Community plan for Bristol to Weymouth railway route

[whole diary]

[bobm]

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

Rail users could soon have more of a say in how a rail link between Bristol and Weymouth is run.

The route, which serves towns such as Trowbridge, Westbury, Yeovil and Dorchester could be designated a community rail service.

It will mean more direct community involvement in the planning and running of services.

The Department of Transport has opened a consultation and said the change could be made by the end of 2011.

Transport secretary Theresa Villiers said in a letter to Yeovil MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context) David Laws that the route could carry more passengers and would be "better value for money".

Mr Laws said the route was "key" but that current services were "too infrequent and often overcrowded".

"The priority here has to be the needs of local residents, and if this new designation means greater local influence and satisfaction," he said.

[anthony215]

I do think there need a more  regular standard timetble on this route, maybe an hourly service between Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) & Yeovil Pen mill with a 2 hourly extension to  except during the peaks where the service will be hourly

[phile]

I agree there should be a more consistent timetable between Bristol T.M. and Weymouth.      At present we have a mixture of 2 hour gaps, 3 hour gaps or one on the following hour.

[paul7575]

Do they not just mean Westbury to Weymouth?  Surely Bristol to Westbury is an inter-regional mainline?

Paul

[bobm]

Does it not also present problems with improving services through Melksham on the other side of the triangle?  If there are more trains running down the line from Bath to Westbury would there be capacity problems fitting other services into Westbury from Swindon/Chippenham?  I don't know what the infrastructure can cope with round there.

[JayMac]

I'm a little confused here. What's the difference with what Ms Villiers is proposing and the existing Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership, already a member of ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships)?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hmm. 

No, sorry: that item from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) has confused me, too: it bears no relation to the discussion we had in a TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) meeting in Melksham last Saturday, for example.

[bobm]

It is interesting there are no links at the bottom of the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) article to the Dept of Transport or the like.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Agreed: I'm making further enquiries, to try to clarify this one. 

[grahame]

Community Rail is primarily concerned with the community and the rail industry working together to make the very best of a line, by providing excellent environments, adjustments to services based on operational and local knowledge to help provide appropriate and joined up travel, and to balance loading, and to provide information and positive experiences to encourage newcomers to use services and repeat users to keep repeating.

The Heart of Wessex CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) does an excellent job in looking after stations, keeping the line in the news, marketing "contraflow" traffic, and much more, and indeed this summer I'm delighted that the TransWilts line was able to feed passengers into their first down Sunday train ... helping to provide offpeak traffic as Saturdays is always the busiest day to Weymouth.  Further designation of the HoW^▸ (Heart of Wessex line (Weymouth - Yeovil - Frome - Westbury) or Heart of Wales line (Swansea - Llanelli - Llandrindod - Craven Arms - Shrewsbury), depending on context) services under DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) guidelines (there are a whole lot of 'degrees' of community rail) such as proposed are to be welcomed, as is the passing of traffic between community lines in such a way that it helps to build traffic and balance the use of both.   That was a (planned and achieved) effect of the extra Summer Sunday TransWilts service, which we hope will be able to be done again next year.  Ms Villier's announcement is a positive for this, and indeed for connections on other days of the week from the TransWilts to the Heart of Wessex with strengthened government support for it.

[paul7575]

I had a check of the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) website and there's nothing there to explicitly support this, but it did clarify one point, in that some CRPs^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) designate 'lines' and some 'services'.  So I suppose my question about Westbury to Bristol being a main line is answered, and the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) should have been referring to just this service, and not the route?

Paul

[Chris from Nailsea]

Having investigated further, I can now offer the following clarification:

The Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership has applied to the Department for Transport for designation of the Bristol ^ Weymouth rail service as a community rail service in accordance with the government^s Community Rail Development Strategy.

Designation will reinforce the importance and status of the Community Rail Partnership for the line and strengthen the success of the community involvement and development work achieved so far.

The Department for Transport is proposing to designate the line as a community rail service and, as the Community Rail Development Strategy was already widely consulted upon, is carrying out a short consultation involving only key local and rail industry stakeholders associated with the line.

I hope this clarifies the situation.