Did you know community rail delivers welfare and wellbeing benefits worth nearly £18 for every £1 spent?
What is community rail?
Community rail is a government strategy and scheme that helps you get the most from your local railway. The scheme engages local people in various volunteer groups, projects and activities throughout Britian that help improve and promote local railway lines, services and stations.
We’re proud to support this scheme along with the rest of the rail industry. It has a huge range of benefits that help communities everywhere. Find out more …
Making a difference to young people and children
Every year the scheme organises a huge range of activities promoting local railways across Britain. It gets funding of just over £7.2m but creates £129m in social value, according to a report, The Value of Community Rail, by Community Rail Network.
The report, published in September, found 125,000 people take part in these activities every year. And a significant proportion of those are children and young people, with an estimated 65,000 engaged each year.
Community rail works with 2,000 schools, colleges and youth groups through partnerships, and its education and youth engagement projects are worth £45m.
Making a difference to your journeys
Each year, about 12,000 people take part in activities designed to increase travel confidence and make rail more accessible and inclusive. These activities are worth £16.4m in social value.
A large part of the work involves Community Rail Partnerships. These are community-based organisations that promote and improve local railway lines. They now span more than a third of Britain’s railway and are helping you get back on the railway.
The report found passenger journeys on a significant sample of lines with Community Rail Partnerships returned to normal levels faster from the pandemic. These journeys were at 89% of pre-covid levels by the end of March, compared with an average of 83% across the railway excluding the Elizabeth Line. In other words, Community Rail really does help connect you to our railway.
Making a difference to your community
More than 8,250 volunteers give about 380,000 hours of their time to community rail every year. That’s worth £30.9m in social value to individuals and their communities.
Jacqueline Starr, chief executive officer of industry body Rail Delivery Group, said: “Rail does more than simply transport us from A to B. By carrying over three million people on average every day, it plays an essential role in connecting communities, driving economic growth, and contributing to a more sustainable future.
“This report shows the difference that the railways can make to the communities they serve.”
So, how do we work with Community Rail?
Community Rail activities can vary hugely but we work together whenever possible to link our railway to local communities. Here are some recent examples.
Community artwork at Ashley Down station
We installed new artwork created by the local community ahead of opening Bristol’s newest railway station at Ashley Down this September. Local artist Aumairah Hassan led on the community art project – Progression – which Severnside Community Rail Partnership also supported.
The project has helped connect the local community with the new station and brighten up the space.
Rail safety poster competition for Inverness Airport station
We worked with Community Rail Partnership group 6VT and a local school to hold a rail safety poster competition last December. This came in the run up to opening the new Inverness Airport station. It was one of the ways we helped young children understand our rail safety messages.
Students at Croy Primary School submitted almost 40 entries. We then displayed the winning three posters at the station.
Helping create a heritage spot at Lowestoft station
We’re also lending a helping hand to the heritage work by Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership and Lowestoft Central Project at Lowestoft station in Suffolk.
We donated a set of railway level crossing gates when the project first began in 2020. These gates make up the 60-foot-long backdrop to the planned heritage spot.
The heritage quarter rests on former tracks that once transported fish and aggregates on the railway. Once complete, the heritage area will help highlight the railway’s history as an important link to the harbour.
