Network Rail wants more electric lines in South West

Network Rail has published the electrification RUS (Route Utilisation Strategy) – the nine top-ranked schemes include:-

• Great Western Main Line (Maidenhead to Plymouth/Swansea via Bath Spa/Bristol Parkway and Swindon to Cheltenham Spa)
• Basingstoke – Exeter St Davids
• CrossCountry (Barnt Green – Westerleigh Junction via Gloucester)
• Berks and Hants (Reading – Cogland Junction via Westbury)

Bombardier has proposed that the Voyager trains operated by CrossCountry should be converted to bi-mode units – these units already have electric transmission, currently fed from a diesel engine and alternator.

Slight rise in bus passenger satisfaction

The Department for Transport (DfT) has published the results of the bus passenger satisfaction survey for South West England for the year ended 31 March 2009 – overall satisfaction has risen by one per cent to eighty-five per cent. Only sixty-eight per cent of passengers are satisfied with reliability and the ‘value-for-money’ of bus fares, while just seventy-three per cent of customers were satisfied with bus stop information.

Two public transport groups provide trading updates

The Stagecoach group has provided a trading update for the twenty-four weeks ended 18 October 2009 – the revenue in the UK Bus division, which includes Stagecoach South, Stagecoach South West and Stagecoach West, has increased by 4.3 per cent, while the UK Rail division, which includes South West trains, had seen income growth of 1.7 per cent. The Go-Ahead Group, which owns Wilts and Dorset, has announced that bus revenue growth for the company for the fourteen weeks ended 2 October 2009 was ‘ahead of budget’.

DfT minister to undertake bus tour

The Minister of State at the Department for Transport (DfT), Sadiq Khan MP, has decided to undertake a personal’ mystery traveller’ bus tour in England. Mr Khan wants to identify ‘good services’ and those routes which do not meet customer expectations – he also wants to highlight issues that might be preventing prospective customers from using buses. Members of the public can nominate, through the DfT web site, routes to be included in the tour undertaken by the minister.

First Great Western to charge for timetable booklet

First Great Western has announced that customers will have to pay three pounds for a copy of the Winter 2010/1 edition of the A5 sized ‘First Great Western Train Times guide – copies of the guide will be available for purchase from Bath Spa, Bristol Temple Meads, Bristol Parkway, Cheltenham Spa, Exeter St Davids, Penzance, Plymouth, Swindon, Taunton, Truro and Westbury railway stations.

DfT consultation on penalty fares

The Department for Transport (DfT) has launched a consultation on the National Rail penalty fares scheme – the consultation finishes on Sunday 27 January 2010. One of the proposals in the consultation is that the penalty fare charge should be increased to fifty pounds, or twice the single fare from the station where the customer boarded the train to the next station at which the service will stop, whichever is the greater (the penalty fare charge would be reduced if paid within twenty-one days).

First Great Western complaints fall

There has been a thirty-six per cent reduction in complaints to First Great Western between the second calendar quarter of 2007 and the second calendar quarter of 2009 – the fall is largely attributable to the considerable improvement in the punctuality and reliability of trains operated by the company.

And finally,

The new platform that was constructed at Axminster station as part of the ‘loop’ project has had to be demolished and rebuilt as the constructors placed it over forty centimetres too close to the railway line!