August 3rd, 2007
In 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 month that she was perfectly able to decide this when the majority of ‘consultation’ from ‘stakeholders’ and ‘partners’ indicated otherwise.
I am, at least, now hoping that travelling from north to south and south to north of the county will become a priority especially as so many services are based in mid and north Wiltshire, such as the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. Will I have to leave the county to reach there from Salisbury or else take a bus and change in Devizes? Is this really improved access to facilities and services?
To be continued.
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July 23rd, 2007
David 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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July 5th, 2007
A 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 improvements in capacity, punctuality and reliability, ticket-buying facilities, handling of delays and ambiance of FGW rolling stock.
According to the survey, overall satisfaction dropped by 8% which is now 5% below average compared to other operators. The biggest changes was the way the operator handled delays, falling in satisfaction by 17%.
Of 31 factors, only 3 have gone up for ex-Wessex services – all are station and train staff related (up by 1-2%).
TravelWatch have said: “Our message to First Great Western is ‘We are watching, but will not be content with just waiting’. We expect the autumn survey results to show improvement on what is, so far, a poor reflection of this new franchise.”
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July 5th, 2007
During 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 I dare travel First Great
Western, but if the Minister would like them, I will gladly give them to him.
Did he accept??
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July 4th, 2007
Quite by chance, I happened upon this string of comments about the meaning of Tehmina on an (old?) blog called Tam’s Diaries. There were suggestions of all descriptions from people called Tehmina across the world. Some suggestions were: ‘true witness’, ‘shred’ or ‘scintilla’, ‘healthy’ or ‘insurance’ in Arabic, ‘honest’ in Hebrew, ‘precious of heart’ and originating from south India, and then there was my suggestion which I believe, to my best knowledge, to be true, that it is from old Persian (Pahlavi) or older, and means ‘strong woman’.
I think among these descriptions, any ought to do?
Posted in friends, interesting, people | 3 Comments »
July 2nd, 2007
Last year, during the FA World Cup, I bought a sandwich which came with its own thought for the day. Today I find myself buying the same sandwich made by Daily Bread: shaved cheddar and pickle. It still comes with its daily motto which today is:
If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us airline tickets
Mel Brooks
Quite so.
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June 29th, 2007
The 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 closely linked to Save the Train, More Train Less Strain and other campaigns (not just based in the south west) are potent symbols of the sea-change in attitude we will see towards public transport, particularly the railways. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 25th, 2007
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?
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June 17th, 2007
This 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 revamp for Birmingham New Street and an updating of the ThamesLink route through London. It is also likely to include the plan for CrossRail. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in soapbox, trains | 2 Comments »
June 17th, 2007
On 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 rail users last year before the actual cuts had been announced in the December 2006 timetable! It therefore, in large part, ignored the essence of my letter (for the desperate need for much better public transport links across Wiltshire), and did not even manage to respond with the most up-to-date standard statements on the issue. Graham Ellis of the Save the Train campaign has responded in detail to Ms Shepherd pointing out where the errors lie (take either sense of the word). We await a response. Read the rest of this entry »
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