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Thanks to all who have contributed to such an inspirational and enjoyable project. Citizens’ Rail will live on through our toolkit and in our online network – we welcome you to join as we work together to develop our local and regional railways.
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In front of an audience of more than 330 rail industry staff and volunteers, the Citizens’ Rail project as a whole was recognised in the Outstanding Teamwork category. Our UK, French, Dutch and German partners were awarded third place thanks to their dedication to transnational working and delivering imaginative, collaborative projects that went beyond the original scope of the project. These included a once-in-a-life-time trip for Lancashire school children to visit the cathedral school in the German city of Aachen, student masterclasses that helped young people’s ideas to be implemented by the rail industry, and even the donation of Dutch tulips to brighten station gardens in Devon.
Two projects within Citizens’ Rail were also recognised at the awards:
The Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership’s family-friendly Minibeast Trail on the Riviera Line between Exeter and Torbay was awarded third place in the Small Community Art Schemes category. Working with artist Melissa Muldoon, pupils from Gatehouse Primary School in Dawlish and the Sure Start Dad’s Club Stay and Play in Teignmouth made sculptures of butterflies, dragonflies, bees, ladybirds and snails from recycled plastic. They were displayed on planters at Teignmouth, Dawlish, Newton Abbot, Torquay and Paignton stations.
The “Distance Between” project by our Lancashire and Aachen partners also won third prize in the Involving Young People category. A class of primary school children from a former Lancashire mill town were asked to get involved in the opening of Burnley Manchester Road station as part of Citizens’ Rail. They did so in great style. As a result, the class took part in a cultural exchange taking them to Aachen and Heerlen. Many of the children had never been out of Lancashire before. They spent time working with a class of German school children producing artwork now displayed at stations in Lancashire, Aachen and Heerlen.
The Community Rail Awards is an annual event organised by the Association of Community Rail Partnerships which celebrates the work being done to promote and enhance Britain’s local and rural railways. The awards ceremony followed Citizens’ Rail’s final conference held earlier the same day – read more.
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The 70 delegates from the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands met the night before the conference for a special pre-conference networking event kindly funded by local rail operator Great Western Railway (GWR). The attendees took a trip from Torquay to Kingswear, taking advantage of a beautiful warm evening. This is normally a heritage railway route, but thanks to GWR and the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company, guests were instead able to travel on the pair of Class 153 units decked out in Citizens’ Rail and Visit South Devon liveries.
Upon arrival, the delegates were welcomed by staff from sustainable local restaurant group Rockfish with a fish and chip dinner. The evening provided the perfect way for people to make new connections and get to know each other – especially important given that the group spanned four countries and a wide range of organisations – including rail operators, rail infrastructure bodies, Community Rail Partnerships and local, regional and national government.
The conference itself – held at the Riviera International Centre – featured a range of great speakers from the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Each presentation spurred a lively question and answer session, and the afternoon featured group workshop sessions to make the day as interactive as possible. Explore the presentation slides below and see the full agenda at the foot of this post, or as a PDF.
Slides from the main presentations:
Workshops:
We wanted to share the great points made in the interactive workshop sessions at the conference, so we’ve posted a forum thread for each workshop in our new online network the Community Rail Cafe. This allows participants to post their ideas or notes from the sessions. Even if you weren’t there on the day, we’d invite further ideas too – all are welcome. The aim is to create a lasting set of top tips for each topic that people can draw upon and build up over time.
Read/contribute to each topic:
The conference agenda:
Following the conference, the UK’s national Community Rail Awards were held in the same venue that evening, with Citizens’ Rail projects recognised in three categories – read more.
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The two-day workshop, hosted in Preston (UK) by the University of Central Lancashire in March 2015, brought together students from German, Dutch and UK universities to develop fresh ideas for how to promote local and regional railways.
Citizens’ Rail partners chose marketing as the focus for the masterclass because marketing campaigns are often simpler and quicker to implement than other rail projects. Students were therefore motivated by the knowledge that their proposals could soon be put into practice.
The Wi-Fi idea
The first idea to be realised came from the transnational group of students that was developing marketing campaigns targeted at tourists and leisure travellers.
Implementing the concept
The idea was swiftly pursued by Citizens’ Rail’s lead partner, the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership.
Alongside its work within the European project, the Partnership was in the middle of planning a separate campaign to promote Cornwall’s scenic branch lines and destinations. The campaign harnessed the popularity of the BBC series Poldark. In spring 2015 the hit British television programme had prominently featured Cornwall’s beautiful coast, countryside and mining heritage. The Partnership therefore developed a theme of “Visit Poldark country by train”.
As well as a flagship event at London Paddington, leaflets and other materials, the Partnership created a mini-website showing how to visit filming locations from the programme by train.
Thanks to the masterclass, train operator First Great Western agreed to promote the campaign on the onboard Wi-Fi of their fleet of High Speed Trains. Now, when users connect to Wi-Fi aboard the train, they are greeted with the “Visit Poldark country by train” message.
When they click “Continue”, they are taken to the First Great Western homepage, which prominently features a link to the Partnership’s campaign website. The Wi-Fi promotion will continue to run until the later in the summer, helping to promote First Great Western’s branch lines to users of other parts of its network.
The results
The campaign has already led to a 40% increase in the Partnership’s web traffic compared to the same period the previous year – attracting 10,000 visitors in just five weeks. The Partnership has also put the project forward for a national Community Rail Award (winners to be announced in October 2015).
The project shows the power of involving young people in their railway, and the difference that their fresh perspectives and innovative ideas can bring.
Participating universities
Citizens’ Rail would like to thank all the students and universities that took part. The event, which was the follow-up to our first masterclass in Aachen and Parkstad Limburg in 2013, was a great example of the transnational working that is at the heart of the EU Interreg IVB NWE programme, through which Citizens’ Rail is funded.
University of Central Lancashire
Plymouth University
RWTH Aachen University
Zuyd Hogeschool
Read more about the masterclass and see the students’ PowerPoint presentations.
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In a great example of community participation and the Citizens’ Rail approach, pupils from Maria Montessori Gesamtschule Aachen have been painting the station’s shelter and noise reduction wall based on their own vivid artwork.
Aachen City Council ran a competition with the school to produce designs to brighten up the station’s shelters, noise reduction wall, entrance and signage. The children visited the station to take a look for themselves and get inspired. They then produced a wide range of concepts, from which the winners were picked by a panel of judges from the City Council, the school, Deutsche Bahn and other project partners.
Now the students have returned to make their designs a reality – and have attracted plenty of media attention. They were featured on local TV news (watch here at 16min 30 – available for the next seven days), and were saluted on the front page of free local newspaper “Super Mittwoch”, distributed to every household in the city. Further press articles are expected in the coming days.
Waiting shelter
Noise reduction wall
The project has also been praised by partners and elected officials. District Mayor Elke Eschweiler said: “I think it’s great, the wealth of ideas which the students have brought to their designs is fantastic.” She announced that Aachen-Eilendorf District Council will soon be looking at further children’s projects, which could lead to a re-design of the neighbouring playground into a “station playground”. Deutsche Bahn’s Abdelhafid Tahri was also full of praise for the students’ work, as well as thanking Aachen City Council and the EU Citizens’ Rail project – which has helped to involve citizens in planning significant improvements at the station.
For more information, visit www.aachen.de/bahnhof.
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Eilendorf is one of our target stations in Aachen (Germany). As part of Citizens’ Rail, the local community has helped to plan major improvements at the station. Now pupils from Maria Montessori Gesamtschule Aachen are getting ready to make a big impact of their own.
Aachen City Council has run a competition with the school to produce artistic designs to brighten up the station’s shelters, noise reduction wall, entrance and signage. The children visited the station to take a look for themselves and get inspired. They then produced a wide range of concepts, from which the winners (see below) were picked by a panel of judges from the City Council, the school, Deutsche Bahn and other project partners.
As the next step in the project, the pupils will be returning to the station later this month with paint brushes in hand, ready to turn their vision into reality…
Photos
The pupils explore the station and surrounding neighbourhood on their site visit:
The winning design for the station shelter:
The winning design for the noise reduction wall:
Check back soon to see the finished artwork…
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The Dear Hunter team, made up of Marlies Vermeulen and Remy Kroese, will be interviewing passers-by, students and local residents throughout May and June, and even inviting members of the public to stay the night in their temporary hunter’s lodge.
Funded through the Interreg IV A Dear Euregio project, their findings will be reported back to Aachen City Council and will help to inform the development of the station and the surrounding university quarter.
When deciding where on campus to host the project, Aachen West was selected as the exact location so that the results could complement the city’s existing involvement in the Citizens’ Rail project. Since 2012, Aachen West has been one of three target areas within the city where communities have been consulted and station improvements planned.
Kai Mohnen of Aachen City Council (pictured third from the right below) said:
“With this unconventional form of participation we will get to know what young people and students in particular think of Aachen West – and what their needs and wishes are when it comes to future improvements.”
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In a positive example of transnational working, Nick Davies (University of Central Lancashire, UK), Marco Trienes (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) and Dominik Elsmann (formerly of RWTH Aachen University, now at Aachen’s transport authority, AVV) spoke on the topic of “Understanding Citizens’ Rail: how marketing and social outreach can encourage involvement by the public in their rail services and change attitudes towards rail” (see slides below).
Their key messages included the need for less complex, more flexible ticketing, more human presence at stations, the success of the marketing of interventions (75% of respondents had heard of the local improvements taking place as part of the Citizens’ Rail project), and the importance of involving people in local railways.
The presentation formed part of the “Understanding the user” session at the conference.
And here is some reaction on Twitter from a Belgian attendee at the conference:
Citizens' Rail uses volunteers to make local railway stations more comfortable and welcoming places. http://t.co/lP317ZbTcU #ecomm2015
— Sarah Martens (@martens_sarah) May 22, 2015
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Every child from Padiham Green CE Primary School (pictured above) and Aachener Domsingschule (pictured below) who took part in the trip contributed to the artwork during their joint classroom session in Aachen. The poster takes the form of a finger labyrinth, and is entitled The Distance Between. Using your finger, you can trace your journey from Padiham in the centre of the labyrinth to either Aachen or Heerlen on the outside.
The poster was coordinated by artist Alastair Nicholson, who travelled with the Lancashire party and has contributed to many railway-related art projects with our partners Community Rail Lancashire.
During their four-day stay in November 2014, the Padiham Green pupils received an official welcome at Aachen City Hall, singing lessons with their new Aachen school friends, scaled viewpoints where they could see three countries at once, and even visited the zoo. The trip was the children’s well-earned reward for delivering a fantastic presentation and warm welcome to Citizens’ Rail’s European partners during their meeting in Lancashire in July 2014.
The children raised funds through various events at school to contribute towards the visit. Additional funding for the trip was provided by Citizens’ Rail, the DCRDF Fund, UK German Connection and Abellio.
Children from the Domsingschule pose with their poster:
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This month the city’s mobility committee and Aachen-Eilendorf district council both agreed that the transformation of the station should move to the next stage of planning.
The current station has very poor access for people wishing to get from one platform to the other, involving a long walk via the bridge to the west or tunnel to the east. Passengers have been known to illegally cross the tracks.
The centre piece of the proposed design is a bridge with barrier-free access. This emerged as the best solution through close engagement with the local community as part of the Citizens’ Rail project. This included consultation events attended by approximately 50 people held in the local neighbourhood.
Read more about the project on Aachen City Council’s Eilendorf page (in German).