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  • FOSBR Quarterly Meeting: April 20, 2018
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Author Topic: FOSBR Quarterly meeting - Friday 20 April 7.15pm, Alma Church Hall BS8 2ES (CFN)  (Read 8074 times)
Christina Biggs FOSBR
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« on: March 13, 2018, 22:31:13 »

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
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grahame
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« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2018, 23:35:17 »

Just worked out how to get this event into the actual diary. Now trying to work out how to delete my first post (and incorporate the more detailed description) as I've just seen that Four Track Now has already posted it, and I don't want to cause utter mayhem by posting three times, but also very keen to get fresh blood along!

Tina Biggs
FOSBR


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. 
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Christina Biggs FOSBR
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« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2018, 12:24:39 »

Thanks, Graham, very kind. Consider me educated for next time!
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grahame
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« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2018, 13:45:22 »

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 (United Kingdom) general debate, or one that looks at Bristol specifics?
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grahame
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« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2018, 06:51:52 »

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 (United Kingdom) 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??
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Christina Biggs FOSBR
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« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2018, 21:44:07 »

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
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grahame
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« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2018, 07:24:40 »

From The Bristol Post - just appeared in my feed


Quote
Public meeting called to discuss the ‘unreliable’ Severn Beach train service

A travel pressure group is hosting a public meeting to discuss the frequent delays and cancellations to services on the Severn Beach line.

Friends of Suburban Bristol Rail (FOSBR (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways)) say it has received a number of complaints about the service, which it fought hard to resurrect more than a decade ago.

Issues appear to have begun last in July after the service – which is controlled by Great Western Rail – received ‘new’ trains which had been recycled from the Thames Valley branch.

It is unclear why the launch of the ‘Turbo Trains’ increase the frequency of delays and cancellations, but FOSBR want to increase pressure on GWR (Great Western Railway) to improve its service.

“We have spoked to Great Western Rail again and again about this problem coming up for over a year now, but nothing has been done,” FOSBR spokesperson, Julie Boston said.

“It is horrendously disruptive for people trying to use the service – people in Bristol trying to get to Severn Beach and the other way round for people trying to get to work or just make travel plans.

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» (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways - site) / in the know please follow up?  Thanks!
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Western Pathfinder
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« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2018, 08:06:46 »

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.
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grahame
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« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2018, 08:15:38 »


Quote
A travel pressure group is hosting a public meeting to discuss the frequent delays and cancellations to services on the Severn Beach line.

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» (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways - site) / in the know please follow up?  Thanks!

Partly answering my own question - a post last night from Christina Biggs FOSBR (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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 .....

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.

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

Quote
Our FOSBR Quarterly meeting is tomorrow with a focus on the Severn Beach Line troubles and our FOSBR Rail Plan 2018 with short, medium and long-term solutions to improving local rail services. Thank you Bristol Post for publicising this!

Pretty conclusive to me that current woes have taken over as top story.
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martyjon
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« Reply #9 on: April 20, 2018, 08:35:38 »

Probably Bristol Post re-circulating again an old story on a slow news day.
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grahame
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« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2018, 08:38:51 »

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 (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) Quarterly meeting is tomorrow with a focus on the Severn Beach Line troubles and "




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Christina Biggs FOSBR
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« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2018, 23:32:56 »

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
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grahame
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« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2018, 07:13:02 »

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 (Great Western Railway) 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 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?
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grahame
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« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2018, 07:44:32 »

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.

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 (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) 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.
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Christina Biggs FOSBR
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« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2018, 09:07:14 »

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
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