Duncan Hames, prospective Lib Dem MP for Chippenham, yesterday (Tuesday) attended a public meeting of the More Train, Less Strain campaign, based in Bath.
The campaign group aims to challenge the government and First Great Western train company, over their poor standards and high prices, and to push them into providing a better service for passengers.
The group held a ‘Fare Strike’ last year and was successful in gaining more carriages on local services running from Bristol Temple Meads, Bath, Portsmouth, Cardiff and other intermediary stations.
The latest call for action has come following the severe delays and cancellations at the end of 2007 and the drastic fare rises incurred at the start of 2008.
Duncan Hames said: “The service has become so unreliable and expensive that it is putting people off travelling in the environmentally friendly way. We are now in a crazy situation where it can be cheaper to get a taxi than a train on some routes.
“The government and the train companies have a duty of care to their customers that they are not fulfilling. It is not right to expect a passenger to pay over the odds for a train journey, especially when they are often forced into ‘cattle class’ for hours once on board.”
I’m glad Duncan Hames is enthusiastic about improving the standards for rail travel.
I would like the railway network to be more comprehensive and flexible so railway operators could run more reliable services and allow for cheaper fares. For example, reopening disused/closed branch lines which may well bring higher profits than they ever used to since many towns are now much larger than they used to be etc
However, the main problem is the fact that the railways need to be renationalised. Since trying to encourage competition between rail operators has clearly not worked, it is evident that the railways were privatised just to make money for the Government. The rail network will always be a shambles until it is renationalised because only then can it be coordinated and managed succesfuly.
Thanks for your comments Drew.
Each of our four towns needs a decent rail service. In Chippenham and Bradford on Avon, that is threatened by overcrowding. In Melksham we are working really hard to persuade First, the government, and the county council, to work together to bring back a reliable and practical service throughout the day. It has been a frustrating process, but Graham Ellis and the Save the Train campaign (http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/) have persevered, and I believe we will make it happen. In Corsham we have an even bigger task, but the growth of the town and the redevelopment of the military presence in Corsham too, present a very persuasive logic for a more local service along that line. How about: Bristol to Oxford service stopping at Keynsham, Bath, Corsham, Chippenham, Swindon, and Didcot? That really would be good news.