Tag: community engagementDE

New report shows the value of involving people in rail

A UK report published today shows that involving people in their railways leads to more passengers, improved stations and stronger communities.

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The report – which highlights Citizens’ Rail and the contribution of the EU Interreg IVB programme – shows that local routes with Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs) are seeing a higher growth in passengers than other local routes, while volunteer station adopters are making a real difference by transforming local stations into a pleasing environment.

The main findings are:

• 2.8% additional growth on community railways compared to regional lines.
• CRPs add value and ‘pay for themselves’.
• 3,200 community rail volunteers give 250,000 hours of their time worth an additional £3.4m p.a. to the rail industry
• Station adoption leads to improved station environments and stronger communities.

One of the report’s “key lessons” is the value of working in partnership, with Citizens’ Rail and the EU Interreg IVB programme highlighted as a good example. The project’s work at Burnley Manchester Road is applauded in the report as a “remarkable pulling together of different agencies and partnership investment strategies which will help revitalise Burnley”. Richard Watts of Citizens’ Rail partner Lancashire County Council is quoted in the report:

“Partnership working has been key to delivering the new station at Burnley Manchester Road. Working with both the East Lancashire Community Rail Partnership and the Citizens’ Rail Interreg IVB project has added value to the project and the transnational exchange of ideas has enhanced the design of the new station and increased its visibility to the citizens of Burnley.”

The research was commissioned by the UK’s National Community Rail Development Steering Group. This partnership comprises central and local government, infrastructure owner Network Rail, the commercial sector Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) and the voluntary sector Association for Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP).

Read the executive summary or the full report:

Executive summary:

Full report:

As well as promoting local railways and encouraging more people to travel by train, CRPs add economic, social and environmental value to their lines, by bringing together local people and the rail industry to develop solutions. Their collective initiatives provide access to jobs, schools, shops, tourism attractions and other services, contributing to sustainable communities.

CRPs were first developed in the 1990s and the National Community Rail Strategy was launched in 2004. This report shows that the Department for Transport, train companies, Network Rail, ACoRP, CRPs and station adopters contribute to a continuing renaissance in regional rail travel, with local routes and the stations along them thriving – in some cases surpassing previous record levels of patronage.

The Citizens’ Rail project represents an expansion and next step for this success story – involving French, German and Dutch partners to learn from and build upon the UK’s track record of involving people in local and regional railways.

Commenting on the report Baroness Kramer Minister of State for Transport said:

“Community Rail Partnerships have a vital role to play in building a stronger economy and a fairer society, as demonstrated powerfully by this research. By encouraging more people to travel by train, they bring real economic, social and environmental benefits to their areas, and support the record investment we are making in the rail network. I hope this inspires more people to set up partnerships and develop their own community railways.”

2015/01/28
“Friends of the Station” group launched at Exeter St Thomas

As part of Citizens’ Rail, a new community group has been launched to support the improvement of Exeter St Thomas station on The Riviera Line in Devon.

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20 people attended the group’s first meeting and drop-in session, held on 13th January and organised by the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership and train operator First Great Western. The Friends of Exeter St Thomas Station will help plan murals for the station platform walls and greenery on the platforms, as well as getting involved in planting and watering. The meeting was very productive – with excellent feedback from attendees:

Inspiring community ideas at last night's launch of Friends of #EXEStThomas Station – next stop, a site visit @CitizensRail @DCRailPart

— Cllr Paul Bull (@CllrPaul4Cowick) January 14, 2015

The formation of the Friends group is being supported by the EU Citizens’ Rail project, led by the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership, which is working to develop the Riviera Line, between Exeter and Paignton, and get more people involved with their railway. The project has already helped to revive the Friends of Dawlish Station and set up a new Friends of Teignmouth Station group.

Celia Minoughan, Riviera Line project officer at the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership, said: “The impact that the volunteers have had at Dawlish station shows what can be achieved. We are looking forward to getting ideas from local residents so we can make a real difference to passengers at Exeter St Thomas.”

First Great Western Station Manager Melanie Harvey “We are committed to supporting the communities we serve. This project is aiming to get the railway, volunteers and local businesses to work together to improve the station environment for all.”

The formation of the new group coincides with other improvements taking place at the station as part of Citizens’ Rail – including attractive new shelters.

To find out more or get involved, contact Citizens’ Rail’s Riviera Line Officer, Celia Minoughan, on 01752 584777 or at celia@citizensrail.org.

2015/01/15
Photos from the Santa Special

This weekend, Citizens’ Rail lent a helping hand to First Great Western’s charity fundraising Santa Special train from Newton Abbot station in Devon.

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The trip was made extra special as it was on the rarely used former ‘Teign Valley’ Heathfield line. First Great Western worked with Network Rail, the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership (Citizens’ Rail’s lead partner) and the Dame Hannah Rogers Trust to put on this very special event. All proceeds from ticket sales was donated to the Dame Hannah Rogers Trust.

Citizens’ Rail’s Riviera Line Officer helped to recruit volunteers to help at the event. The Friends of Dawlish and Teignmouth Stations and rail user groups joined First Great Western to give away free mince pies and talk to passengers about great value days out by train.

Enjoy some photos from the day…

2014/12/23
Walks booklet launched

As part of the Citizens’ Rail project, a new booklet has been developed to encourage more people to enjoy walks from stations on The Riviera Line (Exeter to Paignton).

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The free booklet has been produced by the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership and brings together a selection of six self-guided walks. Included are walks from Starcross, Dawlish Warren, Dawlish and Teignmouth stations. It is part of the promotional campaign being run for the line by the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership as part of the EU Interreg IVB Citizens’ Rail project. See a PDF copy of the leaflet (3MB):

Celia Minoughan, the Partnership’s Riviera Line Project Officer said:

“The booklet is a great companion for people who like exploring South Devon. There are some fabulous walks to explore along the Riviera Line, and this is just a taster of what is out there.”

At Dawlish station this week Celia was joined by walkers from the Dawlish Walk This Way group at the start of their weekly Wednesday walk. Nigel Rhys, a walk leader from Walk This Way, said:

“We welcome the Walks from the Riviera Line booklet. Every week we lead up to 40 people on walks from Dawlish Station, including the Dawlish Town Trail featured in the booklet. A few of our group regularly come from Starcross by train to join us at Dawlish Station.”

30,000 copies of the “Walks from the Riviera Line” booklet have been printed and can be found at stations throughout the First Great Western network as well as local tourist information centres. Copies can also be obtained by emailing railpart@plymouth.ac.uk.

Local partners in “Citizens’ Rail” – which is 50% funded by the EU’s Interreg IVB programme – include Devon County Council, Torbay Council, First Great Western, Plymouth University and the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership. For more information about ‘Walks from the Riviera Line’ and the Citizens’ Rail project, including how to get involved, contact Celia Minoughan at the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership on 01752 584777 or at celia@citizensrail.org.

[button size=”large” color=”#ffffff” background=”#d42053″ radius=”0px” type=”flat” link=”http://therivieraline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Walks-from-Riviera-Line_2_web.pdf” newwindow=”false” icon=”” ]Read the leaflet as a PDF (3MB)[/button]

2014/12/05
The Riviera Line website wins another award

After being recognised last month at the UK Community Rail Awards, a website developed as part of the Citizens’ Rail project has received further praise – this time winning at the UK Rail Exec Most Interesting Awards.

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The Riviera Line website won in the Most Interesting Community Engagement Project category at the awards, held in Leicester on 29th November 2014. The award was presented by Neil Buxton, General Manager of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships to Mike Parker-Bray, Citizens’ Rail Communications Officer at the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership.

The story of the website
After winter’s infamous storms, the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership (DCRP) wanted to harness the local feel-good factor around the re-opening of the line through Dawlish.

A marketing campaign was developed to win back lost passengers and to attract non-users to try the train between Exeter and Paignton. Its centrepiece was TheRivieraLine.com – a new type of community rail website, providing concise travel advice delivered in a visual, modern style.

The website – launched in the first week of April 2014 to coincide with the line’s re-opening – was created as part of the EU Citizens’ Rail project, of which DCRP is the lead partner.

Five innovative features:

Resizing to suit all devices
The site is believed to be community rail’s first “responsive” website. This means its content resizes to provide a comfortable reading experience on PCs, tablets and smartphones (see screenshots provided). This is not only better for the user, but it also minimises costs for the Community Rail Partnership – who might otherwise have to fund and manage an app or separate mobile version of the website. It also future-proofs the website: with the numbers of people viewing websites on mobile devices widely predicted to grow and grow. Since its launch, one in three visits to TheRivieraLine.com has come from smartphones or tablets.

Tailored for non-users
The website breaks down barriers to travel by explaining the essentials in an approachable, easy-to-digest way. This ranges from how to buy tickets when travelling from unstaffed stations, to whether you can take your dog on board, to whether there are toilets on the train. The site addresses these frequently asked questions in a concise, friendly way to help non-users to try the train. This is a departure from the stuffy tone and long-winded content of some public transport websites.

Gathering insights to inform future marketing
Every link on the website is tracked, so that over time a rich picture will develop of which types of discounted tickets are most popular and which destinations are clicked most frequently. In this way the website will become a valuable source of insights to inform future marketing: both online and offline.

Professional, people-focused photography
The site uses professional photography to put people at the heart of the story. This addresses what is arguably a common weakness of public transport websites.

Bringing together little-known tools
There are many handy rail travel tools available online, including season ticket calculators, personalised timetable creators, live departure information, car parking season ticket calculators and more. However, they are often little-known and are tucked away on a range of different websites. TheRivieraLine.com showcases them (including providing direct links to the tools) to raise their profile and help users.

[button size=”large” color=”#ffffff” background=”#d42053″ radius=”0px” type=”flat” link=”http://therivieraline.com/” newwindow=”false” icon=”” ]Visit the website[/button]

2014/12/05
School children enjoying their international trip

Our intrepid Lancashire school children are thoroughly enjoying their week in Germany and the Netherlands. From an official welcome at Aachen City Hall (pictured above), to singing lessons with their new Aachen school friends, to scaling viewpoints where they could see three countries at once, they are cramming a lot in to their four-night stay.

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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 children have raised 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=”” ]See more photos and follow the children’s trip on their own fantastic blog[/button]

2014/11/20
Transnational school visit – the build-up continues

Excitement is mounting for next week’s epic school trip from Lancashire to Aachen and Heerlen. Children from Padiham Green CE Primary School have been making their final preparations, from creating luggage labels (above) to writing to the queen to let her know about their adventure!

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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:

2014/11/12
Lancashire school children prepare to visit Aachen

School pupils who welcomed Citizens’ Rail partners to Burnley during the summer are soon to make the return trip – embarking on an adventure to the German city of Aachen.

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The story so far
In July, the Year 5 class from Padiham Green CE Primary School greeted Citizens’ Rail partners from France, Germany and the Netherlands at Burnley Manchester Road station. They performed a play about the history of the area’s railway (complete with historical top hats and moustaches – see photos), followed by presentations about what they had learned about each of the partner regions. The children also created a wide range of railway-related artwork, which adorned the station’s new community room.

The partners were hugely impressed and touched by the effort and imagination that the children had clearly invested in learning about the culture, economy, food and history of each local area. The pupils in turn were excited to meet representatives from each of the countries they had been studying – providing a chance to find out more, and to try out their language skills. Uwe Müller from Stadt Aachen said:

“The children’s work and enthusiasm was really outstanding! I was very impressed by what they had learned and presented about Aachen. I hope that one day we might be able to arrange for the children to visit our cities in person.”

The next chapter
Now Uwe’s invitation has become reality. Next month, the class of 30 pupils and 8 adults will be travelling to and staying in Aachen. They will spend one day in a German school, working alongside similar aged children, forging new links and friendships. Exploring Aachen will be high on the itinerary in order that the children can visit the many places of interest previously researched at school in Padiham. A visit to the Netherlands is also planned – travelling by train from Aachen to Heerlen. Teacher Janet Ennis said:

“This exceptional transnational project is about expanding the learning horizons of the Year 5 pupils of Padiham Green CE Primary School, many of whom will be travelling abroad for the first time. The children are very proud to represent their school and also appreciate the task of becoming ambassadors for their town, county and country!”

To prepare for the trip, the children have been taking after school German lessons (see photos below), and their adventure has captured the interest of the town.

The Lancashire Telegraph newspaper recently paid a visit to the school to find out more, and Burnley Football Club invited the children to the stadium to collect a large selection of goodies. The class are now fully equipped with pencil cases and stationery, key rings, door plaques, back packs and beanie hats for the upcoming trip, and even have enough to present to their European school friends too.

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.

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Follow the children’s preparations for their trip on their fantastic blog.

2014/10/23
Citizens’ Rail projects win national awards

Three projects supported by Citizens’ Rail have been recognised at the UK’s Community Rail Awards.

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The award ceremony was held in Scarborough on Thursday 2nd October, and was organised by The Association of Community Rail Partnerships. Speakers included Baroness Kramer, Minister of State for Transport, and Paul Salveson, a leading light of the community rail sector in the UK.

Outstanding Teamwork

First prize in the Outstanding Teamwork category was awarded to partners involved in rebuilding Dawlish station after the devastating storm damage it sustained in February 2014. Pictured at the top of this article collecting the award are Citizens’ Rail Riviera Line Officer Celia Minoughan (second from left), Margaret Swift and Phil Bagshaw of the Friends of Dawlish Station (third from left and second from right), and First Great Western station manager Ian Mundy (third from right). The award was presented by Nick Donovan, Managing Director of First Transpennine Express (left) and Alex Hynes, Managing Director of Northern Rail (right).

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Read about Citizens’ Rail’s involvement in reviving the station.

Innovation in Community Rail

In the Innovation category, first prize went to The Riviera Line website developed as part of Citizens’ Rail to encourage more people to take the train between Torbay and Exeter. The site is believed to be community rail’s first “responsive” website – resizing to suit PCs, tablets and smartphones. Its content is tailor-made to help non-users to overcome barriers to travel.

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Visit the website.

Best Station Gardens and Large Floral Displays

To complete a hat trick of awards, third prize in the Best Station Gardens category was awarded to the transformation of Torquay Station garden by Robert Owen Communities and First Great Western. Working twice a week in all weathers, the station platforms have been transformed with planting on an English Riviera theme including reclamation of a large rockery. The project has not only improved the look and feel of Torquay station but has allowed the young people to gain confidence, social interaction and nationally recognised qualifications to help them into employment.

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Read about Citizens’ Rail’s involvement in the project.

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Congratulations to Community Rail Lancashire

Congratulations also go to Citizens’ Rail partners Community Rail Lancashire, whose “Young persons’ passport to safe travel” project won the Involving Young People category. Our colleagues in Lancashire have an excellent track record in engaging children and young people in their railway.

Children from one of the schools they work with gave an outstanding presentation to EU partners at Burnley Manchester Road’s new station building in July. And soon as part of Citizens’ Rail, the same children will be taking a train journey to Aachen, our German partner city, in a fantastic example of transnational learning and collaboration. More news on this soon.

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Read about the passport to safe travel scheme.

2014/10/07
Reviving local stations in Pays de la Loire

What brings a speech therapist, a parents’ association representative, a Deputy Mayor and numerous others together in their town hall? Their station of course!

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As part of Citizens’ Rail, consultation has been in full swing this summer in seven villages and towns in the Pays de la Loire who want to safeguard the heritage of their unused railway buildings by transforming them into lively, thriving community hubs.

Région Pays de la Loire and consultants Erea led workshops at the start of July in each local area. Mayors and councillors invited local stakeholders along to discuss possible uses for station buildings left vacant after the closure of ticket offices. Attendees included elected officials, business figures, local residents and many more – all taking part in productive brainstorming sessions.

Around the table, ideas swiftly took shape for possible uses of the stations: as a cycle hire facility, exhibition space, sales point for local businesses (selling organic vegetables, pastries and other farm produce), library book exchange, tourism installation, extension of a speech therapy clinic, local museum, extra space for a youth club, a medical centre, and more.

The sessions led to the emergence of ideas that would not have been generated in any other way. Each locality is now developing its own way forward to progress the project. At Voivres-lès-le-Mans, a municipal steering committee has been created, and staged a large public meeting in September with the villagers.

[icon size=”14px” color=”#D42053″ background=”#ffffff” radius=”0px” type=”icon-chevron-sign-right” spacing=”0px” /] Update – Between now and spring 2015, as the first part of their rejuvenation, Région Pays de la Loire is installing secure bicycle parking at several of the rural stations. Read more

2014/09/29