Here is a link to an article entitled "French trains? They're worse than ours."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/25/wrail25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/25/ixnews.htmlHere are some quotes from it :
"Britain has saved most of its network through an "enormous catch-up effort," but vast tracts of the French system are being ruined by a short-sighted repair policy, said Robert Rivier, a Swiss professor."
"Mr Rivier, the author of a damning audit on the railway ordered by the French government, said track needed to be renewed and ageing or underused lines closed, rather than patching up infrastructure."
"While the TGV network remained the envy of the world, the high-speed system only ran on 1,000 miles of track from a total of 19,000 miles. The smaller regional lines have been left by the wayside, Mr Rivier said."
"He estimated that two thirds of the national network would be unusable by 2025."
"In Great Britain, it took dozens of deaths, after which the British took remarkable action," he said."
"They made choices, set out a long-term strategy and chose to scrap parts of the network. The French have that ahead of them."
Here are a couple of quotes from the Network Rail Business Plan 2006 :
"The creation of the Greater Western franchise in April 2006 will see the introduction of a simplified train service structure for the route, particularly west of Taunton, from December 2006. This will eradicate some of the current service duplication and better meet existing demand."
"Expenditure
The age of rail and sleepers on the route is amongst the highest on the national network and varies between 30 and 40 years old and to address this we are implementing a track renewals strategy which matches the traffic usage of the route. This will include the deployment of Network Rail’s new High Output equipment on the most intensely used part of the route, between Reading and Exeter, to deliver a higher track quality with absolute minimum rail failures; more conventional targeted renewals will be carried out on the less intensely used sections beyond Exeter, with patch repairs and renewals to maintain stable infrastructure on the more rural branch lines."
It will not have escaped your attention that ALL of the Devon & Cornwall Branch Lines feature on the "least-used lines in Britain" list.
Here is an example from the 1980's (BR days) of where such a track renewals strategy can lead (Visit the "Destruction of a railway" section of the link below.)
http://home.clara.net/wealdenline/st_set.htmlHere is a quote from the above link :
"With the closure of Tunbridge Wells West station in July 1985, it was with almost indecent haste that steps were taken to realise the lucrative redevelopment potential of the site by constructing a large shopping centre."
"It is interesting to reflect that in this way, a transport site which had the potential to contribute to a reduction in local road traffic has now become a very significant local generator of such traffic."
Here is a link that highlights how the closure process works today.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/page/dft_railways_039661.pdfHere is one that highlights how the closure process would work under the new DfT Closure Guidance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/F3641215?thread=2441627A Huge THANK YOU to Chris Grayling and Michael Ancram for coming along today and giving us their support.
They take to Westmister with them a view of a service that show much that's good in secondary rail services - a real success story that's had traffic rise 8 fold in 5 years to 109,000 journeys per annum, through towns such as Chippenham (44,000) and Melksham (24,000) which are set to grow by 30% in the next few years.
Chris spoke of all the money being spent on the Railway Industry through Network Rail, much on big "showcase" type projects, where at the same time the DfT are "cheesepairing" and trying to save a few quid here and there on short term cuts to services which are getting more viable not less year on year, and will be sorely missed in 5 years time if they're axed in 5 months time. Problem is .... once you effectively scrap a service that's got 32 people per train riding, they'll melt away and NOT come back if you re-instate a year later. Problem is ... if you re-align the track away from the platform to allow freight trains to go through faster, you'll not simply be able to restart the service anyway. Chris also spoke of the excessive beauracracy involced in frachising and franchise admin with all the various companies involved, and how frankly impossible the civil servants who have to manage the system are finding it to do an effective job I may have paraphrased some of this badly ... will post up links to any other published comments later
More - MUCH more - to follow on the visit ...
P.S. Chris's message ... KEEP CAMPAIGNING ... all is not yet lost.
Having got ourselves into a position where we could avoid the mistakes of our French counterparts , we would appear to be about to embark on a policy that would copy those same mistakes.
Some "uneconomical" SNCF (French Railways) services have been replaced by SNCF buses in recent years. Many that still operate are , to a surprisingly large extent , dependent on the French equivalent of regional & local funding to survive. A sizeable number of smaller stations are served by a very limited train service as a result.
For a French - style railway system to work for local train services in Britain , regional & local authorities plus PTA's would have to be encouraged to fund rail services.
Here is a link from the Future Of Transport White Paper.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_about/documents/page/dft_about_031274.hcsp"5.17 We intend to give Passenger Transport Authorities the ability to choose whether to channel subsidy towards rail or other forms of public transport. In some cases, buses might provide both a better service and better value for money."
"5.18 We recognise that Passenger Transport Authorities may not be willing to consider this unless they can be certain that bus routes, timings and fares will meet passenger needs and work well with the national timetable. We will amend the Transport Act 2000 to make it easier for Passenger Transport Authorities to introduce Quality Contracts as part of a strategy that includes modification of rail services."
(The official name for the DfT Closure Guidance is "Railways act 2005: Implementation of network modification provisions."
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/divisionhomepage/611062.hcsp)
"5.19 Passenger Transport Authorities will be able to decide whether to take greater control of their bus routes and associated budgets by deciding which rail routes are best value and which would be more efficiently replaced by bus services."
Future Analysis link.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=421.msg1243#msg1243Just as I have got to know the Melksham area well over the last few months , I also know the Loudeac area of Brittany well , as I used to holiday there with my ex.
Here is the current Loudeac - St-Brieuc Monday - Friday timetable.
From Loudeac :
0652 Bus
0916 Bus
1413 Bus
1559 Train
1902 Bus
1926 Train
From St-Brieuc :
0740 Bus
1015 Bus
1215 Bus
1423 Train
1734 Bus
1825 Train
Up until recently the train ran onwards to Pontivy , but that section is covered by an all - bus service now.
Here is the latest Bus / Rail December 2006 Melksham timetable , but as the link below points out , this may be subject to further change.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/loncombined.html
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what makes it even worse is that I was promised by Derek Twigg before FGW bought the franchise that the hourly service would be kept.