News from the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership, a leading Community Rail Partnership

Latest News

12 August 2010

Steam trains and Looe fete to help celebrate 150 years of the Looe Valley Line in September

September will see many activities to celebrate 150 years of the Looe Valley Line. There will be a station fete at Looe on 11 September and on Sundays 19 and 26 September, steam will return to the line for the first time since 1961.

Download the Looe 150 leaflet here . This includes the programme of events & the special Looe 150 Rail Ale Trail.

Four round trips will run from Liskeard to Looe on each Sunday with former GWR Pannier Tank 9466 at one end and a Class 37 diesel at the other. The trains are being run by Vintage Trains in partnership with First Great Western as part of the celebrations of 175 years of the Great Western Railway.

Full steam train details here and First Great Western press release here

17 May 2010

Bere Ferrers and Calstock upgraded in new Tamar Valley Line train timetable

Bere Ferrers and Calstock stations will lose their ‘request stop’ status from the start of the new timetable on the scenic Plymouth – Gunnislake Tamar Valley Line this Sunday, 23 May.

For more than a decade, passengers wishing to leave the train at Calstock and Bere Ferrers stations have had to ask the train conductor in good time. Those wishing to join have, at least officially, had to signal clearly to the train driver.

From time to time, this has led to problems, particularly with people for Bere Ferrers being taken on to Bere Alston.
Now both stations will become regular stops and all trains except for the very early train out from Plymouth will call automatically.

First Great Western are making the change because, with rising passenger numbers, almost all trains are already stopping at the two stations.

Julian Crow, General Manager, West of England for First Great Western said “As passenger numbers continue to grow, the days when Calstock and Bere Ferrers stations were only used by a handful of people are now behind us and this small change will simplify using the railway for both customers and our on-board crews. It’s another demonstration of the continuing success story of our local rail services”

Welcoming the change, Richard Burningham, Manager of the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership said “This is another sign of the growing popularity of the Tamar Valley Line. More and more people are taking the train with a 12.3% increase just in 2009. Nearly 50,000 more journeys were made last year than five years before.”

Other timetable changes are relatively minor. One of the main ones is that the weekday afternoon commuter train from Plymouth will now leave five minutes earlier, at 16 37.

The new timetable is available online at www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk . Timetable information can also be obtained from National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.

2 April 2010

250,000 extra passengers on Devon & Cornwall’s rural branch lines. Numbers top 1.5 million for the first time.

Newly released figures show that over 250,000 more passengers travelled on Devon & Cornwall’s rural rail branch lines in 2009 than did the year before, a rise of 19%. For the first time, the total number of passengers on the six lines topped than 1.5 million.

Figures released by train operator First Great Western show that 1,593,142 journeys were made on the region’s branch lines in 2009, 254,027 or 19% more than the year before.

Branch line use has gone up by 78% since 2001 when 698,847 journeys were made.

The top individual line was the Atlantic Coast Line which links Par with Newquay. This saw an increase in the number of trains from four to seven a day in December 2008, a move rewarded with a 58.1% rise in the number of journeys made on the line.

In numbers’ terms, the Maritime Line which links Truro and Falmouth topped the table. A Cornwall Council led scheme saw the opening of a passing loop at Penryn and introduction of a half hourly service in May, a move which led to a 31.6% increase in the number of journeys made by passengers, 92,652 extra trips. The number of journeys made on this line has more than doubled since 2001, from 185,000 then to 385,678 in 2009.

The St Ives Bay Line which links St Erth and St Ives was the busiest of the branch lines with over 501,476 journeys in 2009, up nearly 66,000 trips, 15.1% more than 2008. 2009 was the first time more than half a million journeys were made on the line.

The Looe Valley Line, which links Liskeard with Looe, also posted a big increase with 17.4% extra journeys made.

Passenger trips on the Exeter – Barnstaple Tarka Line were up by 11.2%, 39,122 extra trips. This line too saw an increase in the number of trains in December 2008 when an hourly service through most of the day was introduced.

All six branch lines are promoted by the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership, a partnership of local authorities, the rail industry and the University of Plymouth. Its Manager, Richard Burningham, said “2009 was a bumper year for Devon and Cornwall’s rural branch lines. These excellent figures show that more and more people are finding the train a great way to get around for work or leisure.”

Julian Crow, First Great Western’s General Manager for the West of England, said “We've been working away quietly over the past couple of years to make substantial improvements to the Devon & Cornwall branch line services, with great support from the Rail Partnership and local authorities. We have now reached the point where each line has the best train service that it has ever had, and it's great to see so many more people using these famous little lines that are becoming so important to the local economy. We are of course looking forward to a good summer in 2010 and another record year for passenger numbers!

The six branch lines are the Tarka Line (Exeter – Barnstaple), Tamar Valley Line (Plymouth – Gunnislake), Looe Valley Line (Liskeard – Looe), Atlantic Coast Line (Par – Newquay), Maritime Line (Truro – Falmouth) and St Ives Bay Line (St Erth – St Ives).

31 December 2009

MBE for Rail Partnership Manager

The manager of the Plymouth University based body which promotes rural branch lines in Devon & Cornwall has been awarded the MBE in the New Year Honours.

Richard Burningham has been the manager of the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership since 1998. He has been awarded the MBE for “Services to the Railway Industry in the South West”.

The Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership is a non-profit partnership of local authorities, including Cornwall Council, Devon County Council and Plymouth City Council, First Great Western and the University of Plymouth, where it is part of the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences.

The Partnership works to promote travel on six rural branch lines in the two counties, seeks improvements to services and facilities, works to boost the local economies of the places served through their rail link and to link the community and rail industry.

Established in 1991, it is the longest established of Britain’s 60 Community Rail Partnerships and one of the largest too.

The MBE rounds off a very big 2009 for the Partnership. Each of the six branch lines it focuses on has its best ever timetable and, with one full month of figures still to come in, already more than 1.5 million journeys have been made on the branch lines, up 19% on 2008 and almost two-thirds more than five years ago.

Partnership projects scooped two top awards at the National Community Rail Awards, which also saw Mr Burningham being given a Special Recognition Award.

Mr Burningham said ”I am very touched and humbled to receive the MBE and I would like to say a very big thank you. This is a massive honour for the Partnership as a whole and caps what has been an excellent year with now the best ever train service on the branch lines and a big increase in passenger numbers.

None of this would have been possible without the stalwart support of the Partners and especially the three principal local authorities, Cornwall Council, Devon County Council and Plymouth City Council.

These three are among the most proactive councils in the Country for working to make the very most of their rail network, not just through their support of the Partnership but also the many schemes they have worked up directly with the rail industry. This year has been a bumper year here too with highlights being the opening of the Cornwall led Penryn passing loop and the Devon led introduction of an hourly service between Exeter and Barnstaple.

I would also like to say a big thank you to First Great Western. This year’s improved timetables are in very large part down to them and they have consistently been extremely supportive of the Partnership.”

The Partnership’s achievements include the Tamar Valley Line Carnet, books of discounted tickets sold only at local shops and businesses for travel between Tamar Valley stations and Plymouth. Introduced five years ago, a fifth of all journeys on the line are now made using Carnets and there are now 40% more passengers than there were before its introduction. The Carnet is fully managed and administered by the Partnership.

The Partnership runs large scale publicity campaigns throughout the region, including six Rail Ale Trails, one for each line, which promote travel by train to rural pubs close to stations. Participants travel from all over the country (and even abroad) to do the Rail Ale Trails. The first person to do all six came from South Shields near Newcastle.

One of the Partnership’s key aims is to get targeted information about local rail services direct to local people. It regularly produces simple “Take the Train” timetable and fares leaflets and organises door to door delivery in areas served by branch line trains. It also runs newspaper advertisement campaigns.

The Partnership organised the publicity campaign for the opening of the Penryn passing loop and introduction of a half hourly service between Truro, Penryn and Falmouth in May. This included two leaflets directly distributed to local homes, full page local newspaper adverts and public exhibitions of a working model of the new Penryn station in Truro, Penryn and Falmouth.

Passenger numbers are up by 30% since the new service was introduced.

Mr Burningham said “Of course, the train isn’t suitable for every journey but, on the branch lines, where the train does offer a real choice, we aim to make sure that people know what the train has to offer and to get them to give it a go. This helps reduce the number of cars on the road and rising passenger numbers help make the case for further improvements to branch line train services.”