TweetDavid Drew, MP for Stroud (Lab and Co-operative), has tabled an Early Day Motion calling for First Group’s Greater Western’s train services to be returned to the public sector. This motion is being supported by passenger groups and rail unions.
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TravelWatch South West criticise FGW
TweetA short article in the Avon Advertiser (p. 7, 4 July) headlined: “Service is just not the ticket – rail users” covers the response of TravelWatch South West to the National Passenger Survey. The survey revealed a drop in passenger satisfaction with FGW performance on the ex-Wessex network. TravelWatch have said they want to see [...]
Robert Key wins FGW tickets
TweetDuring yesterday’s Commons debate, Robert Key, MP (Cons) for Salisbury contributing the following:- Oral Answers to Questions – Wales: Train Services (4 Jul 2007) Robert Key: The fourth prize in a recent charity auction in my constituency was a pair of First Great Western first class return tickets to London. I do not think that [...]
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 [...]
Response from Department for Transport
TweetOn 12 June, I received the following response from Judith Shepherd of the DfT to my letter concerning the lack of services on the TransWilts (Salisbury – Westbury – Chippenham – Swindon) line. I was reliably informed that a large amount of the text of the letter was copied from DfT responses sent to concerned [...]
Gateway to the Future
TweetSome wonderful people from the Save the Train campaign have come up with a feasible, achievable and brilliant solution to the current train transport problems in Wiltshire and the Greater Bristol Area. They call it Gateway to the Future and it speaks for itself.
Access to Archives?
TweetWiltshire County Council and Swindon Borough Council are currently in the middle of moving various heritage services from around the county (mainly Trowbridge) topurpose-built facilities in Chippenham which will open some time after October 2007 as Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. These services include the record office (archives), archaeology, museums service conservation (moved from Salisbury) [...]
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 [...]
