about) 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^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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

Thanks grahame - as you may imagine, FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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^» (Department for Transport - about)-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^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) 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

Yes - I told Charlotte Leslie about it....

Well, I still haven't heard anything. But thanks to the application process i have now raised my aspirations to the extent of applying for the position of one of two elected directors of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership which thanks to very few applicants (three applicants for two positions) I have now been elected - my sister in law reckons I am the first "Director" in the family and it has been rather fun so far! Have met the Chairman of the Board, the CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) and next week will meet with the staff team and then there's the board meeting.

Oh the punchline? It is a voluntary role. But at least it means I can bring my daughter along to some of the "Mingles" - but as she is at school, not to the board meetings.

I'm intrigued by what the precise role is and is not - one source (Voscur) says directors are strategic not operational. But I was encouraged by one of the ex-board members who advised me to push all the boundaries and just enjoy it all. It certainly is fun so far and I have many, many ideas!

I think Pilning works rather well as the main access from Wales and Taunton to Severnside. One of the problems cited with a passenger service on the Henbury Loop, according to the 2015 CH2MHill report, was that a full loop service is much harder to timetable than a series of branch lines - at least, much was made of the difficulty of finding paths both at Narroways and also at the Filton Diamond that would turn into a full loop timetable without too much trainset time wasted. Surely trying to timetable a double loop would be even worse?

I am very happy to be educated on Stancombe Quarry, but surely in the meantime a shuttlebus service from Nailsea and Backwell would be a good trial - after all there is a 30 minute frequency there and it might not be too difficult to persuade Cross-Country trains to stop there as well as more direct London trains, now we have bimodal. Surely the lack of electrification to Temple Meads could have this silver lining? I know GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) were keen on the idea, until the plans for a ramp on the south platform were ditched?

Hope the TranWilts AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting) today went well by the way. Was anyone there from FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) in the end? I did try and get some of the cttee interested. Good that the MetroWest story (Westbury and Glos) made it into the Post - who was responsible for that?

Had a very good meeting Weds on Severn Beach Line, but sorry, Chatham rules.... watch this space though.

Tina

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