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^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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

I think what I was reacting to was the implication that by even having a meeting with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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^» (Department for Transport - about) 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

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

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^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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^▸ (Annual General Meeting) 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^▸ (Bristol Area Signalling Renewal and Enhancement) 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

So, Aztec West underground station. I am aware this is a suggestion of Graham's. I was in conversation with a chap who was planning ahead to the post-climate change world with 85 ft sea level rise. He felt that an underground network would be a necessity if most of Britain was to be under water, so wanted my thoughts on Marvin's underground metro.

I suggested that a great way to test an underground metro logistics would be to build the Aztec West underground station first as a stand-alone project. So if it was embarrassingly complicated and expensive they would not have spent billions on a useless tunnel and could sink the costs of just the one station, and connect Bristol North to the rest of the world at the same time.

Now, MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) Darren Jones is holding a Gridlock Conference on Saturday 7th July 2018, taking place from 2:30 to approximately 4:30 pm.The event will be held at Henbury and Brentry Community Centre, Machin Road, Henbury, BS10 7HG.

He invited stakeholders (including an email to me) as follows:

"As you are no doubt aware, there is substantial development happening across the North of Bristol, which is underpinned by a spatial planning and housing strategy. This is in addition to tolls being removed from the Severn Bridge. This will mean challenges in ensuring appropriate transport infrastructure, and that our roads do not turn into gridlock.

I do hope you will be able to join us and share your insights and expertise on finding a way forward. I have invited key stakeholders from across North Bristol to attend to work collaboratively on how we can best develop a set of proposals and asks to make to key decision makers."

So - I can't attend myself; I can't get any other FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) members to go. Would one of the forum members be interested in attending? I think it would be an excellent forum to raise both Graham's Aztec West idea and also things like a Park and Ride inside Filton Rail Diamond (an idea from Neil Hackett) and of course rehabilitating the Henbury Loop plans (which may mean engaging with the CH2MHill 2015 report that was so damning of the idea.

Perhaps the polite thing to do is email me (on general@fosbr.org.uk) and I can suggest to Darren Jones that he invite you?

Tina Biggs
FOSBR

Just looking for a good place to start a new dicussion on Bristol Airport.

Someone has just posted a suggestion to use Stancombe quarry as a rail route to the airport, presumably from somewhere near Flax Bourton or Long Ashton (if you look at the map).

My own idea has been to run a minibus shuttle from Nailsea and Backwell station. There used to be a bus, the A2, from Weston super Mare, via the Airport, to Nailsea and Backwell and thence to Nailsea and Clevedon. This was discontinued, but in the month  before the service stopped I visited the airport incognito and asked at the information desk how to get to the rail network - no info inside the airport either as map or timetable on the A2, and the bus stop was labelled only "A2" with no destination, and the bus itself was labelled only "North Somerset Link" - as I wrote to the CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) of Bristol Airport, "Anyone would think you wanted the airport parking revenue".

We had a meeting with the Airport and pointed all this out, and they said the problem was the Backwell crossroads. My thought was that a minibus could go round the back of Backwell. I tried to start up an email discussion about this with North Somerset Council, got a vague expression of interest and heard no more. The Airport did not want to release the postcode data to me but consented in principle to release it to my University of Bristol contact who lives in Nailsea, who has also gone quiet.

Perhaps the Airport feel that a minibus shuttle would be below their dignity? They are floating plans to run a rail link from Parson St (or the Vale location favoured by Taylor Wimpey, where the South Bristol Link road crosses the rail line. Mayor Marvin would like to see an underground link which most of us feel is very beyond the pale! But at least that would get round the gradient problem which most people cite.

I'm going to post on Aztec West seperately.

   

I wonder why they felt the need to do this particular "One plan" and press release to such fanfare - maybe to lay claim to the £billions and make the point that all the £billions are needed to deliver and improve existing services (rolling stock and staffing which is probably the main element behind the recent troubles) and we should not get too excited about bagging those £billions for new rail lines and stations?

Tina

Yes - we now have three speakers lined up:

Me on FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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

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

Thanks, that's helpful. How does the Rail in the West conference on Monday 19 March 2018 and its One Plan they published?  - It's at https://we.tl/pt2KTgAizS - at the end it points to a website called Britain Runs on Rail.  www.britainrunsonrail.co.uk/west   - is this the same as the Rail Delivery Group?

Did anyone go to the Monday 19 March conference (it was too expensive for FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) to send delegates) - and if so what did they make of the conference and of the One Plan? To my jaded eye it seemed to just be promising on delivering on what is already in the various franchise specifications. I'd like to be persuaded otherwise!

All welcome to our first quarterly meeting this year. We will be discussing the FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) Rail Plan 2018 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^» (West of England Combined Authority - about) 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

https://www.jointplanningwofe.org.uk/consult.ti/JTSTransportVision

Here's the JTS report page. See p43 for comments on rail network.

Tina

From JTS p43:

"It is important to recognise the constraints in the capacity of the rail network and the needs of both local and
longer-distance train services in the area. The Great Western Electrification Programme will improve journey
times to London, Thames Valley and South Wales, but it is also important to recognise the importance of
effective rail connectivity to the Midlands, the South West Peninsula and the South Coast. There are
significant capacity constraints on the rail network and difficult decisions will be required about how limited
track space is used for rail freight and local and longer-distance passenger trains. It is therefore
recommended that a wider operational review is undertaken of the timetabling of local services, to improve
network efficiency and to assess the effectiveness of services in meeting future connectivity needs."

Ah, yes, I should be properly rebuked for implying that the MetroBus is Network Rail's suggested way forwards.

What I do know and can say is that in WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about)'s Joint Transport Study final report on September 2017, that there is specific reference to the limitations on capacity in the heavy rail network and the conclusion that WECA (and the West of England Joint Committee) should look elsewhere for the modes of transport and networks that would really get people off the roads. The source of the advice of limits to capacity to the rail network does seem to have come from Network Rail, as we know Chris Grayling is very keen on MetroWest.

We also know that Network Rail are very robust in resisting any rail improvements that they consider unnecessary (from our Pilning campaign) so I am pretty sure that word of caution to WECA would have come from Network Rail.

 I think that is what makes sense to me of why the JTS does devote so much proposed money to MetroBus and Park and Ride (rather than Park and Rail), when MetroBus is already over-running in costs. I can see it is far easier to build a concrete trough than to attempt to engage with the many-headed hydra that is the rail industry.  Also I think WECA have been rather burnt by the Portishead Line cost over-run and perhaps they feel they are out of their depth.

So the question is, do our proposals in the FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) Rail Plan 2018 of "robust infrastructure to unlock capacity" address adequately that concern that the rail network cannot expand its capacity further? And how can we reassure bodies like WECA that it is worthwhile to invest in such projects? And is there a way to help facilitate the process of upgrading the rail network (such as Bristol East Junction and Westerleigh Junction)? And can other factors like cost of rolling stock be addressed by persuading DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) or Transport Focus to break the ROSCO^» (Rolling Stock Owning Company - about) monopoly, for example?

Tina

Yes, I've always taken the view that we should work with what's there (TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about), Railfuture) rather than wanting to go back to the drawing board or (as some not-to-be-named people say) boycott the people out there trying to work within the system.

So one way forward might be to ask DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) to beef up Peter West's team to provide meaningful overview of current operations and forward planning to paper over the franchise gaps? Or might Transport Focus provide that role?

Tina

I'd encourage you to apply, Sixty3 as I do know they are short of applicants. They will at least want to have demonstrated that they have had a good selection of people to choose from, otherwise they would not have extended the deadline by two weeks.

Christina