Speech to Conference - Intercity Express Programme

On Saturday I made a speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat conference on the issue of the Intercity Express Programme. I was especially speaking on lines 11-13 of the motion.

1 Conference notes that that the UK Government is due to take a decision on whether to
2 proceed with the Intercity Express Programme, intended to provide 882 new carriages
3 for a series of intercity routes, following the completion of the comprehensive spending
4 review in October 2010.

5 Conference welcomes the environmental, social and economic benefits of an efficient
6 and accessible public transport service, and supports the long-term electrification of the
7 railways as part of a modern rail network.

8 Conference recognises the importance of cross-border transport links between England
9 and Scotland and that direct rail services connecting London to the north and the north
10 east of Scotland bring direct economic benefit to these regions.

11 Conference is therefore concerned at the report of the Review of the Intercity Express
12 Programme by Sir Andrew Foster which suggests that long distance routes to Inverness
13 and Aberdeen could be served by connecting trains rather than through-services.

14 Conference believes that the loss of the through-service from London to Aberdeen and
15 Inverness would be a significant deterrent to train travel for these regions and would
16 represent a serious reduction in the quality of cross-border services, with a resultant
17 negative impact on Scottish business competitiveness.

18 Conference therefore calls on the Secretary of State for Transport to protect the
19 economic value of the north and north east regions of Scotland by maintaining direct rail
20 services between London and Aberdeen and Inverness and to reject any other
21 diminution of cross-border public transport services between England and Scotland.

I started by saying that although through the years I had always addressed conference as a Northern Irish man this was the first time I have addressed them as a member of the Northern Irish party. It was as a result that travelling from Northern Ireland and many long cross country trips that I had learnt one important issue about connecting services, they do not always connect you to you final destination on the same day you started out.

A previous speaker had already pointed out the access issues and this is true for all passengers. This is true for all passengers but can affect those that are elderly and infirm the most. If you add in a rail replacement service at the same time as a non-though train this can slowly lead people to not want to let the train take the strain.

As I concluded I pointed out that in 2003 we stood to increase the rail service in Scotland including the Bathgate to Airdrie extension which means so much to the people of West Lothian. We should similarly be working to increase provision not reduce it, therefore I urged conference to accept the motion.

The Separation of Railway and Railway

Well if Mícheál keeps doing these so must I.

Once upon a time we had British Rail and Northern Irish Railways. Then I never had a problem booking a through ticket from Larne/Belfast to Surbiton incorporating the ferry across the Irish Sea. In fact I was so adept at it that often the ticket office in Surbiton's Art Deco station were taught how to book it by me booking my end of term ticket. There were also times that I could book it at my fully manned local station, a terminus on the Northern Irish rail network*.

Well yesterday I was attempted to buy a rail/sail ticket to get me over to Scotland. You'd think that this could be purchased at any ticket office. Well you'd be wrong I had to go to Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) travel office at Great Victoria Street (GVS), because Translink the Rail and Bus provider do not have the ability to sell that ticket to me.

So I hopped on what is actually almost becoming my regular commute (you thought I was working from home and not commuting), the 16:35 express to Belfast Central: where it terminates. I just missed the next connection to GVS it was pulling out on platform 2 as I was getting off a train on the other set of platforms at platform 4 at 16:52. Next train wasn't until 17:12 heading that way, so I would be quicker walking. I arrived at GVS at 17:01 and the NIR Travel Office was totally shut up. Not only that but it did not have any sign in the window to indicate opening hours.

Mícheál turned up as well as he was also looking to buy a ticket to Scotland. I told him of the situation so we went to the ticket office at GVS which is about 10 metres away from the NIR Travel Office to enquire. They couldn't sell us a ticket and when we asked the gentleman behind the counter if he could inform NIR Travel Office that displaying their opening hours on or near the door may be helpful. He said they weren't part of the same company.

Now I decided to look up how separate the two companies are so checked out their respective websites:

Translink is http://www.translink.co.uk/

Northern Ireland Railways is http://www.translink.co.uk/NI-Railways/

Hello!!

I've never had this issue at Waverley. Firstly I can do it at the Virgin/FirstScotRail travel centre of the same day ticket office. I can also do this at Haymarket should I wish. The travel office is open beyond 5pm, therefore those of us who work on the outskirts of the metropolitan area don't have to get out of work between 9 and 5 to get in there to make a special trip to buy tickets.

For a country as small as Northern Ireland not to be able to deal with this that travel tickets can only be bought during working hours at one location it is a wonder than anybody in Northern Ireland uses the train to get anywhere on the British mainland.

Update The solution we came to was that I gave Mícheál money for him to buy both our tickets today.

*Yes Caron we have a full network. ;)

Lib Dems to Expand the Rail Network

The Liberal Democrats were the party who fought for the current rail expansion that is going on in Scotland ahead of the 2003 election. Living as I do in Bathgate I get an almost daily update on the progress of one of those projects with the Bathgate to Airdrie extension. Today plans to shift £3bn from road to rail projects has been announced as part of the Lib Dem plans for a greener UK.

In what will be the biggest rail expansion since the Victorian era thousands of miles of tracks. Precise details of what will be opened will have to wait until they are tendered but here are some of the schemes that will be considered as priorities.

The electrification of lines from Manchester to Liverpool, Leeds and Preston; from Birmingham to Bristol and Basingstoke; and between Leeds and York. New or reopened stations could be funded in Ilkeston, Kidlington, Wantage, Corsham, Tavistock, Middlewich, Ashington, Blyth, Washington and Skelmersdale.

New lines could link Southport with Preston, Bournemouth with Ringwood and the Midlands main line with the Birmingham-Derby route. And track could be reopened between Exeter and Okehampton; Tavistock and Plymouth; Penrith and Keswick; and Galashiels and Carlisle.

The Galashiels to Carlisle link effectively completes the borders connection not just linking north to Edinburgh but also south to the mainline connections.

Lib Dem transport spokesman Norman Baker said:

"The Liberal Democrats will transform the railways with the biggest expansion since the Victorian age.

"Labour has allowed the railways to wither on the vine and punished passengers with huge fare hikes while more polluting forms of transport have got cheaper. All the while, the Tories have been sharpening the axe they will take to the transport budget.

"High speed rail is hugely important, but it is only part of the 21st-century rail network Britain needs. Our plans will reopen thousands of miles of track across the country and make our railway great again."

MPs Can Travel by First Class Rail...

If Sir Nicholas Winterton wants to travel up to Macclesfield in a first class carriage he is more than entitled to do so. This is after all a free country and we protect people's liberties. Of course the fact that "They are a totally different type of people" would not entirely endear him to the masses of potential voters who inhabit standard seats, or the future voters running up and down the aisle, who will all still be children when Sir Nicholas retires this year.

Of course some of his other arguments for coming down from Macclesfield do not make a lot of sense, so maybe he really is out of touch. I didn't for example realise that the greater Macclesfield metropolis extended far enough for local councillors to have the option to travel first class between their ward and the council offices. I really must try and stay awake next time I travel through on the train, I've clearly missed vast swathes of Macclesfield, and another mainline station.

He can overcome the being unable to get a seat by that wonderful convenience of a reservation, it is small extra amount he'd have to pay to guarantee the seat of his choosing, then he would "always get a seat" in standard if he wanted. I believe this reservation system has been around almost since the advent of the first steam trains. Wonderful what you can do these days.

As for peace and quiet I believe there is a quiet coach in standard on the Macclesfield to London trains so he could reserve a seat in there if he wishes. Just woe betide him if he starts up him laptop not in quiet mode and the Microsoft ident whistles out around the coach.

Although as I said should he, or any other MP, still be desirous to travel by first class they should be allowed to do so. Buy a standard ticket, and keep the receipt, and then purchase the upgrade that many of he rest of us do if we are a particular long journey.

As I said we live in a free country and the option is there for them to do so, just don't expect us to pick up the tab for that desire to be a class apart.

Grangemouth by Rail: A Future Hope

Seeing the work going on at the new Bathgate and Armadale stations and the rest of the work going on to restore the Bathgate to Airdrie rail link is a wonderful sight. The news that a campaign is afoot to connect people in Grangemouth back to the rail network is additional welcome news.

Rail lines still exist from Falkirk to Grangemouth to carry freight so less replacing of infrastructure may be required that the Bathgate to Airdrie scheme. Alex Macaulay, the director of SEStran has said that the issue of reinstating a station at Grangemouth would be considered as part of Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (Stag) to assess the future transport needs of the area. The 17,000+ residents of Grangemouth may soon be looking forward to a more rail connection to the rest of the network rather than busing or driving into Falkirk to get on a train.

Markinch Cries "Let What Train Take the Strain?"

One of Liberal Democrat candidate Harry Wills' campaigns in the Glenrothes by election has been about the unfair fares that the people of Fife face on the train. They pay greater fares that the people of Perth pay to get to Edinburgh for example.

However, the people of Markinch now face greater unfairness as their 9:04 train into Edinburgh looks set to disappear off the winter timetable. This would leave a 98 minute gap between trains at 8.31am and 10.09am a busy commuting time of the morning. With a greater number of people working flexible hours the removal of a 9:04 service may well disadvantage parents who drop their children to school before catching the 9:04 catching a later or earlier train may not be convenient to everyone.

If the removal of this service is made it looks set to see an increase of road usage to make up for its loss. Not a great move to the environment and climate change.

This Train will Call at ....Blackridge...

Good news for residents in Blackridge the Scottish Government has agreed funding for them to have a platform as part of the Bathgate to Airdrie railway reinstatement programme.

While the Scotsman may be heaping praise on Fiona Hyslop for this success I'm like to single out independent councillor Stuart Borrowman who actually really got this campaign going and was convener of PlatformBlackridge a group which had all party support. No doubt the council will pass the passing application for the station at a nod now and Blackridge can become better connected than it has been for years.

The people of Blackridge have for too long lived with a poverty in public transport provision, their needs often overlooked. This success for PlatformBlackridge will greatly benefit many in that community, along with the others already set to benefit from the new line. It is a great step forward.

He Came, He Charmed, He Promised...Just When?

OK the First Minister and his cabinet headed to the Highland's capital Inverness and making promises to invest in the Inverness to Edinburgh rail line and dual the A9. Is it just me or is there one vital thing missing from these promises? Where is the time scale? Apart that is from the one of making the announcement while in the city that will benefit from the promise.

While it is all well and good stating the "importance of having better and safer transport connections for the north of Scotland" promising investment on a "continuing basis" is not setting a SMART objective. Yes he came out of the meeting promising to spell out the details in a couple of weeks but making a promise of things yet to be revealed is being somewhat of a familiar tune from Alex's lips.

Surely these platitudes are also part of the smarm offensive that Alex used when also calling Inverness the "most important city in Scotland". No offence to any resident of Inverness but I'm sure even they would realise that there are several stronger candidates to that that claim in all honesty. Indeed why should any city be more important than any other. Without Aberdeen for example where would Alex's oil revenue be, without Edinburgh where would he power be, as for Glasgow where would a great bulk of his population be. Surely Alex meant to say that Inverness was as important a part of Scotland as anywhere else. But then that wouldn't have built up an hysteria within the crowd to prevent them looking beyond what he was saying to realise it was all big on ideas and thin on detail.

Promise all you want but you're going to have to deliver on them all.

Tackle Climate Change Take a Plane - Labour

Apparently the best way government guidelines tell us to tackle underused railways is to take a plane.

Are these planes going to stop at request stops along the line of the rail route? How are they going to tackle the stations in the Highlands or rural Wales which surely must be amongst those targeted? I mean it will be difficult to built airports next to every conceiveable station. That is before taking into account that taking off is the most carbon heavy point of a planes emmissions.

If there are not going to airports at every stop how are passengers going to get to their final destination? In some of these underused rail lines there is no realistic alternative to make the journey from Rannoch Station to Fort William being a prime example.

So not only is Tony Blair not prepared to set annual targets for cutting carbon emmissions (when he has them for everything else), he looks like adding to them non-sensically.

Too Hot to Train

Yesterday I had to get out of work early to head back to Linlithgow for a dentist's appointment. Intended to catch the 16:14 train from Edinburgh Park to Dunblane. However, the one train I need to catch to make my 4:30 appointment is cancelled.

In their wisdom Scot FirstRail decide that the next Dunblane train will be of two coaches in length and so I join the other sweaty commuters jammed in to the corridor space between the two carriages. Due to the heat this train takes 25 minutes to make the twelve minute journey to Linlithgow. Heaven knows what time it got into Dunblane.

Having missed my dentist I was able to inform the receptionist of my delay, but then had to work out how to get out of Linlithgow as buses to Bathgate seem to stop after 5 in the evening.