TweetDo you tut-tut at the degradation of your surroundings? A couple of years back (it seems), English Heritage launched the Save our Streets campaign and urged people to take an interest in their environment and record the state of our streets, lighting and signage. If only this campaign was promoted more widely and the results [...]
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Train company threatens legal action
TweetAwaiting the 0830 Salisbury to Southampton service yesterday (13/08/07) my eye fell upon the front page story of The Times which reported the threatened legal action by First Group against the rail watchdog London TravelWatch. This is the story as reported by the BBC and here are some letters written in response to The Times [...]
A single Wiltshire
TweetIn her infinite knowledge and wisdom, Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State who decrees on such matters decided to approve Wiltshire County Council’s bid to become a unitary authority, abolishing the five districts of Wiltshire. Apparently they put foward a very good case. I’m sure of course having been in teh job less than a [...]
Campaign Against New Beeching Report
TweetThe Campaign Against New Beeching Report is headed by a fellow rail campaigner Lee Fletcher. He has been and continues to be one of the more active campaigners whose inspired project to propose an alternative plan for a railway in south west England, Gateway to the Future, I commented upon recently. This campaign, which is [...]
Service Cancelled: due to Glastonbury Festival?
Tweet Last week and today, First Great Western organised some 60 extra services on its network to ferry festival-goers to and from Castle Cary for Glastonbury 2007. The question is: did other regular services suffer?
Congestion is not the only issue
TweetThis Guardian article about the ‘here-to-stay’ above-inflation rail fare increases raises some important issues about how the Government intend to tackle the capacity problems on the rail network in Britain. Statements about the way forward for the railways will come in the High Level Output Statement (HLOS). The two major projects for consideration are a [...]
18p extra on petrol fuel duty – it's a snip for world-class rail
TweetIn the response to a recent e-petition against levels of Inheritance Tax, 10 Downing Street reasoned that if they did not have this tax in place, revenue for public spending would have to be found from elsewhere to the tune of £4 billion. That would be like adding about 18p on petrol duty. I’d pay [...]
Campaigning for the TransWilts Line
TweetIn December 2006, many First Great Western services in the South West were cut. This was, of course, due to franchise agreements that passenger provision would be cut by well over 7000 seats by December 2007. The new May 2007 timetable does not re-instate the decimated services on the TransWilts line that connects north and [...]
First Great Western Coffee Shop
TweetA new discussion website has been launched specifically for First Great Western passengers to air their thoughts about the state of service on the FGW network which now stretches across large parts of the south and south-west of England. Be enlightened. Come and take part. Stop moaning and actually do something to help save your [...]
Milk protest
TweetToday, a woman from the Women’s Institute of Tutshill, Gloucestershire, made a wonderful protest outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster by sitting in a bath of milk. The protest was about the declining price of milk (down now only to 18p per litre for the dairy farmer from 24.5p ten years ago). We only [...]
