CANBER - Campaign Against New Beeching Report

This week Campaign for Better Transport revealed that off-peak walk-on fares can be up to seven times more expensive than advance fares.
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/press_releases/july_2008/mystic_peg

We're telling the Government that passengers aren't fortune tellers, and can't always book their journeys weeks beforehand. People want to be able to just turn up at the station and go.

My thanks to Lee, for being invited to contribute to this site. My interest is simply in getting to work and back quickly and inexpensively, and in January 2007, I became extremely angry with First Great Western for failing me on both counts. As a result, I set up a blog offering people free badges emblazoned with the legend "I Hate First Great Western".

I thank Lee for inviting me to contribute to the CANBER site. As an employee of First Great Western involved in the operational side of the company, and a life-long supporter of the railways, I have an insight into quite a lot of what goes on within the company, and will post topics that I see as relevant. I'll start with a much neglected route that I am very familiar with:

Andrew Griffiths, First Great Western Regional Manager for the Severn & Solent Area, once described the proposals for Severn Beach station contained within the Severn Beach Line Development Plan as follows :

"The logic is that of a small interchange."

Well, I'm not sure what definition of "logic" Andrew was using, but there appeared to be very little in evidence when I visited Severn Beach station yesterday.

There used to be a map, devised by South Gloucestershire Council, that showed all the local bus services plus a summary of their timings. This disappeared a while back.

I remember the shock when my father came home with a copy of the "London Evening News" on the day the Beeching Report had been published, with a map showing where passenger trains were to be withdrawn - even including Liverpool to Southport - a line which he had used as a commuter up until a couple of years previously, when we had move to London and he had become a rail commuter there, from Petts Wood in Kent up to Holborn Viaduct. How do things look today? Are the railways now safe?

I was flattered when Lee asked me to become a contributor to this ‘new’ CANBER website – but also rather embarrassed, as I’m not an active campaigner personally. However, I do use the trains a fair bit, and have done for many years, so I’ve certainly seen what the recent history of the railways has been like, from a passenger perspective.

Rail fares have risen by 6% in the last 10 years, while the overall cost of motoring - despite petrol price increases - has fallen 4% since 2005.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070717/text...
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080519/text...

At Campaign for Better Transport www.bettertransport.org.uk we think it's time for Government to reward people who travel by train because they produce less carbon than if they were driving.

Welcome to our new website.

The final post from our former BBC Action Network website explains how CANBER came into existence, the circumstances surrounding its creation and the achievements so far (link below.)
http://www.canber.co.uk/?q=node/22

Article originally posted by Lee Fletcher

A day of disaster marked the start of First Great Western's new timetable (links below.)
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=804.msg2337#msg2337

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/6169077.stm

Here are two quotes from the original Beeching Report.