Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


Memorandum by Alan D Crowhurst (RR 04)

RURAL RAILWAYS

  I refer to the forthcoming inquiry into rural railways and am concerned that this may be a precursor to closures of the kind that so decimated the system after Beeching.

  During the following years my business took me all over the country and, in many cases, to towns that had lost their rail links such as those along the north Devon coast. Whilst I could have hired a car on arrival in some towns this would have been expensive and time consuming. Accordingly I used a car for all of my journey, commencing in East Essex and then on to wherever I had to go thus losing the railway not just the local fare but the long distance fares and dining car income.

  Being retired I very much prefer to use rail services and would be a more frequent user of the Cotswold lines if the services were more frequent and faster, the campaign to restore double tracks being well known. Rural lines need regular interval services with good connections and not necessarily the most modern rolling stock.

  There was a lot to be said for the policy of cascading equipment down to such lines thus reducing costs of equipment. There is also a strong case for local management of such lines and recent proposals by some groups to do so deserve support as local interest can provide a spur to development.

  Bus substitution is no answer whether the buses be conventional or guided although light rail equipment might be satisfactory if its use does not preclude operations by heavy rail. Although I am happy to use bus services in major cities I would not consider their use on longer routes. Indeed recent experiences with bus substitution on several journeys I have made on the Chiltern Line and the Marches Line, although well organised, were not at all enjoyable and I would defer travel rather than willingly use such substituted services again or, more likely use my car.

  Recent proposals to use rail tracks for guided bus services on the Cambridge-Huntingdon and Luton-Dunstable lines will be unlikely to offer the development of passenger services that would arise with the restoration of such lines to heavy or light rail whilst adding to congestion at the city ends of such journeys. they will do nothing to attract longer distance travellers. I visit Histon from time to time and would use rail from Kidderminster via Birmingham if the Huntingdon-Cambridge line were reopened but I am not inclined to go by train to Cambridge and then travel back by bus from wherever the bus service commences.

  I would strongly urge the Committee to promote the retention, restoration and development of rural rail services and any ancillary development of the station property, etc. In Italy most rural stations have a cafe/bar, toilets and other facilities, why cannot such developments be encouraged here—it works well, for example, at Crianlarich.

31 March 2004





 
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