In April Arriva Trains Wales announced their 'Adopt A Station' Initiative aimed at improving unstaffed stations and encouraging regular feedback about the station buildings and their facilities. Volunteers were sought to take an active role as 'station adopters' to report via a regular survey form about the state of their local station. The list of stations in Mid Wales, which includes the Shrewsbury to Chester line, totals 31 locations, including such gems as Llwyngwril and Caersws. The stations at Chirk, Gobowen and Ruabon are the obvious candidates for adoption on 'our' line. The North Wales section lists 32 stations, including the Conwy Valley branch, Wrexham Central to Upton and Chester to Frodsham, as well as the North Wales Coast mainline. SCRUA members Gareth Thomas and Martin Evans have each signed up to adopt Gobowen and Ruabon stations respectively and their first reports have been submitted. The survey form they are required to complete requires satisfaction to be indicated or not, as applicable, to the following aspects: Station signage. Posters, Litter bins. Lighting, Shelters, Fencing, Platforms, Car park. Help Points/ Information screens. Graffiti, Telephones & Seating. Observations for each item may be made and suggestions offered for improvements. On completion the form is sent to the station manager. Faults requiring urgent attention can be telephoned to customer services and incidents are to be reported to the British Transport Police. So far Gareth and Martin note a lack of feedback from their regular submissions. . To date, 67 of 234 available stations have been adopted. The ATW announcement also suggested that other adoption activity could include giving attention to flower displays to enhance the appearance. The "Friends of Chirk Station" will undertake this activity at Chirk,

Gareth Thomas and Martin Evans, who respectively adopted Gobowen and Ruabon stations under the ATW initiative, have continued to submit weekly reports on the condition of each station. As a result various deficiencies have received attention. However, both comment on a lack of feedback on certain aspects and there are issues of demarcation which need to be resolved. At a weekly frequency their reports are becoming repetitive and a meeting of ‘adopters’ with ATW management would seem necessary to review the working of the scheme so far.

The ATW web site continues to promote the scheme which clearly has some way to go to achieve complete coverage of all stations within the ATW sphere of operations. However, the web site pages may not be up to date, as Ruabon, for example, is listed as both ‘Adopted’ and ‘Available for adoption’. The implementation of this sort of scheme, covering so wide an area, must be resource hungry in terms of administration and one wonders if sufficient management attention is being give to its post launch progress.

See also comments re the adoption of Chirk station in the

The Wrexham to Bidston line has a lot of potential for station adoptions with Wrexham Central, Gwersyllt, Hope, Cefn y Bedd, Caergwrle and Penyffordd all needing adopters. In fact, if the web site is correct, only Buckley has so far been adopted on this line.

In December a meeting of station adopters from Wales and the Borders was held in Cardiff. Those who attended heard about community projects on the Heart of Wales Line (Shrewsbury - Swansea via Llandrindod) which now has a year round Sunday service after many years of no or summer only service on Sundays. This line has tremendous tourist potential, and the many stations give access to a wide variety of linear walks in beautiful countryside.