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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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The new interchange (shown above) will be in use from 2016, and received € 130 000 funding from the Citizens’ Rail project. Further plans for the station include a crossing to connect people to tourism opportunities, leisure activities and neighbouring communities to the east, and measures to enhance the station’s facilities and attractiveness. It will incorporate creative suggestions from international students who came together to discuss the station at a Citizens’ Rail masterclass in 2013.
In 2014, the plans were discussed with local government for the Nuth area and with the province, which is responsible for regional rail. The province welcomed the initiative and regards the work as a very good example of an interchange in line with their vision on public transport interchanges.
Meanwhile in news from one of Citizens’ Rail’s other projects in Parkstad Limburg, Kerkrade-Centrum station has received a boost with the opening of the neighbouring Creative City complex and a new Park & Ride at the station – shown below.
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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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The neighbourhood around Kerkrade Centrum station, located just south of Heerlen, is the focus of a development plan that will see the arrival of Creative City – comprising a technical museum, “earth theatre” and Red Dot Design Laboratory. The attractions are anticipated to attract more than a million visitors per year, and are now scheduled to open in autumn 2015.
To complement this, as part of Citizens’ Rail local residents and businesses have been working with their regional authority, Parkstad Limburg, to plan improvements to the station. The end of 2015 will see work begin on car parking improvements, a level crossing between the car park and Creative City, and a new design to provide a bus stop, Kiss & Ride and taxi rank in front of the station.
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Each month, Citizens’ Rail has a dedicated page in “Train on Line”, e-newsletter of the UK’s Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP). In the latest edition, our Dutch partner Parkstad Limburg collaborated with the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership (our lead partner) to produce an overview of its work to improve stations and engage citizens.
Read the article (see page 11 of PDF), or subscribe to future editions on the ACoRP homepage.
Photo: plan for Nuth station.
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The trip is 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 (read the full story so far).
The school will set off at 6am on Monday morning for their five-day trip. The visit days, will see the children travel by coach, ferry and rail. Colleagues from the Citizens’ Rail project in both the Netherlands and Germany have arranged educational visits in their respective countries to ensure that the children have an interesting and fulfilling time. The highlight for the children is to spend time in a German school with children of their own age group. During this time the children will work together to produce artwork named “The Distance Between” which can be displayed at railway stations both in Germany, the Netherlands and England. It is hoped that more permanent links will be forged between the two schools after this ground-breaking visit.
The children have been busy raising funds through various events at school to contribute towards the visit. Additional funding for the trip is being provided by Citizens’ Rail, the DCRDF Fund, UK German Connection and Abellio.
[button size=”large” color=”#ffffff” background=”#d42053″ radius=”0px” type=”flat” link=”http://aachen2014.blogspot.co.uk/” newwindow=”false” icon=”” ]Follow the children’s trip on their fantastic blog[/button]
Newspapers produced by the children:
Letters to the BBC and the Queen:
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As part of the Citizens’ Rail project, the Parkstad Limburg city region in the south of the Netherlands has made improvement plans for three regional train stations. From the very beginning, the plans have been created in partnership with inhabitants and local businesses.
One of the stations is in Nuth, a small community of 16,000 inhabitants along the intercity line between Eindhoven and Heerlen. The station is served by regional trains only. The Nuth plan includes creating an interchange between bus and train, bringing the bus route to the railway station.
It also includes a crossing to connect people to tourism opportunities, leisure activities and neighbouring communities to the east, and measures to enhance the station’s facilities and attractiveness. It will incorporate creative suggestions from international students who came together to discuss the station at a Citizens’ Rail masterclass in 2013.
The plan has now been discussed with local government for the Nuth area and with the province, which is responsible for regional rail. The province has welcomed the initiative and regards the plan as a very good example of an interchange in line with their vision on public transport interchanges. Together the three parties have decided to take the next step forward. This will involve creating a more detailed plan and mapping out phases for implementation. The first measures, which will form part of Parkstad Limburg’s work within Citizens’ Rail, will be realised in 2015.
[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Read more about Parkstad Limburg’s work as part of Citizens’ Rail.
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Thousands of flyers are being distributed in each partner language encouraging people to take the short survey, which can also be accessed at these links:
UK (Devon) | UK (Lancashire) | Nederlands | Deutsch | Français
The survey investigates the forms of transport that people use in their most frequent journeys, their awareness of rail services, factors that would encourage them to take the train more often, and their level of interest in getting involved in future improvements to stations and services.
The exercise forms part of an academic evaluation of the Citizens’ Rail project, led by RWTH Aachen University and UCLAN.