Wrexham Shropshire and Marylebone Railway

OSWESTRY: The former Cambrian Institute building has been demolished as a start to redevelopment of the site. The display of static diesel locomotives outside the former works has been removed after sale. In the Cambrian Visitor Centre the café is now trading as Zaks and The Chocolate Maker is now in the former heritage display section. Shropshire County Council as concluded a deal with Network Rail for the acquisition of the branchline from Gobowen to Porth-y-waen.
LLYNCLYS: The Cambrian Railway Trust has cleared land and is preparing to lay track in a section which will provide for a Carriage shed to be erected. Steam services with the resident saddle tank Isabel will operate at weekends from 12/13 July through to September. The CRT & CRS expect to open negotiations with Shropshire County Council for the lease of the trackbed through to Gobowen.

CHESTER: In mid June the new booking office became operational when the development at the eastern end of the concourse opened. Two retail units are included in the new accommodation, one of which is already in use as a dispenser of refreshments. A Customer Service desk is a separate feature. An excess fares facility facing on to platform 3 is at the rear of the new block which covers much of the area given over the bicycle storage now removed to further down the non-operational platform. The encompassing façade for the new block is, perhaps, a debatable feature, hardly in keeping with the surrounding age old architecture! The catering caravan which has been a temporary feature for the past several months has been towed away and the refurbished toilets in the main building have reopened for public use. Meanwhile the old ticket office is now fenced off for redevelopment of the site as a Starbucks’ outlet. A bank of Customer Information Service screens is currently being installed adjacent to the footbridge. There is no sign yet of work being undertaken on the island platform to make the overgrown flower beds a more attractive feature. Merseytravel put up some funding towards improvements to platform 7, but there is no obvious sign of this being spent so far. Despite continuing internal works within the west wing of the main building, the long promised bistro has so far failed to open. Ground floor premises in the east wing are being advertised for occupancy now the ATW offices have been relocated upstairs. It was suggested for use as a mini-super market for local residents. At night the whole of the station frontage is now lit up with new lighting effects as part of the multi-agency refurbishment scheme. Needs to be seen and appreciated in the dark of course! The Hoole Road bridge at the west end reopened for traffic in May. Inspection of it shows that work was done on replacing the spans at the Brook St end and the once open archways here have been closed off by new brick walls. Work has yet to start on remodelling the west end car park. Merseyrail retimed their Chester departures to on the hour and the half hour in a move which swapped the time table with Ellesmere Port trains. Said to provide for more convenient connections at Chester this is not necessarily so in the case of departures for Wrexham and Shrewsbury.

BACHE: the first station on the Merseyrail route to the Wirral and Liverpool has been without ticketing facilities since the machine was vandalised. In answer to a complaint about the inaccurate comments on their website, Merseyrail advise that it is intended to install a machine which will provide service information and issue a ‘permit to ride voucher’ to passengers who must seek to pay any balance due on the train. This facility will at least protect non-ticket holders from the consequences of the operator’s “Pay before you ride” policy which provides for penalties for those found travelling without a ticket. A similar facility may be provided at Capenhurst which is also without ticketing facilities.

ANOTHER NAMING: On 9 July locomotive No.67013 was named Dyfrbont Pont Cysyllte at Wrexham General.

Looking forward to December……… Writing in the Summer 2008 edition of Aspect, the ATW staff magazine, Commercial Director, Mike Bagshaw, reports on the forthcoming December 2008 Timetable changes: In December we will introduce a new timetable on many of our mainline routes. Some of the changes are being made so we can fully integrate our services with the new Virgin timetable on the West Coast Main Line. We are also taking the opportunity to improve performance and reflect growing passenger demand. * Most Aberystwyth and Chester services will be extended through to Birmingham International. The timetable is being designed to improve performance on the route and, in particular, to prevent the need to turn trains around short at Wolverhampton and other places. * A new direct two hourly service will be introduced from Holyhead to Birmingham International via Chester and Shrewsbury. This will replace the direct Holyhead – Crewe service. Connections with Virgin from North Wales will be at Chester instead of Crewe. * There will be better spacing of trains along the North Wales coast and additional shuttle trains to Llandudno. Elsewhere in the magazine the Fleet Director Jon Veitch reports on the train fleet and notes that reliability of the 158s continues to grow to nearly 10,000 miles per five minute technical delay, after close working with partners aims to ensure the best possible performance of the units. However the class 175s continue to challenge with disappointing availability and defect clearance. Performance continues to be reviewed with the contractors Alstom to ensure robust action plans are in place. The 175 relivery programme continues, along with horn modification and a unit with intermediate door controls will be on trial soon. A centre page spread reports on a training initiative for conductors and station staff with new guides to help staff achieve service excellence. Published by ATW a series of new Customer Service Guides are designed to act as advice and support for staff across the network. The brochures use best practice within the rail industry and elsewhere to set out a series of guidelines and cover aspects of Customer Services, Disabled Customers, Selling Products, Line of Route Specification Guide, PA Announcements on Trains and PA Announcements on Stations. Discussion days are being held so that staff can discuss and learn about the content and understand how to get the best from the Guides. This initiative is in response to a survey which found that customers are looking for improvements in key areas about information, helpfulness, public announcements and ticket checking.
A GOOD BOOK………………. The North & West Route, Volume 1 Shrewsbury, by John Hodge is recently published. A historical review of Shrewsbury station with an excellent collection of photographs and maps from the steam era covering the Joint Station, the Traffic, the route to Coleham, the Locomotive Depot, Sutton Bridge and Shelf Sidings, and a Finale The Early 1960s Remodelling. If you knew the old Shrewsbury this is a delightful reminder of years gone by in 154 pages. A quality title from Wild Swan Publications - Price £28.95.