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| STATIONS FOCUS
Does your station need a facelift? Patience Atkinson-Gregory of horticultural suppliers Amberol works with station adopters across the UK. Here she explains why it’s important to keep our train stations looking good
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he railway sector is just one of many to feel the adverse effects of 18 months of Covid-19 restrictions. With new variants of Coronavirus continuing to emerge, many passengers remain reluctant to return to public transport, so the industry will need to work hard to tempt travellers back. While there is little that rail professionals can do about Covid rates and restrictions, there are important areas that they can directly influence. There are many different reasons why people travel by rail: convenience, leisure, business, necessity – or sometimes just for the pleasure of the journey. But whatever reason people have for choosing to take the train, the environments that travellers encounter on their journey are crucial to their experience. Taking care of the station environment This doesn’t just mean clean, comfortable carriages or a punctual and efficient service;
Rail Professional
it also includes the stations that people use or travel through en route. Train stations are often the first place that a passenger sees when they enter a town or city – and first impressions count. So, it pays dividends to keep a station looking attractive and welcoming. The Community Rail Network is an organisation made up of community rail partnerships across Britain which promote work around a range of areas, including sustainable travel, disabled access and community involvement. The Network recognises the importance of good station upkeep and runs a popular station adoption scheme for volunteers with over 1,000 membership groups across the UK. These groups work on a range of projects to improve their railway station, including infrastructure projects, fundraisers for equipment, work to improve access such as installing lifts, litter picks, painting and art installations and planting up floral displays.
These volunteers can make a massive difference to the station environment – which in turn makes a significant difference to the traveller’s experience. Station improvement in action Friends of Beeston Station (FOBS) in Nottinghamshire is one such group. Set up just four years ago with the original aim of looking at station access, the group also recognised that the station needed a bit of a facelift to make it more attractive to passengers. Having produced a business plan outlining maintenance tasks, the group instigated a successful campaign to improve access at the station and are hoping that lifts will be in place by 2024. They run regular litter picks and have created an attractive display of photographs on one of the station’s platforms as well as planting up flower beds and containers in and around the station building to ensure that the whole area looks tidy and welcoming.