Archive for the ‘transport’ Category

Aslockton station service improvements – confirmed?

East Midlands Trains produce a stakeholder newsletter, called “Impact”. The August edition is now available. It contains this gem:

Improvements for Aslockton

Another area set to benefit from our December
timetable improvements is Aslockton in
Nottinghamshire. The community at Aslockton will
see an additional eight train services a day from
December, providing a much improved service to
and from Nottingham.

Looking good for December 2009! :-)

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Aug 26th, 2009

2009 Aslockton passenger survey results

Here’s the (belated) results of a completely unscientific passenger-count, conducted on Thursday 9th July.

Total number of passengers: 51 (compared with 92 last year)
Number of services: 13 (21 last year)
Passengers per train: 3.92 (4.38 last year)

There is still a very strong trend of people travelling to/from Nottingham, rather to/from Grantham:

                     Nottingham   Grantham
     Arriving from       22           1
     Departing for       27           1
     Total               49           2

I understand it’s likely that East Midlands Trains will provide a commuter service for people working in Grantham, from December 2009. If that’s confirmed, then we should be able to muster more than one return journey per day in that direction!

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jul 28th, 2009

A year since the Great Aslockton Passenger Count

It’s nearly a year since I spent the day counting people using trains to and from Aslockton station. So I’m doing it again, to get a very un-scientific view of the effects of the December 2008 service cuts.

It starts tomorrow morning at 05:28!

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jul 8th, 2009

Services to be reintroduced at Aslockton

A consultation document for the December 2009 timetable was sent out to interested parties some weeks ago, but now those proposals have been summarised in a public meeting. So I guess it’s OK to give a precis of the proposals here.

Headline changes for December 2009

  • eight extra services to stop at Aslockton each weekday, including the 19:45 (ish) service from Nottingham
  • seven extra services to stop each Saturday
  • new commuter service from Aslockton to Grantham (leaving at approximately 8am) and a return service (leaving Grantham at approximately 17:45)

These improvements are still subject to formal approval by Network Rail, but David Horne says this is “effectively done”.

Meeting details

The meeting this evening was organized by Aslockton and Whatton-in-the-Vale parish councils (thanks folks!), and attended by three guests:

  • David Horne: Commercial Director, East Midlands Trains
  • Jim Bamford: Rail Officer, Nottingham County Council
  • Martin Suthers, Nottinghamshire County Councillor for Bingham

There were between 30 and 40 members of the public there too.

It was made quite clear that the new services at Aslockton are an experiment. EMT have heard our concerns about the service cuts, and have more-or-less issued us with a challenge: they want to see an increase in footfall at the station of between 15% and 20%.

This is a two-year plan – they need one year to get some meaningful data, then another year to give notice of subsequent timetable changes to Network Rail. So there you have it: EMT have done their bit, now we need to do ours.

Our challenge, in numbers

A while ago, I posted figures from the Office of Rail Regulation which detailed the journeys taken to and from Aslockton. Well, the 2007/08 figures have come out. So here goes:

                        ALK      BIN      RDF
        Year 2007/08    21473    29457    13305
        Year 2006/07    21363    25181    9326
        Year 2005/06    18538    26134    10892
        Year 2004/05    16064    28053    9565
        Year 2003/04
        Year 2002/03    15991    41038    13220

Hmm, very modest growth for Aslockton, and that’s before the December 2008 cuts were made :-/  To stand any chance of keeping those extra eight services (and the possibility of more) we really do need to hit 25000 passengers per annum.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jun 29th, 2009

“MyRail Lite” iPhone app – dead!

Although I didn’t think to mention the app in my recent Essential iPhone Apps post, the “MyRail Lite” app is (was) first-rate. But they today tweeted that the service is to close because their license to distribute real-time data from National Rail Enquiries isn’t to be renewed.

Several words spring to mind, the cleanest of which would be “boo”, “hiss” and “arse”.

There is another app , very recently released, called “National Rail Enquiries”… but at £4.99 it’s a bit feckin’ steep. It looks to be officially sanctioned by NRE and – while I obviously don’t know the details – I wonder if NRE licensed the data to MyRail, watched them prove the concept, saw it was popular, and then saw an opportunity to screw them over.

(Only guessing, like!)

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Filed under tech, transport : Comments (0) : Mar 23rd, 2009

17:50 train out of Nottingham – saved!

Ooh, lovely. We’ve received word that East Midlands Trains have decided to retain the 17:50 train out of Nottingham. This is a significant win in the campaign!

There is no word about other services in the timetable, nor about stations other than Aslockton, so I can only assume that those cuts are still planned.

But it good news for many – both residents of Aslockton/Whatton, and the folk who live near Bingham station!

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Aug 21st, 2008

Public meeting about train cuts

A public meeting was held last night, hosted jointly by Aslockton and Whatton Parish Councils, and I’m pleased to report that attendance was higher than I expected. Thanks to both Councils for arranging the meeting.

Two guests appeared: one was a Community Rail Bod (who, we assumed, would be on-side) and the other was a chap from East Midlands Trains (who, we assumed, wouldn’t be). That’ll teach us to make assumptions.

John Hillman, East Midlands Trains “Stakeholder Development Manager”, showed genuine concern. He openly admitted that the proposed timetable was inadequate, listened to our arguments and appeared to understand our complaints. The Community Bod*, on the other hand, showed very little sympathy and suggested we were being unreasonable in expecting a “bespoke rail service”. What a waste of space he was.

So I’m feeling a little happier now than I was before the meeting. Just a little.

* Name withheld to protect the useless

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Aug 21st, 2008

Another letter from East Midlands Trains

Dear Sir,

Our records show that you have contacted the East Midlands Trains Customer Relations team during the last three months.

In order for us to measure how happy our customers are with the way we deal with their feedback, please take a few moments to answer the following questions…

My pleasure! Apparently, I’ll be entered into a draw to win a pair of First Class tickets for travel on East Midlands Trains. Cool… the wife and I would like to go from Nottingham to Aslockton in December please. Oh, hang on…

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jul 29th, 2008

Survey / petition results

Let’s cut to the chase – the results of the survey and petition at Aslockton station on an ordinary wet Thursday in July:

4.3 people per train is slightly higher than I’d expected, given the official figures at the Office of Rail Regulation. This may be due to one or more of the following reasons:

  • this is just one weekday, and the passenger numbers for weekends may be less – lowering the average (likely)
  • guards on the trains are still lax in collecting fares, so some passengers aren’t counted in the official figures (likely)
  • the upwards trend in passenger numbers is continuing, since the latest published figures from the ORR (possible)
  • it might be “International Let’s Travel To Aslockton Day” and no-one’s told me (unlikely)

Finally, some trivia:

  • I left the house this morning at 05:15
  • today I met three people who are physically incapable of driving, all of whom would be severely inconvenienced if these cuts are made…
  • … including one chaplain at HMP Whatton
  • at least ten commuters, when describing the draft timetable, used language which would make the aforementioned chaplain blush
  • one pristine Bic Biro was chewed by ‘passenger unknown’
  • six pints of delicious Tim Taylor’s Golden Best were sunk (it’s been a long day – I’m allowed)
  • I’m signing off at 22:59, tired to the point of delerium

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jul 10th, 2008

Proposed “Poacher Line” timetables for December 2008 – download here

East Midlands Trains, bless ‘em, seem to be giving out the draft timetables (for the Poacher Line from December 2008) to anyone who asks. So I thought I’d relieve some of the burden, and reproduce them here.

Note that these are DRAFT timetables – the final timetables will not be available until the end of July.

We have just 2 weeks left to campaign against the service cuts.

poacher-line-weekdays-december-2008.pdf (PDF, 78k)
poacher-line-saturday-december-2008.pdf (PDF, 81k)
poacher-line-sunday-december-2008.pdf (PDF, 52k)

(You’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these draft timetables)

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Filed under transport : Comments (0) : Jul 9th, 2008

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