Awards Dinner and CR Festival One, Two, Three, FOUR ...

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Short-List for Community Rail Awards 2011The short-listed schemes in ‘short-hand’: the list appears in detail on the ACoRP websiteInvolving Young People –Sponsored by Network RailBranching out at Wemyss Bay StationSheerness Photo Mosaic ‘welcome’ mapGreening the East Lancashire Line DVD and online teacherspackSouthern Railways Makin’ Tracks CompetitionTime Travelling Train on the Tamar Valley lineCommunity Art Schemes –Sponsored by First Great WesternNorth Staffordshire CRP – ‘It’s all recycled’ community ArtprojectOxenholme Art ExhibitionPokesdown Station ArtworkArtwork at Bedminster StationArtwork at Ellesmere PortLocal Transport Integration –Sponsored by Lancashire County CouncilMitcham Junction Integration ProjectBarnstaple Bus/Rail InterchangeShotton Station Travel PlanGet On Track - The Leighton Buzzard Station Travel PlanFarnborough Main StationBest Station Garden or Floral display –Sponsored by Network RailMaghull StationHindley Station GardenFriends of Bradford-on-Avon StationDolwyddelan Station GardenOrrell Park Station GardenBest Station / Train Retail Outlet –Sponsored by MerseyTravelBistro at Etchingham StationPrestwick Town Station CaféMACE Manchester VictoriaSevern-Dee Travel/Gobowen Station CafeBrown & Green @ the station – Gipsy Hill StnStation Development –Sponsored by Railway Heritage TrustKidsgrove Station DevelopmentAccrington Eco StationRestoration of waiting rooms at Leamington Spa StationEtchingham Station DevelopmentLlandovery Station DevelopmentBest Marketing Publication –Sponsored by First Great WesternCrewe - Derby Route Community NewsletterSummer Evenings at Matlock and Matlock Bath LeafletsPenistone Line Partnership ‘How to Catch the train’ LeafletKnutsford Walks GuideSevernside C R P Annual Report and Filton Abbey Wood StationLeafletBest Marketing Event –Sponsored by Go-AheadCommunity Days on the North Staffs lineAvocet 150 on the Exeter – Exmouth LneHeart of Wessex Line Local Food TrainEccles Station Open DayMunchtime Express on the Looe lineOutstanding Volunteer Contribution –Sponsored by MerseyrailPaul Neeson (Friends of Wemyss Bay)John Phillips (Tarka Rail Association)Rachel Nafzger (Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership)Louis Wall (Stranraer-Ayr line)Marjorie Birch (Clitheroe Line)Best Station Adoption Group –Sponsored by National Express East AngliaKidsgrove Stn Adoption GroupPlumpton Station PartnershipFriends of Upwey StationSwaythling Station Adoption GroupOrrell Park Regeneration GroupOutstanding Railway Staff Contribution –Sponsored by Network RailHelen Gatensbury (East Midlands Trains)Michael Cochrane (ScotRail)Linda Green (Northern Rail)Wayne Smith (Northern Rail)Kevin Waring (Merseyrail)Outstanding Teamwork Award -Sponsored by Network RailArnside Viaduct Information TeamSam Bryant/Yvonne Leslie for the Southern StationPartnership ProjectFriends of Handforth StationCommunity Rail Working Party on the Heart Of Wessex LineEasier Access Programme in Wales TeamStation Travel Plans ‘Lite’- North Walsham StationTravel Plan TeamPassengers Matter –Sponsored by Trans Pennines ExpressEsk Valley GPS Passenger Information ProjectShotton Station DevelopmentRecovery of Iconic views on the West Highland Line.Increasing Student Travel on the Bittern LineNorthern Community Ambassadors SchemeCR ImageAs it says on the front page you can now vote for this on theACoRP website. There are plenty to choose from but pleasetry to remember as you do so that a theme was set and thatwas Community Rail PeoplePhil
From the Resource RoomSo, where do I start this time? Well, since it’s openon my desk as I start, how about Rail TechnologyMagazine for June/July which features Accrington’sEco Station of renown? Every magazine has coveredthis to some extent, of course, but RTM probablyapproaches it from a different angle to most.Modern Railways for August features the formerGreat Western Railway heavily, with a number offeatures directly or indirectly affecting communityrail lines. The Cotswold re-doubling is featuringeverywhere at the moment and this issue is thereforeonly ‘going with the flow’; before the present monthis out another, much longer section should berestored to double track. However there is also aseparate and lengthy feature on Waving the Flag forBranch Lines in which CRP lines and their initiativesfeature heavily; and an item on the prospects forelectrification in South Wales beyond the main lineto Cardiff. At the back Alan Williams is horrified(and rightly so) by the news that passengers hadbeen compelled to sit in trains for six hours due tosignalling failures with little or no attempt beingmade to move those trains to places where thepassengers could get out. Worse, passengers whoquite understandably tried (in some cases successfully)to escape were then pilloried by unsympatheticNetwork Rail officials. What is it about highrankingofficialdom that makes it totally imperviousto the real needs and feelings of the ordinary peopleit is supposed to serve?There’s nothing specific in the two July issuesof Passenger Transport to mention, but it maintains itsinteresting flow of current news in both rail and roadsectors, which is useful in terms of maintaining aperspective between the two, and is marred only bythe irritating conviction of its financial whizz ChrisCheek that a public transport organisation is to bejudged purely on its bottom line and not by whetherit actually provides a decent service to its passengers.Rail 674 (13 July) includes probably the mostdetailed explanation yet of how the electrification ofthe ‘Lancashire Triangle’, as it calls it, will be implemented,while Rail 675 (27 July) reports on a quitebizarre (in this writer’s view) proposal that theHarrogate loop should be electrified on the third-railprinciple and cascaded Underground stock used.Given that even the Southern Railway’s successorssouth of the Thames are now expressing doubtsabout the third-rail system this is indeed an oddsuggestion, apparently emanating from the localChamber of Trade. Later in the same edition there’sa feature on the Exmouth branch.Transport Times for July has a remarkable graphicdemonstrating just how much spending per head onpublic transport in the capital has outstrippedspending in the rest of the country over the past fiveyears. Another item suggests that HS2 will addressthis issue. I can’t understand or agree with thosewho think this way. After all, just where is this HighSpeed Rail Link going to start (or finish, dependingupon how you look at it)?Today’s Railways 116 (August) includes news of areport commissioned by ORR and the DfT onpossible changes to the franchising map of thecountry. I don’t intend to even start mentioning themultifarious possibilities which this study suggestsas possibilities (though I will reveal that there are21!). There’s also a report on the publication of thefinal version of the West Midlands & Chilterns RailUtilisation Strategy and an even more detailed lookat the Northern ‘second generation’ RUS (thisbroadly covers everything north of Crewe,Ambergate and Newark but not the Merseyrailnetwork). It’s interesting to note the various reactionsof local authorities to the consultancy exercise.Meanwhile on a current operating note The RailwayDoctor has been covering the Wrexham – Bidston‘Borderlands’ line and gives it his usual enthusiasticseal of approval, though his claim that Sir EdwardWatkin would have endorsed it needs treating withcaution.New Transit has some interesting theories aboutthe future of transport in its June issue and I disagree(with varying degrees of vehemence!) withvirtually all of them. One chap wants to know whyrail operators don’t differentiate more between levelsof service (good grief! isn’t the present fare chaos badenough?); another raises the nightmare of ‘at-seat’entertainment as if railway carriages aren’t noisyenough already; yet another wants more use made oftaxis, which in Huddersfield are driven by maniacswho make the Indi 500 look like the Roman chariotrace, now. (Oddly enough, this prompted a letterdescribing the urban taxi as an anachronism in LocalTransport Today 576 (29 July)! But no thank you, NewTransit, this was the most depressing look into thefuture I’ve seen in years – but don’t take my word forit, read it yourself and see if you agree!Now maybe they know this, because they don’tseem to have sent me a July issue at all. It’s just leftme thinking that maybe Train on Line ought to emulateToday’s Railways and have a ‘Grumpy Old Man’column!

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