tbtc
Veteran Member
On the Manchester Recovery Taskforce thread (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/manchester-recovery-taskforce-timetable-consultation.213089/) @Ianno87 has made the point that the Wimbledon Loop is the London equivalent of the "vocal" Southport - Manchester campaigners (for those unaware of the Manchester Recovery Taskforce, the town of Southport had seven times more respondents than the city of Liverpool, meaning that Southport gets to keep a plum path into the Castlefield corridor at a time when other services are being simplified/ rationalised/ removed from Castlefield to try to improve reliability across northern England)
Can't blame the Southport folk for this - they've been noisy in the past, it's worked, they'll keep on with their orchestrated campaigns to ensure that their wee town has the kind of service that they want to Manchester whilst other places lose out as a result (my anger is with the authorities who've cowed to their demands, which means cuts to other proposals)
But, as Ian points out, this isn't unique to Manchester - the Wimbledon loop was meant to be taken off Thameslink (given the conflicts/ train lengths etc), but has retained its service north of Blackfriars
That got me thinking - what other campaigns are there that have achieved significantly more than outsiders may think that the line "deserves"?
Obvious there are loads of groups around the country, from the "Friends Of" a particular station to regional campaign groups, local councillors/ devolved administrations/ MPs who've argued well for rail investment in their back yard. Not all of these are successful (as the dozens of long running re-opening campaigns evidence by the failure to re-open the line in question), not everyone can be above average!
Who's the best though? What examples are there in your area of a campaign that has done well to ensure a disproportionate share is allocated to their local station/ route? (this might be relevant to compare/contrast what has worked in different areas)
Can't blame the Southport folk for this - they've been noisy in the past, it's worked, they'll keep on with their orchestrated campaigns to ensure that their wee town has the kind of service that they want to Manchester whilst other places lose out as a result (my anger is with the authorities who've cowed to their demands, which means cuts to other proposals)
But, as Ian points out, this isn't unique to Manchester - the Wimbledon loop was meant to be taken off Thameslink (given the conflicts/ train lengths etc), but has retained its service north of Blackfriars
That got me thinking - what other campaigns are there that have achieved significantly more than outsiders may think that the line "deserves"?
Obvious there are loads of groups around the country, from the "Friends Of" a particular station to regional campaign groups, local councillors/ devolved administrations/ MPs who've argued well for rail investment in their back yard. Not all of these are successful (as the dozens of long running re-opening campaigns evidence by the failure to re-open the line in question), not everyone can be above average!
Who's the best though? What examples are there in your area of a campaign that has done well to ensure a disproportionate share is allocated to their local station/ route? (this might be relevant to compare/contrast what has worked in different areas)
Thameslink had its own version - the Wimbledon loop