29 Sept 22 Air Quality Brentford was invited to South Western Railway’s Community Rail conference today in Salisbury. As ‘station adopters’ for Brentford Station we look after 8 containers of plants and the slope opposite The Kings Arms. It was an interesting day with an opportunity of meeting other station adopters and sharing the different ideas other groups have put in to place at each of their stations.
The Mayor of Salisbury, Thomas Corbin, who was also a train driver up until recently, welcomed everyone to the historic Guild Hall and there was a video from the new Rail Minister, Kevin Foster (MP for Torbay).
Claire Mann, Managing Director, summarised what had been an eventful year, with the collision of two trains at Salisbury last October, praising how the community came together to support the passengers on the trains. The West of England lines have suffered with the extreme heat this summer, the lines have buckled and the clay embankments collapsed and need a lot more rain to fall before the current speed restrictions can be lifted. Tolworth celebrated 50 years since Daivd Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust performed. The Platinum Jublilee was a peak passenger event and also for the Queens funeral in which SWR also transported 2000 armed forces in the early hours, to be present on the day. There have been dips in passenger travel related to Government covid guidelines to work at home, heatwaves and strikes.
Paula Aldridge has 17,000 bulbs which have been delivered to SWR for their Big Bulb Plantout, we are taking part in this, planting 600 bulbs in our Brentford Station containers.
Anna Jipps, Railway Heritage Trust, discussed funding they have for certain heritage projects and we will be investigating whether there is potential to put our own Station House in to use again.
Marcia Burnett, Network Rail, discussed safety education especially for secondary schools and mentioned Tegan’s story, which can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSfs2bXZGDI. She is a small team of one and doing a great job to raise awareness.
Finally, Geoff Marshall, for any train station buffs, did a quiz on the least used stations in Britain, he has a YouTube Channel for anyone’s who interested. Stations include Swale, Coombe Junction Halk, Finstock, Redcar British Steele, Netherton, Teeside Airport and Peartree in Derbyshire where there is a buzzer to Network Rail to let you on to the platform.
Air Quality Brentford 