Please come to our community event on Tuesday 1^st November between 11:30am and 12:30pm in The Sunday School at Locomotion, Shildon.

Join our community rail partnership and be the change you want to see!

• Do you find travelling by train difficult?
•  Would you like to see different facilities at the station on the Bishop Line?
•  Are you aware of groups within your community who would like to travel by train but don’t know how?

We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in joining our partnership or have any ideas you’d like to work with us to pursue.

We have access to funding from the rail industry to help make change happen.

No idea is too small or even too big and your ideas could win you a FREE Northern train pass.

Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership (CRP), has achieved success at the national Community Rail Awards for its innovative work engaging communities with their local railway line.

Bishop Line CRP was finalist in three categories at the 18^th national Community Rail Awards:

• Second place in Most Effective Communications Campaign category with their ‘Pass on a Smile‘ campaign,
• Third place in the Involving Diverse Groups category with ‘Our Line Connections’ and
• Finalist in the Involving Children and Young People category with ‘Creative Journeys‘.

This year’s Community Rail Awards recognised a diverse array of projects, all demonstrating how the community rail movement continues to build links, positivity and awareness between local people and their railways.

The partnership’s  ‘Pass on a Smile’ campaign to encourage rail passengers to help others feel more comfortable and confident when travelling as smiling is contagious and has many health benefits. 1200 ‘friendly’ face coverings featuring the Bishop Line smile were distributed by partners Bishop Trains, to passengers between July 2020 and December 2021.

‘Our Line Connections’ celebrated the value of connection. It aimed to help people feel a greater connection to others, better connected to their place and positive about connecting with people and places through rail travel. Over 5 months, 200+ people participated in visual arts and musical workshops with 4 artists. Schools/groups were linked up to co-create artwork and songs using their feelings around connection and now each school/group is connected with at least one new school/group in the Bishop Line community. The project was celebrated with the production of a Songbook featuring artwork and songs, and with a face to face event at Locomotion, Shildon.

‘Creative Journeys’ was developed to deliver key life & creative skills, knowledge, awareness and opportunities to young people along the Bishop Line in primary school and young adults aged 15-26 outside of traditional education. Under the theme ‘Journeys’, young people learned about food journeys – the journey the food we eat takes to reach our plate, and train journeys – exploring the local heritage along the line. Their knowledge was shared using creative writing skills developed during the project and Students from Thornhill Primary performed their work at a live event at Locomotion.

More broadly, Bishop Line CRP runs a wide range of community engagement and social inclusion initiatives, supports volunteering at stations, delivers rail safety sessions in schools, colleges and community groups, promotes green travel and tourism by rail, and works with railway and local authority partners.

Robert Whitehouse, Chair of the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership said:

“Our partnership is incredibly proud to have been recognised at this year’s national community rail awards for three of our recent projects. We work very closely with our local community and are proud to share these achievements with them and thank them for their involvement.’

‘Particular thanks go to Luxi, for their ongoing commitment to Our Line Connections, a project evolved from the Our Line play launched back in 2017.’

‘Huge thanks also go to New Writing North for their management of the Creative Journeys project, a relationship which continues with our support of the Durham Book Festival to communities along the Bishop Line.’

‘And a big thanks goes to Bishop Trains for their ongoing support at Bishop Auckland station and for helping to ensure our passengers travelled safely and passed on a smile during Covid.’

‘And finally a huge thank goes to our partnership officer Felicity Machnicki, for helping to develop and deliver three award-winning projects.”

The Community Rail Awards were held at Manchester’s Central Convention Complex on 6^th October. More than 450 guests attended, including community rail volunteers, officers, rail industry leaders and government representatives.

The awards recognise the crucial, often unsung work carried out by community rail partnerships, station friends volunteers and community groups, in areas such as community and youth engagement, community-led station development, diversity and inclusion, and sustainable development.

Jools Townsend, chief executive of Community Rail Network, said:

“The Community Rail Awards give deserved recognition to community rail partnerships, groups and volunteers across Britain. We were thrilled to welcome more than 430 guests, alongside ministers and rail industry leaders, emphasising the great value of community rail, helping to build stronger, fairer, greener communities, served and connected by their railways and wider sustainable transport network.

“Despite another challenging year, the array of entries defied expectations, showing how community rail continues to strive to help people get the most from their railways and stations, and impact positively on local places and people’s lives.

Our congratulations go to Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership and all winners and highly commended, and thanks to everyone who supports community rail, helping the movement to go from strength to strength.”

Over 100 people from the Bishop Line community joined together to celebrate the importance of connection. On 22^nd June participants young and old came together at Locomotion, Shildon to share their experiences of participating in the Our Line Connections Project.

The project celebrates shared connections in the community and involves artists and groups who co-created a songbook of original songs and art by people who live along the route of the Bishop Line.

Over the past four months Visual Artist Michelle Tripp, Songwriter Em Whitfield Brooks and Digital Artist Humira Imtiaz have been visiting schools and community groups across Darlington, Newton Aycliffe and Bishop Auckland to explore what connection means to them and develop art and music which reconnects the community.

Our Line Connections builds on the earlier project ‘Our Line’, which was an audio play broadcast online during the pandemic in 2020. Set on a train from Darlington to Bishop Auckland, this play was written to last as long as the train journey (just over 30 minutes) and featured a range of real and imagined stories. The original play, songs and artwork can be accessed at www.our-line.net.

Our Line & Our Line Connections are projects by Luxi in collaboration with the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership & Northern, supported by Arts Council England, Cross Country Trains, County Durham Community Foundation, Durham County Council, Greenfield Arts, Locomotion & the National Lottery Jubilee Community Fund.

At the celebration event the children and community groups performed the songs they had written and the artwork created throughout the project was displayed around the museum. The project artwork will be on exhibition in Locomotion until the 11th July.

Caroline Pearce, Creative Director of Luxi comments “Our Line was borne from a joint fascination about the interplay between theatre and trains, between experiencing something entertaining whilst moving, and how the topic & the experience affect one another. The theatre on train we created was a real moment of achievement for us at Luxi and for the team at Bishop Line & Northern at the time, in 2018. And it led to profound and beautiful conversations and connections with audiences and participants and communities.

The opportunity to create a project around that experience became really compelling and after 2 years of regular meetings the core partners found more & more people who wanted to support the work, funders and partners all appreciating the value of human connection and stories. Working with what is now a large team of specialists, Our Line Connections has become a programme of activity that we hope will just keep getting better and enabling more and more people to understand how to get involved and the value of doing so.”

Marie Addison, Regional Community and Sustainability Manager, Northern,  said “It has been an absolute pleasure to be involved in the Our Line Connections project. Experiencing some of the workshops first hand and meeting some fantastic people has been a true highlight, as well as working collaboratively with the rest of the team. The celebration event is the perfect opportunity to bring everyone together to say a huge thank you and to showcase the fantastic work created”.

Felicity Machnicki, Officer for the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership commented, “We felt in our bones that this project could help rebuild connections, strengthen people’s confidence in themselves and give people the drive to travel again. Having sat in some of the sessions, listening to the teenagers share their angst of making friends, watching students come together who haven’t mixed with other age groups for months, listening to isolated adults talking in close contact with others while they learn about neurographic art, I see that Our Line Connections is the success we aimed it to be. But more so it is the start of even more connections and that is a success in itself”

This spring we have been working hard with artists and communities to think and talk and make art about connection, we have been connecting with our peers, our families, our friends, our communities, our railways and our heritage to tackle isolation and have a lot of fun!

Our Line Connections was developed to improve feelings of connection in the Bishop Line community to address:

1. social isolation and loneliness experienced during Covid-19
2. feedback gathered from listeners of the original ‘Our Line Play’ of feelings of a ‘lack of connection’.

It aimed to build connections between generations and places along the line.

In 2017 BLCRP partnered with Luxi to produce the ‘Our Line’ audio play to listen to on the Bishop Line train. In 2020 the Our Line app was updated to be listened to anywhere to gain mindfulness during the challenging times experienced in lockdown. Importantly, listener feedback highlighted that ‘Our Line’ could prompt meaningful conversations in the community around ‘connection’, sparking memories, feelings of hope and reduce feelings of loneliness.

In Spring 2021 Luxi, BLCRP and Northern evaluated what project success and failure looked like, using the ‘Wheel of Failure’ tool and developed a concept to deliver successful outcomes.

Funding from CrossCountry, Arts Council England, County Durham Community Foundation, Durham County Council, The National Lottery Community Fund and Locomotion enabled the group to engage a team of artists and creatives to develop the concept into a programme of activities within the community, building on the foundations of ‘Our Line’.

The team of artists were selected for their skills in building trusting relationships and connections between people & others, places, their histories, heritage & memories, each bringing an enquiry they hoped to explore through the project.

In early 2022 schools and care homes were invited to join the project with the aim of connecting 1 primary school/nursery with 1 secondary school and 1 care home in each of 3 localities along the line.

Despite positive response from care homes, covid challenges meant the project was unable to engage them as full partners. Instead we found isolated and struggling adults through other groups like Greenfield Cree Men, Head of Steam Dementia Group and Darlington for Culture, who all engaged.

Participants took part in 5 sessions:

• 1 x Introduction – listening to ‘Our Line’ and exploring what connection meant to them.
• 2 x visual arts workshops exploring techniques such as neurographic art, which transforms stress and fear into beautiful art.
• 2 x song writing workshops using feelings around connection to create emotive lyrics.

Participants used different senses and creativity to express their own sense of connection, learn about those of others and create songs and artwork that celebrate and describe connection. They developed artistic, song writing and performance skills, practiced mental wellbeing techniques and developed confidence and self-expression.

Between February and June 2022 200+ people engaged in over 42 workshops in 6 schools and 3 community groups.

The project will be celebrated at 2pm on 22 June 2022 with 100+ participants together.

Planned workshops have finished and due to their success, extra sessions have been requested, those with the Cree Men have started already.

Evaluation has been ongoing throughout the project and following the celebration the team will review the project using the following tools:

• The ‘Wheel of failure’.
• Team member responses to questionnaires at milestones.
• Participant responses to key questions.

A final report will be published on www.our-line.net.

Our Line Connection achieved 3rd Place for best project involving diverse groups in the 2022 Community Rail Awards.

Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership joins community groups and volunteers across Britain for this year’s Community Rail Week to encourage people to ‘give the train a try’. They are especially encouraging the many families and individuals who rarely or never get on a train or bus, and instead rely on cars, to consider the benefits of making at least the occasional switch to greener, healthier, more social forms of travel.

Community Rail Week, organised by Community Rail Network and sponsored by Rail Delivery Group, runs from 23-29 May, and will involve hundreds of community rail partnerships (CRPs) and volunteer groups inviting people to ‘give the train a try’.

Community events and activities are planned nationwide – all the way from Edinburgh to Cornwall – raising awareness about local railways, encouraging more widespread use of rail (combined with buses, walking and cycling), building travel confidence among those who are less familiar, and encouraging the switch from car to train for a healthier, more sustainable future.

The Bishop Line CRP are launching a set of walking and cycling maps, one for each of their stations. The maps have been designed to raise awareness of all the fabulous attractions you can get to within a 20 minute walk or 5 minute cycle ride from each station. The maps can be downloaded from the Bishop Line website on each station’s page.

Community Rail Week looks to drive change at a community level through the efforts of 74 community rail partnerships and 1,200 station friends groups across Britain – working to help people get out of their cars and onto trains and other sustainable modes of transport.

Throughout the year The Bishop Line CRP plan to work with students in local schools and colleges to increase rail travel confidence so that rail is an obvious travel option for them in the future.

Jools Townsend, chief executive of Community Rail Network, said:

 “Community Rail Week, and its call to action of ‘give the train a try’, is all about connecting local communities with their railways and encouraging and enabling more people to travel sustainably by train. Community rail has an inspiring track record of doing just that: promoting travel confidence and increasing access to opportunity, while bringing people together, giving communities a voice, and putting railways and stations at the heart of community life. Community rail partnerships and volunteers the length and breadth of Britain are this week mobilising en masse, engaging local people and partners to raise awareness about the importance of rail, and get people enthused about its benefits. We want to help people who feel less confident with train travel to give it a go, and get across the positive difference it makes switching even the occasional journey from car to public transport, for our planet, healthy living, and local communities.”

Rail Minister Wendy Morton said:

“I am honoured to be involved in this year’s Community Rail Week as we encourage people to ‘give the train a try’ and welcome more passengers to our railways. The rail network is an integral part of our communities, connecting us together and providing opportunities that improve our lives in many different ways.

I encourage everyone to try and make a trip on a train this week and experience our brilliant railways first-hand.”

Jacqueline Starr, Chief Executive Officer of the Rail Delivery Group, said:

 “This Community Rail Week, we’re looking forward to welcoming everyone onto our network and connecting them to the people and places they love. We encourage people to give the train a try not only because it’s one of the greenest forms of transport, but also because it boosts local businesses and the wider economy.”

The award-winning rail safety competition, Backtrack: Create it, Share it, Save lives, which highlights the dangers of trespassing on the railway, is back for a third year.

The 2022 competition was launched at Glasgow Queen Street Station, with colleagues from across the rail industry handing out activity sheets to young people asking them to create content to share with their peers to save lives.

The competition is organised by the Community Rail Education Network, a collective of community rail partnerships (CRPs), train operating companies, station adopters and other stakeholders with an interest in railway education.

This year the group are focusing on challenging people who trespass on our railway for likes and shares on social media. Entrants are being asked to create a simple but powerful message, to make others aware of the dangers of trespassing and to encourage them to stop.

The launch event in Glasgow was organised by ScotRail, who were joined by representatives from Network Rail, Community Rail Lancashire, the Tyne Valley, Highland Main Line, Strathallan, and East Lothian CRPs, and volunteers involved with ScotRail’s Adopt-a-Station program.

ScotRail’s community development executive, Tracy Stevenson, said: “We have been happy to support the Backtrack competition for the last couple of years and we were delighted to be able to host this year’s launch event here in Scotland. It is vital that the rail industry supports and encourages projects that seek to inform and educate young people of the dangers of trespassing on our railways.”

Also helping to launch the 2022 event were year 4 pupils from Rainbird School, part of the Excelsior Academy in Newcastle, who took part in a trip to the National Railway Museum in York and provided the competition with its first 30 entries.

Felicity Machnicki, Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership Officer, said: “The pupils enjoyed creating entries and filming their pledges as part of a fun day on the railway. Their trip was part of their project based learning working with LNER and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership where they gained a real life experience of careers in the rail network by meeting LNER staff, as well as greater knowledge of the history of the railways while seeing the fantastic exhibits in the museum. The Backtrack activities added some extra life skills to the day which we hope the pupils will share with their families and friends.”

There are two ways to enter this year’s Backtrack competition, which is open to two age categories, under 11s and young people aged 12 to 18. Entrants can either create a social media graphic or make a 20 second pledge video. Videos can be submitted by individuals or groups, but they must be filmed in a safe environment.

Entrants can either upload their entries online at www.backtrackcompetition.co.uk, send them in the post, or tag Backtrack on social media. All details including entry forms, pledge cards, and teaching materials can be found on the website.

The competition closes on 30^th September 2022, after which a selection of videos and graphics will be chosen by a panel of judges to form a montage that will be shown across railway social media, school safety sessions and at selected stations across the UK. Winning entries will receive a Go-Pro hero 9 bundle or rail cards as prizes.

Chair of Community Rail Education Network, Karen Bennett, said: “I am thrilled that Backtrack is back. It concerns me that young people are still trespassing on the railway to take short-cuts or film videos for social media and putting their lives at risk. We need to spread the message ‘Keep off the tracks’ far and wide so that everyone is aware how dangerous the railway environment can be if used inappropriately.”

Backtrack won the ‘Involving Children and Young People’ award at the 2021 Community Rail Awards.

Between January and March 2023, artist & writer Lizzie Lovejoy engaged with community members who live on, or have used, the Bishop to Darlington railway line. This line was the first in the world, and paved the way for trains across the globe, permanently altering transport as we knew it.

As Lizzie learned about stories and culture surrounding this historic location, they created a series of visual artworks for display at the station platforms along the route, translating local memory into an art trail. This also includes a series of poetic works exploring the impact of the railways on local, working-class culture.

In the spring and summer, Lizzie will lead walks and workshops across Shildon and Newton Aycliffe. Station exhibition will launch in spring 2023, supported by The Bishop Line CRP.

Lizzie has also been visiting the Darlington Hippodrome archives and will be showcasing an expanded range of work based around our local rail history and the postcards kept in the theatre. This exhibition will launch on May 3rd 2023.

You can find out more about the project at  https://www.lizzielovejoy.com/Ongoing-Projects/trail-ways

Late in 2021 we were approached by New Writing North and the Durham Book Festival to how we cold collaborate to develop a creative writing project on the Bishop Line. We jumped at the chance.

Key facts about our area:

• County Durham has some of the lowest cultural engagement figures in England and is ranked as having `Very High Deprivation’ in the UK Multiple Index of Deprivation (the North East region has the highest unemployment figures in country).
• The 2011 Skills for Life Survey found the North East to have the poorest literacy performance in the country (along with London).
•  The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened pre-existing issues of inequality, isolation and deprivation in County Durham. W

New Writing North knows that reading and writing for pleasure plays a vital part in developing literacy, imagination and in building confidence, and believe that now, more than ever, books and creative writing can play a powerful role in helping young people express themselves and make sense of this changing world. 

What were we trying to achieve?

We partnered with local attraction ‘Locomotion’ and local charity food bank ‘Shildon Alive’ to deliver a creative writing project which would give young people the opportunity to explore creative writing in a new setting and with unexpected topics. The overarching aim was to explore the concept of journeys; journeys which we could take – on the train to explore the heritage rich area of the Bishop Line for example, and the journeys which the food we eat takes.  Durham Book Festival brought one of their expert community writers with experience in working with young people, Stephanie Lyttle, to help support and inspire them with writing.

The creative journeys was also about opening connections to the wider area, using creativity to improve health and wellbeing, confidence and communication skills, towards supporting young people as they begin work, training or look to further their education.

What were the original success criteria?

We aimed to engage with two keys groups in the community:

1. primary school aged children in a the Shildon area, this was to grow awareness of the food bank to children and families who may need to access it.
2. Young adults aged 15-26 who are not in a traditional educational setting, those who don’t necessarily have the opportunity to or the natural desire to take part in activities like this.

We also wanted to give participants a fresh view of creative writing, particularly with the young adults, we wanted to change perceptions, if someone thinks creative writing is not for them why not try exploring creative writing in a new setting or about a topic you have a passion for.

The Project was planned to be delivered in 3 phases:

• The first phase involved our resident artist Stephanie Lyttle, delivering creative writing sessions with young school children both at Locomotion and at their school.
• The second phase aimed to deliver creative writing sessions with young adults aged 15-26 on the train between Bishop Auckland and Darlington. We planned to run the two creative journeys along the Bishop Line with a group of approx. 15 – 20 young people from different youth groups and youth-based organisations aged 15-26 from Bishop Auckland and Shildon. The Bishop Line connects Bishop Auckland with Darlington via rail, travelling along parts of the historic Stockton & Darlington Railway – the first passenger railway that opened in 1825.

There would be two Creative Journeys. The first planned to involve a free return trip with a walk around the heritage sites of Darlington. The second would also feature a free return trip but would finish at Locomotion Museum in Shildon for phase three.

• The third phase was a special event at the museum called ‘Loco Lates’ to showcase the output of the creative pieces as well as creative writing from the local primary school.

What were the outcomes?

The engagement with the primary school aged children was fantastic. The local school visited Locomotion for a lesson in the main museum with our resident writer Stephanie Lyttle, and explored the exhibits, set their imaginations wild and wrote about what they’d like to see there, and what they’d change if they owned the museum. They explored the journey of the food they eat and the types of transport one piece of fruit may travel on to get from field to their tummy. The continued their writing in their classroom and produced individual pieces, partner pieces and a whole class poem. Many of the children came to the celebration event at Loco Lates at Locomotion and performed their pieces to their family and friends.

The celebration event at the Loco Lates was an outstanding success, the students enjoyed celebrating their creative pieces with their family and friends while the museum was closed to the public, and enjoyed a performance by the Shildon Institute Choir, as well as food preparation demonstrations by Shildon Alive. A celebration film has been produced and will be shared once captioned.

Therefore the outcomes for the primary school children and their families at the Loco Lates event were:

• Greater understanding of the providence of the food they eat.
• Greater understanding of the types of transport used in manufacture and distribution of goods.
• Greater understanding of creative writing practices relevant to their curriculum.
• Increased confidence to perform in front of others.
• Greater awareness of local food bank within the local community.
• Greater awareness of the fantastic facilities of Locomotion within the local community.
• Greater awareness of the Bishop Line community rail partnership within the local community.

We planned to run a creative writing train journey between Shildon and Darlington involving 15-26 year-olds identified from youth groups and charities rather than traditional educational settings. Despite very hard work, it was extremely challenging to engage anyone from this age range outside of a traditional educational setting, so we undertook plan B! Engaging with passengers on the train we completed 50+ postcards with their thoughts and memories of travelling by train, compiled them all into a song which was performed at the Loco Lates event.

Therefore the outcomes for the plan B event of engagement with the public on the train using postcards were:

• Greater awareness of the Bishop Line community rail partnership within the local community.
• Refreshed connections with rail travel and memories
• Refreshed desire to travel
• Positive awareness of creative writing

What lessons can be learnt from this project? 

Its takes time and some strong connections to engage young adults, this is not something which just happens, build your connections and don’t lose touch with any that you have, you never know when you may want to call upon them.

Have a plan B! . The postcard element of the project was far more successful than we could have imagined, we gathered the postcards into themes, family stories, first train journeys, funny anecdotes, travel aspirations and most memorable journeys on the Bishop Line and the comments were truly moving.

Creative Journeys was shortlisted in the category of best project involving children & young children in the 2022 Community Rail Awards.

The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership is once again giving passengers free ‘friendly’ face coverings at Bishop Auckland Station.

As the world starts to open up again, many of the population have now been vaccinated, and the number of people travelling by train along the Bishop Line begins to increase, the partnership is asking passengers to be mindful of fellow travellers.

During the past year passengers classed as key or essential workers have continued to use the train and have grown comfortable doing so, however passengers who have been shielding, homeworking or just not needed to travel, may find it daunting returning to train travel. This is where the partnership is asking for the help of its passengers to make everyone’s journey as friendly and comfortable as possible.

Felicity Machnicki, officer for the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership and mental health first aider at Darlington borough council commented,

“Bishop Line ‘friendly’ face coverings are available free of charge to passengers to help ‘pass on a smile’ to people returning to the railway. As our passengers return to the Bishop Line, we’d like to see the sense of community return too.

“Face coverings are still essential to help control the spread of coronavirus along with other measures, but they can take away some of the social interaction which take place when you travel by train. A smile from fellow passenger could make someone feel more comfortable on their first train journey since lockdown. With spirits raised they pass on that smile to another passenger, and so on. We designed the ‘friendly’ face coverings to start that chain reaction and help bring a sense of comfort  back to our passengers during these changing times”.

Marie Addison, Community and Sustainability Manager for Northern, added:

“At Northern, we are working hard to make travelling by train safe, by cleaning all carriages and key stations every day, placing extra focus on cleaning touchpoints like handrails and armrests, using an anti-viral sanitiser which stops the virus for longer plus our staff are on hand to help and are working harder than ever to make travelling on the Bishop Line safe and enjoyable”.

Whether you’re taking your first trip by train since lockdown or you’re a seasoned traveller there are some precautions set by the government which you should follow to help keep yourself, other passengers and transport staff safe:

• You must wear a face covering on public transport and in substantially enclosed areas of transport hubs in England, unless you are exempt

• You should stay 2 metres apart from people you do not live with where possible, or 1 metre while wearing a face covering.
• limit the number of people or households that you come into contact with, for example, by avoiding the busiest routes, as well as busy times, such as the rush hour
• travel side by side or behind other people, rather than facing them, where seating arrangements allow
• avoid loud talking, shouting or singing
• wash or sanitise your hands regularly

• avoid touching your face
• only touch surfaces where required for safe travel
• dispose of waste safely, including items such as used disposable face coverings

The ‘friendly’ face coverings are available from Bishop Auckland Station while stocks last and will be given out thanks to the support of Bishop Trains staff.

3,000 community rail volunteers and local partnerships will support a push following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Members of a grassroots movement – including Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership – have continued to strive for Northern England’s communities and work towards a greener transport future, despite the pandemic.

Figures from Community Rail Network’s Community Rail in the North briefing – sponsored by Rail Delivery Group – (being launched today, 24 March 2021) highlight that over 3,000 volunteers give over 140,000 hours annually, valued at £11.7 million, to improve social inclusion and wellbeing, promote sustainable and healthy travel, and support economic development, in their local area.

Working with the North’s 20 community rail partnerships and 350 station groups, they engage local people with their railways and stations, working with train operators, local authorities, and other partners. Activities include: volunteering, community gardening and biodiversity projects at stations; community arts and heritage projects; work with rail industry partners towards improvements and integration, such as shelters, signage, pedestrian and cyclist access; and events, workshops and activities to promote sustainable travel, bring people together, and celebrate the local community.

Community rail is now looking forward to playing a pivotal role in building back better from Covid, and helping our railways to be a vital component of a greener, more inclusive way forward as part of a ‘green recovery’.

Between Darlington and Bishop Auckland, The Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership is engaging with its communities to help people get the most from their local railway, promoting social inclusion and safe sustainable travel, working alongside train operators to bring about improvements, and bringing stations back to life. Some of the Bishop Line’s priorities include:

• Reinvigorate passenger rail confidence such as Bishop Line’s recent free smiley face coverings campaign
• Encourage train travel for local days out to tourist attractions along the Bishop Line and Tees Valley Line
• Expand its membership to reflect the diverse make-up of communities along the Bishop Line
• Community Engagement to understand the rail travel needs of the local community through station and community events and engagement meetings
• Work with Northern to provide a half hourly service between Bishop Auckland and Darlington
• Work with Weardale Railway to improve connections at Bishop Auckland

Commenting on the importance of the community rail movement in the North of England, Jools Townsend, chief executive of Community Rail Network said:

“Community rail works to make our railways community-minded and inclusive, and promotes sustainable travel by rail, bringing people together and bolstering local pride and wellbeing. In the North, community rail partnerships and groups have adapted and responded, supporting communities through the pandemic, maintaining positivity, and advising rail partners on shifting local needs. As we start to rebuild from Covid-19, within the community rail movement, and across our railways, we will be redoubling efforts, to create confidence and togetherness, and play our part in enabling more people to get around by socially and environmentally responsible means. Community rail is all about communities and connectedness, and people working together locally to make things better for each other and our shared future – that couldn’t be more important right now.”

Robert Whitehouse, Chair of the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership said:

“A huge part of what our partnership aims to do is consult with our community to find out what its needs are in terms of rail travel. Given that we are not currently able to meet with our passengers, our local charities, our key employers, or our local residents face to face, we ask you to come to us in whichever way you feel comfortable to share your views. We are contactable by email enquiries@bishopline.org we also have a facebook page and Twitter page where you can message us directly. We welcome your comments.”