[otd] 2nd July 1981 - Speller Act passed, allowing experimental services

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Passengers ride freight line from Bristol-to-Portbury

[snip]

The Portbury line was reopened in December 2001, when the then Transport Minister John Speller joined 150 people on a steam train journey through the Avon Gorge from Bristol's Parson Street station to Royal Portbury Dock.

Since early 2002 the route has been used by freight services. It has long been the subject of a campaign for re-opening to passenger traffic to ease congestion on the A369 - one of the main commuter routes Bristol from the west.

This is the same John Speller who's Transport Act 1962 (Amendment) Act 1981 - passed on this day (2nd July) 1981 allowed (still does) for the experimental (re)opening of stations and provision of regular timetabled passenger services on lines for a period of up to three years without the need for a closure consultation and procedure if the service didn't work out and was withdrawn during that period.

I am very grateful to John Speller for proposing and piloting this act (if those are the right words) as it lead to the first station (re)opening in Wiltshire since 1937 - at Melksham in 1985

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=962

[bobm]

Was it three years or five years?   

The through service from London Paddington to Trowbridge and Bradford on Avon started in May 2011.   It finished in 2016 as it was the only passenger service using the Hawkeridge curve at Westbury and it was stated at the time that if it continued after five years a formal closure process would have had to be followed to withdraw the service later.

[Mark A]

What time of day did it run please?

Mark

[grahame]

And detail - member mirror (here)

Experimental reopening of lines for railway passenger services.

56A. — (1) Where the Railway Board propose to discontinue all railway
passenger services on a line or from a station and—
(a) all those services were being provided on an experimental basis; and
(b) no other railway passenger services were, immediately before the first of those services was begun, being provided on that line or from that station;
then, section 56(7) above shall not apply but the Railways Board shall give due notice of their proposal under this section.
(2) For the purpose of this section railway passenger services shall be taken to be provided on an experimental basis only if due notice of the proposal to start providing those services on that basis has been given by the Railways Board.
(3) For the purposes of this section due notice of any proposal shall be taken to have been given only if, not less than six weeks before giving effect to the proposal the Railways Board have published in two successive weeks in two local newspapers circulating in the area affected, and in such other manner as may have appeared to them appropriate, a notice giving details of the proposal."

(2) In section 56(7) of the Act of 1962 (procedure in relation to proposed closures) after the words “they shall” there are inserted the words “, subject to section 56A below,”.

To my knowledge, there was only been one other of the Speller Act in Wiltshire which was the re-opening for experimental purposes of the east to north avoiding curve at Westbury.    GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) provided a through train from Paddington to Bristol via Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon for a few years - think it left Paddington at 17:08 and ran around the curve after Pewsey.    In the opposite direction, the through train from Bristol to Paddington, which still runs, reversed at Westbury so did not use the curve.   Sadly, this experiment was not continued after three years because use of the train was (to put it mildly) limited.  The morning departure from Bradford-on-Avon at 05:35 and from Trowbridge at 05:41 were too early for most people, and the journey back calling at many of the Kennet Valley stations was too slow to be attractive.  The morning train still runs; all other through trains between both Bradford-on-Avon & Trowbridge an London were withdrawn in December 2021. That was the loved and well used service to and from Waterloo, withdrawn without so far as I can tell without even a Speller style consultation, and against a backdrop petition of over 6,500 asking for it to be retained.

Edit - [I was researching the above while you wrote, Mark and Bob ... think I provide at least some answers. Not sure on 3 v 5 years and the act doesn't seem to say]

[JayMac]

I believe my local station, Templecombe, also benefited from the Speller Act.

It was reopened in 1983 for a three year trial period. A sucessful trial with the station still open to this day.

A list of stations and routes belived to have benefitted from the Speller Act and subsequent legislation can be found at the following link. Later experimental services, designated under the Railways Act 1993 and subsequent legislation, suggest they were for a five year period.

http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/operators/experimental.shtm

[bobm]

In answer to the 3 v 5 question.  The Trowbridge service ran for five years.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=7790.msg253439#msg253439

[grahame]

In answer to the 3 v 5 question.  The Trowbridge service ran for five years.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=7790.msg253439#msg253439

Thanks, Bob - the 3 year experimental perhaps came from the LSTF^▸ (Local Sustainable Transport Fund) experiment from December 2013 to December 2016 rather than the Speller Act

[grahame]

To my knowledge, there was only been one other of the Speller Act in Wiltshire ....

Operated by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) ... it also gave the opportunity to (re)start Ivybridge, Digby and Sowton, Cam and Dursley, Oxford to Bicester Town (now Chiltern), experiments at Okehampton, Heathrow Junction, Didcot West Curve. I have to say "thank goodness it provided a way" in most of those cases. 

Extensively used elsewhere - our GWR list is a small one compared to the rest of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). It's no exaduration (I don't think) to suggest it provided a mechanism for transforming the network in South Wales.

[RichardB]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Passengers ride freight line from Bristol-to-Portbury

[snip]

The Portbury line was reopened in December 2001, when the then Transport Minister John Speller joined 150 people on a steam train journey through the Avon Gorge from Bristol's Parson Street station to Royal Portbury Dock.

Since early 2002 the route has been used by freight services. It has long been the subject of a campaign for re-opening to passenger traffic to ease congestion on the A369 - one of the main commuter routes Bristol from the west.

This is the same John Speller who's Transport Act 1962 (Amendment) Act 1981 - passed on this day (2nd July) 1981 allowed (still does) for the experimental (re)opening of stations and provision of regular timetabled passenger services on lines for a period of up to three years without the need for a closure consultation and procedure if the service didn't work out and was withdrawn during that period.

I am very grateful to John Speller for proposing and piloting this act (if those are the right words) as it lead to the first station (re)opening in Wiltshire since 1937 - at Melksham in 1985

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=962

A different Speller, Graham.  The Speller Act was the achievement of Tony Speller, the Conservative MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for North Devon - he beat Jeremy Thorpe in 1979 and was North Devon MP until Nick Harvey beat him for the Lib Dems in 1992.   Of course, his main aim with the Act would have been to reopen the line to Bideford and Torrington for passengers.  While that didn't happen, the Act did help elsewhere.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thank you, RichardB, for that very informative post.  CfN 

[grahame]

A different Speller, Graham.  The Speller Act was the achievement of Tony Speller, the Conservative MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for North Devon - he beat Jeremy Thorpe in 1979 and was North Devon MP until Nick Harvey beat him for the Lib Dems in 1992.   Of course, his main aim with the Act would have been to reopen the line to Bideford and Torrington for passengers.  While that didn't happen, the Act did help elsewhere.

Ah - thanks.   Not a common name either (Ancestry has 110 thousand records versus one 6 million for Ellis). I do recall a similar mix-up in the past ... considered that as I posted, but also noted a Spellar who has just left parliament and guess he was the second one rather than the third he turned out to be!

[stuving]

John Spellar has just been given a peerage. Now, he's the one mentioned in the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)'s report on opening the line to Portbury, though they spell his name wrongly. He became minister of state only in August 2001, so his presence in September was purely ex officio. And of course he was not the 1962 one - too young by several decades!