Progress made by Dr. David Kirkby
The flyer I distributed to many people
As you are probably aware, I distributed a one page flyer on the trains on the Southminster Branch Line, starting in July 2004, with a view to getting people active on this topic.Letters sent to/from one
I sent a letter to One Great Eastern on the 15th July 2004 about the Southminster Branch Line.
A reply dated the 3rd August was received. They said
"The Southend/Southminster line timetable is being reviewed for the winter 2004 timeable, and I am pleased to confirm that we are actively looking at the possibility of running a later 'last train' to Southminster than currently exists."
This looked encouraging, but is very different from the reply Christine Drew received, only 12 days earlier, where it was stated there were no plans to introduce later trains - citing one of the reasons as the fact Network Rail did not want later trains on branch lines so they had access to the track for maintence purposes.
'one' only answered about 30% of the questions asked in my original letter, so I sent a reply to 'one' on August the 7th 2004, asking for clarification on the a few points (especially the time of the last trains), and for them to answer all my original questions.
'one' have replied to my second letter, answering all my questions, and confirming that there will be later trains 7-days per week. But as they state, the trains are only marginally later. The new times from the 12th December 2004 will be as follows
| Day of the week | Last train to Southminster | Difference from current last train |
| Monday-Friday | 2215 | 15 minutes |
| Saturday | 2145 | 25 minutes |
| Sunday | 2115 | 21 minutes |
Letter sent to Network Rail
In addition to the letters I sent to onerailway, I sent a letter to Network rail, asking them if this is true that they need access to the line for maintenance purposes. This excuse, put to Christine Drew, seems a rather feeble excuse to me, and so it does to many others too.
I asked whether this seemed reasonable on the uk.railways newsgroup. See Access for maintenance - is this s silly excuse? in the uk.railway newsgroup.
Having received no response from Network Rail, I telephoned around the end of August (perhaps early September) to request my enquiry was dealt with. However, it was not, so I phoned for the second time on the 12th October (more than two months after my original letter). Again I was promised someone would respond to my letter. I asked the Rail Passengers council for a response from Network Rail, and finally, some 15 weeks after I'd written to Network Rail myself, and some
Complaint submitted to the Rail Passengers Council
I have made a formal complaint to the Rail Passengers Council, based just on the time of the last train during the week. This is of course not the only problem with the line (the frequency of peak-time trains is very poor), but whilst it is difficult to see how much can be done about the peak time trains without significant investment, this is not so with the running of a later train. I decided to keep to just this one item. I would appreciate the comments of others.- I submitted a written complaint to the Rail Passengers Council on the 26th October
- Th RPC wrote to 'one' (I was never given a copy of the letter)
- The RPC wrote to me, enclosing a copy of the letter 'one' sent to the RPC.
Much to my surprise, I received a second letter from the RPC dated 25th November 2004, enclosing a copy of a letter sent by Network Rail to the RPC about the need for access to the track for maintenance purposes. This was written 3 months after I wrote to the RPC requesting they ask Network Rail, and 15 weeks after I wrote to Network Rail about the issue. I assume during this time 'one' and Network Rail probably agreed a common story! It is clear that the RPC, which was set up by parliament to protect the interests of rail users is pretty ineffective. They are little more than postman, conveying a message from the train operator back to the person making a complaint.
