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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.”