|
|
|
 |
THE SHREWSBURY - ABERYSTWYTH RAIL PASSENGERS' ASSOCIATION WELCOMES YOU TO THEIR WEBSITEThis page updated 12th August 2010 |
|
SARPA is the local rail users group for the Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth
line
running from the English border through Montgomeryshire to the coast of
North
Ceredigion and ending up in the increasingly important University (and
Assembly administration
) town of
Aberystwyth. We exist to preserve and promote the line so that there is a
more sustainable
transport system for future generations. SARPA is one of the more active
rail
user groups in Wales and meets monthly. We are continually campaigning on
various issues from train times and frequency to station maintenance and
welcome any comments anybody has about the rail service in Mid Wales. We hope that during 2010, Arriva manages to build on the success of their extended services to Birmingham International, which at the present are showing much improved timekeeping. At present there is considerable engineering work continuing on the Cambrian lines West of Shrewsbury. Where we have details we will endeavour to publish them on this site. You can access the latest map by clicking here. |
CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE |
|
And it's a positive one! No sulking about cuts, in fact the New Westminster government
and cuts present new opportunities as do other developments. The takeover of Arriva by
Deutsche Bahn should be complete by the end of August, the integration possibilities
with Wrexham and Shropshire Railways and Chiltern Railways have long been obvious
to us here at SARPA, particularly after the Evergreen 3 project is complete and the end
of Virgin Trains Moderation of Competition deal. This of course will not involve any
additional public money. Aside from simply having a new corporate master at Penarth
House, many are hoping that a new mentality can emerge that doesn't view basics of
quality public transport provision as a "stakeholder aspiration" and an opportunity to ask
for more public subsidy. I dare any ATW Manager to go to Germany and explain, using
the excuses made here the connectional failings at Shrewsbury! Cultural change is
desperately needed. Talking of doing things differently down on the Heart of Wales line
there is strong lobbying to establish a vertically integrated micro franchise. The Heart of
Wales Line Partnership genuinely believes they can show how things can be done better
and cheaper with a local focus and integrated approach: things like this must be given a
chance. Network Rail has proved itself to be a bloated cost junky and I suspect many
will now view the case to do things differently as unanswerable. Likewise the electrification of the Wrexham to Bidston line where Merseyrail believe they can do it for a fraction
of Network Rail's costs. Let them try! Tony Burton and Carno Station Action Group could
easily supervise a few blokes, a cement mixer and a couple of white vans and Carno
would have a station at a tiny fraction of Network Rail's quote. The alternative is nothing
and cuts. What is there to be afraid off? Tough choices have been a popular catchphrase
in recent years why don't we do things differently to make the right choices! Mid Wales has one big thing going for it in the chances of some transport improvements in the next five years - it's that the infrastructure works on the Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth line are nearly complete and mostly paid for or contractually signed up to and will go ahead. It could be seen as wasting taxpayer's money in an age of austerity if the Welshpool double track section and Dovey Junction loop are not utilised and by this we mean by extra trains. In some quarters it has been suggested that the work is to do with improving the punctuality of the existing timetable - this is nonsense as the current ppm figures show! The work is to allow more trains to run and this is where Mid Wales must focus to ensure our line gets an hourly service in 2011, not on orange or brown routes on maps that there's no money to build. We hear that the ERTMS pilot trial is in trouble and badly over budget. Another red herring has been that the loops are to do with the ERTMS trial. If ERTMS fails or is cancelled it doesn't mean that these loops can't be used. The Dovey Junction loop can be integrated into the Absolute Block system controlled by Machynlleth signal box and the Scots have already spent a modest £4.5 million designing RETB version 2. Off the shelf technology is there. No excuses and no unaffordable capital spend. Simple, as the TV Meerkat would say or as Philip Hammond MP the new Transport Secretary has said "Were going to have to look at using existing investment, existing assets, more effectively, focusing the spending that is available on maximising the benefits from existing assets". To me that makes using the extra capacity on our line a priority rather than an aspiration, and even if a full blown hourly service cannot be funded lets talk sense about laying on 1 or 2 additional trains at times most needed. The glaring gaps are an arrival into Shrewsbury around 0830, a connection to Barmouth from the 1730 from Aberystwyth and a connection to Aberystwyth off the northbound WAG express around 1830. Committee member and webmaster Angus Eickhoff has done a sterling job putting back copies of our newsletter on our website - see http://sarpa.info/archive. Copies are available back to 2001: a look through them shows that a recurrent theme from SARPA is that we have been long aware of the dysfunctional costs of the rail industry since privatisation and have been in the reform camp. We have banged on about this for a very long time, now the coalition Government in Westminster recognises that infrastructure cost are 40% higher than the European average and operational cost are also higher than average. We as passengers have been saying get your house in order for nearly a decade, as this is the root of the often unacceptably high fares, the increased subsidy (and the whinging that goes with it) and dearth of any real investment providing dividends for passengers and the wider economy. The answer is not to increase fares and penalise passengers further for something they never asked for. I make no apology for saying so yet again. The reality is that on the whole rail privatisation faults have been masked by the previous administration's initial willingness to pour more and more public money in, which passengers unfortunately have seen little additional benefit from, an increase in passenger numbers due to external factors which many mistakenly took as a sign that everything was OK within the industry, and the owners of the fragmented industry unwillingly to rock the boat as profits were being made. This bubble has now burst and genuine thought and reform has to be made if we are to have a quality rail network for the future. Over to Sir Roy McNulty who's heading the government's rail review. He says the choice is between ‘changing the way we operate or else decreasing the size and quality of the network'. Welcome aboard Sir Roy. In the past we said if you wanted to spend that much public money on the railways you could unleash a genuine investment programme, or if you didn't you could cut the budget and keep the same size railway. Yet again the local rail user group has got the big issue right. There's no real reason why the railway should shrink despite cuts in public money. Gareth Marston Newtown, Montgomeryshire July 2010 |
| You can see what we said about the railway industry in the past by clicking on this link to our archive page. We have archived all the newsletters back to November 2001. |
| Please note that hyperlinks
included in the text throughout this site are intended for the benefit and information of our visitors. We try to include links that will be helpful for the understanding of railway terminology. They do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation on our part. |
Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth Rail Passengers Association (SARPA) 64 Churchill Drive, Barnfields, Newtown, Powys, SY16 2LH, Wales, United Kingdom © SARPA 2005-2010 All Rights Reserved Website:- Angus Eickhoff |