FOSBR Fifteenth Anniversary Celebration
Date: September 2010
FOSBR celebrated its fifteenth anniversary on 24 September 2010 with an evening at La Ruca, Gloucester Road, at which presentations were made to Peter Gould and Julie Boston. The evening was covered by the Evening Post on 25 September in a double-page spread, Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways making rail difference, which included an excellent photograph of the revellers and an overview of the history of FOSBR:
“Let’s be honest, groups of people who get together to talk about trains have developed a general reputation for a certain type of geekiness. But the Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR) has never been that kind of group. Far from concerning themselves with the self-imposed autism of pointless rail-based facts and figures collecting, since its inception in 1995 FOSBR has been a vibrantly radical movement that has battled for the rights of commuters across the city.”
The article quotes Rob Dixon (Chairman):
“We’ve achieved a lot over the years. Passenger numbers on the suburban Bristol lines have more than doubled since 1995, but there’s still a lot to do. We’re so far behind other comparable cities across the country. We need to catch up with cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, where commuters in the outlaying suburbs know they can walk to their local train station and enjoy good, reliable half-hourly services into the centre of their city.”