Delighted to have welcomed Dan last night - though he was not given an easy ride (and if he and
GWR▸ are reading this, I'm going to offer an element, but only an element, of apology). Trains and from the meeting were disrupted, with apologies received from some members who were stuck and other arriving only half way though. Pretty disastrous for home going too.
A rail use group looks to rail users (duh - it's in the name) and I was delighted that last night we welcomed some newcomers. And they were asking the natural questions of the train service provider of "why don't you add a couple of carriages on ..." with examples of services that need strengthening, and talk of people passing out on overcrowded trains. There were also some tough questions on ticket sales - "how do you expect ticket sales at a ticket office counter to be anything but very low when the ticket office counter if closed for days on end"? And on service reliability where a host of questions arose; the railways are a service, and that's what people want to use reliabily; if a train's not available it doesn't matter whether it's GWR,
NR» ,
RMT▸ ,
ASLEF» ,
DfT» ,
ORR» or some other body or combination of bodies that's failed to provide.
Community Rail Work and improvements are important and welcome, but there's a feeling that the basics need to be gotten right. All very well providing for hard to reach groups, and doing things like encouraging new users from younger age groups, but the feeling on talk of such large investments when people can't get onto trains because of overcrowding, or because they're not running, was much more on people's minds. But let's face it, we have trains designed for an era of flows that are gone - the commuter and business traveller - trying to service a newly bouyant leisure market. We have an industry where long term planning is key, operating on 3 year contracts and one year plans, and where we await a potential new legal framework. And we have a fare system - both variety and how tickets are sold - that is overcomplex and perverse, with frightening signage that warns the innocent passenger if (s)he gets it wrong, there's potentially a penalty to pay.
OK - really good to have Dan along and explain - some - of the concerns. There is far more of a customer education job, and far, far more of a railway reform agenda that's needed than Dan could do or explain in an hour or so. The big frustration, though, is that groups like
WWRUG» and Community Rail Partnerships are pretty powerless to help. "What can we do to help?" we ask and the answer is "not a lot". We promoted last night's meeting, timed to work with direct trains across our area. And even making a short journey failed for so many ...
