The Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group meets tonight at the Melbourn Hub, 30 High Street Melbourn, 7:30-9:00PM.

The agenda can be found here.

Meanwhile, in response to GTR’s letter to MPs about the new ‘pre-interim timetable running from 24 June – mid-July, this letter has been sent to GTR senior staff (Nick Brown, Stuart Cheshire and Keith Jipps) today, ahead of this evening’s meeting.

 

27 June 2018

Dear Nick, Stuart and Keith,

I write to you ahead of the Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group meeting taking place tonight at the Melbourn Hub, 7:30PM.  We are grateful to Karen Gregson and Marc Edwards for attending on your behalf.

I have read two documents published this week:  the 25 June letter from Nick Brown to MPs setting out plans to stabilise services, and the ‘pre-interim timetable’ to run from 24 June until mid-July.

Firstly, I should note that the timetable is available on Heidi Allen’s website, but does not yet show on GTR’s own website (https://www.railplan2020.com/timetables), where the most recent update to the current crisis is dated June 2 – even under ‘Latest Information.’

The 25^th June letter to MPs states:

We will prioritise peak trains and school trains, giving more certainty for passengers to plan their journeys to and from work and school.

For Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton, which collectively represent an annual footfall of half a million passengers, key gaps of 1.5 hours persist at peak time:

Fox/Shep/Mel-London: 6:43-8:13

Mel/Shep/Fox-Cambridge: 8:36-10:09

Cambridge-Fox/Shep/Mel: 17:11-18:41

Bus replacement services cannot reliably accommodate our users at peak time because they themselves run on an unknown schedule.  Taxis cannot be arranged for Foxton and Shepreth which are unstaffed stations.  Delay repay is not possible to make up for the cost of privately arranged taxis for people who must get to Cambridge or Royston to pick up services from there.

Please can you take steps to break these three 1.5-hour gaps.  Regular pre-booked taxis from each station come to mind.

The Pre-interim timetable seems to be limited to Monday-Friday.  I cannot readily see any information on weekend services.  As you will have seen from our letter to you dated 25 June, weekend services for Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton are sometimes scarcely running at all.  Needless to say, there is also a weekend workforce and I would have thought that your efforts to address workforce transport meant to include this.  Please could you direct me to any information I may have missed.

I would be grateful if you could provide a response ahead of tonight’s meeting.

Sincerely yours,

Susan van de Ven

Chair, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group

 

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