A picnic and gardening day will take place at Meldreth Station on 1st June from 11AM onward, with a picnic lunch break. Dates for Shepreth and Foxton to be circulated soon.

As previously reported, our local garden centres have been very generous with donations of seed packets, and residents have kindly cultivated seedlings at home for transplanting to the platform tubs. We would welcome, as always, any donations of whatever sort people might have to offer – left-over soil or compost, spare summer annuals, etc. We have still more seeds to offer anyone who’d like some for use in their own gardens.

Everyone is welcome, so please drop by if you are curious, or get in touch if you’d like to get involved at a time of your own convenience. The idea is that the station gardens should to be open to anyone in the community who’d like to take part.

The first edition is now available to download here:
http://melbourn.org.uk/railusergroup/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/120412a-foxton.pdf

It covers the operation of the crossing, possible risks, photographs of the various routes through the crossing and links to videos showing it operating.

The videos are also available here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RailUserGroup
including an annotated version of the gate closing sequence:
http://youtu.be/UYM_eyUDmyI

Please get in touch if you have comments about anything in the document.

Wednesday 20th June 2012 (Foxton Village Hall)

Tuesday 11th September 2012 (Melbourn – venue to be confirmed)

Wednesday 12th December 2012 (Shepreth Village Hall)

Wednesday 13th March 2013 AGM (Meldreth Manor School)

Letter sent to Mr Ward is the Anglia Route Manager for NR:

Dear Mr Ward

Since your pledge one month ago to fix the pedestrian gates at Foxton Level Crossing:

The repair time for the gates has increased to 12 weeks

Another incident involving one of the same girls getting caught inside the level crossing has occurred, this one casting doubt on reliability of the role of the signal box attendant

More people, including children, have come forward to report similar experiences

Parents are worried their children could die at Foxton Level Crossing, needlessly repeating what happened at Elsenham

Network Rail officers were invited to last night’s Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group meeting to discuss the situation, but declined to attend

I would like to invite you to come to Foxton to see the level crossing for yourself and meet the local people concerned.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Susan van de Ven

Chairman

Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group

For further details click here.

(to download a PDF version of this article click here)

Dear Network Rail,

On December 14th, the Meldreth, Shepreth and Rail User Group, which I chair, held its quarterly meeting and a very useful and comprehensive discussion was held on the current state of play on the pedestrian gates.  We had the benefit of two FCC Station Managers (including the area’s group manager), as well as Railfuture East Anglia, and Fen Line Users Association who face a similar set of circumstances at Downham Market.

The major points of discussion:

1. The very frank and honest account concerning the installation of the new gates is greatly appreciated.
2. It is unfortunate that a not entirely accurate update was given to me in June when the gates went in – the message being that with the new gates installed at last, hopefully we’d have no more problems.  We didn’t know that the essential magnetic locking component was lacking and that the 1960s wiring and closing mechanism remained in place – this due to funding issues.  So, the new gates are no better than the old gates, and there have been even more failures with the new ones than with the old ones.
3. I understand from a local resident that there was a failure of one of the sets of gates last week, so I’m assuming that at least one of the sets of spare parts will have been used for repairs.
4. The proposal for the ‘contingency path’ was felt to be entirely foolish.  First, it will have no self-locking mechanism at all, and will depend on user judgement – which sets up exactly the wrong circumstances, given the number of children who use the crossing.  In effect it sets up another Elsenham.    Second, if there is a funding gap which is preventing the essential magnetic locking component from being installed into the new gates, it would be a waste of money to spend precious resources on a temporary measure, particularly if it is potentially unsafe.  The RUG was absolutely adamant about all of this, and furthermore, the representatives from FCC, FLUA and Railfuture were aghast that such a proposal was being considered.
5. We went over the detail of the vehicle level crossing barrier system.  The main assurance which seems to hold firm is that queuing traffic over the level crossing means that the signalling system to allow trains to proceed toward Foxton cannot be activated. It is very reassuring to have this absolutely confirmed.
6. With regard to abuses of the level crossing – vehicles crashing into the barriers – it was pointed out that if vehicles crash into the barriers after they have gone into lock position, there is still the chance of a collision with a train.  There also remains the potential for collisions on the highway between vehicles on the A10 and vehicles attempting to come out of Station Road Foxton, when the barrier lights begin to flash and two vehicles are looking to seize an opportunity to make headway.

In summary, I must concur with the view of the RUG that the contingency path should NOT go ahead on the grounds that it would be inherently unsafe, could attract use even when the pedestrian gates for the correct path are in order, and would divert much needed funding away from the correct solution, which is the magnetic locking components.  It is also worth pointing out that every failure of the present gates is costing at least £1400K in spare parts, and this too is wasteful.

So the question that remains is, when do you expect that the new gates can be ‘completed’?

Sorry for the rather blunt account; I’m sure you will appreciate the level of local concern about putting all available resources into the optimum solution.

All the best,
Susan