Railfuture Scotland

Railfuture Scotland Campaign Resources

Key points to raise with your politicians and prospective parliamentarians

Manifesto

Railfuture Scotland has produced these points, requesting that you should put them to prospective candidates in your constituency whether for the Scottish Parliamentary or Westminster elections. It's best if you can use your own words, but a simple introduction followed by quoting the points is still good.

  1. MAINTAIN MOMENTUM Devolution has brought many improvements to the rail system in Scotland. This momentum must be maintained during the forthcoming Parliamentary session.
  2. INTEGRATION We need to have strong regional public transport authorities with good leadership and a firm commitment to co-ordinate all public transport. Ideally most travellers should be able to reach railway stations without using a car at any stage in the journey.
  3. VALUE-FOR-MONEY FARES Rail fares are too high and are becoming disproportionally more expensive as each year passes. Regulated fare increases should be based on the CPI rate rather than the obsolete RPI rate, which governments prefer because it is higher but leads to an increasing burden on travellers.
  4. SPEED V. SERVICE There seems to be a growing emphasis on some routes to aim for the speeding up end-to-end journeys to the detriment of some intermediate locations. This philosophy also manifests itself in an apparent reluctance to commit to some obvious new stations. There is a need to balance local access needs with competitive speeds for longer distance services.
  5. FREIGHT BY RAIL The Scottish Government should be a supporter of freight movement by rail. The ability of companies to apply for rail freight facilities grants should be restored immediately on commencement of the new Parliament.

Railfuture is also eager that the rail industry puts passengers first, rather than running the railway in a way that makes operations easier. There are many ways in which the passenger experience could be improved, and some are legal requirements such as improving accessibility.

Download our original, 2011, version of the above as a PDF file. Much has improved on the railway since then, but all of the key points we made then are still relevant today.


Eventually this page will list resources which are of interest to rail campaigners.

For the moment - you will find most of the relevant papers by looking on the sites of the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament or Transport Scotland.

For news stories - the Scotsman/Edinburgh Evening News has a good searchable index available freely, but the Herald charges for archived items (and that means more than a day or so old).


Page last modified on Sunday 08 November 2020.


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Page last changed on 26th May 2022.


About Railfuture

Railfuture is an independent, voluntary group representing rail users in Britain with 20,000 affiliated and individual members. It is not funded by train companies, political parties or trade unions, and all members have an equal say.

Railfuture campaigns for cheap and convenient rail services for everyone; better links for buses, bikes and pedestrians; policies to get more heavy lorries on to rail; new lines, stations and freight terminals. In short, a better rail service and a bigger rail system for both passengers and freight.

Railfuture is pro-rail but not anti-road or anti-air. However, we campaign for a switch from road and air to rail. We do not interfere in the running of the railway - we campaign for the quality and range of services provided, not how they are delivered. We are the only champion of all rail users.


Railfuture is the campaigning name of Railfuture Ltd.

A not-for-profit Company Limited by Guarantee.

Registered in England and Wales No. 05011634.

Registered Office: Edinburgh House, 1-5 Bellevue Road, Clevedon, North Somerset BS21 7NP (for legal correspondence only).

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Railfuture is happy for extracts to be used by journalists, researchers and students. We would, however, appreciate a mention of Railfuture in any article, website or programme. Except with Railfuture's express written permission, no one should distribute or commercially exploit the content.

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