MORE than 10,000 people responded to a campaign calling for Sunday services to be reintroduced on the Robin Hood Line.
It helped Notts County Council demonstrate a huge public demand – and convince the Government to back the plans.
And in December 2008, Sunday trains returned on the line between Worksop and Mansfield Woodhouse to Nottingham for the first time since the 1960s.
The move has been hailed as part of the reason for "impressive increases" in passengers choosing to travel by train. The Robin Hood line has been a particular success – with every station on the route seeing increased usage in 2009-10 compared with the previous year.
But total numbers across Notts have also risen, with more than 600,000 more passengers using the county's railway stations last year.
This took the total to more than 10 million – the highest in Notts since records began to be made in 2002-03 and six per cent up on the previous year – at a time when there was a one per cent decline in rail patronage nationally.
While official figures do not exist for the years before 2002, Notts County Council believes the usage is the highest since the railways were built.
However the figures for individual stations do show significant differences – with big falls in passengers at some rural stations.
The new figures have been released by the Office of Rail Regulation – the independent safety and economic regulator for Britain's railways.
Campaigners and rail users say they are proof that people will ditch their cars for trains if services are improved – but will turn away from the railways if the service isn't good enough in some lines.
Forest fan Winnie Cross, 66 of Cantrell Road, Bulwell, is a regular on the Robin Hood line between Bulwell and Nottingham, using it to travel to football matches and city centre shopping.
"I'm always on it. I love it," she said. "I know a lot of people go to work on it in the morning and it is always full when Forest are at home."
Bulwell resident Barry Hind, 65, said: "It shows that if they are more regular and reliable people will use them. But I think even more people will use them if they kept their fares down."
Mavis Bonser, 73, of Piccadilly, Bulwell, said: "You can get on the train and it takes you straight to Nottingham and you don't have to sit in traffic or find a parking space – so why take the car?"
Bulwell is among the stations which saw big increases in passengers, up 9,758 (25 per cent) to 48,842 last year after the Robin Hood line improvements.
Attenborough's figures rose by 21,330 to 58,748 (57 per cent) and Beeston increased by 10,656 to 414,718 (three per cent) in the same period.
These followed the launch of an hourly service in both directions between Nottingham and Matlock in December 2008.
At the same time, there was an increase in services between Nottingham and Grantham and between Collingham and Lincoln – accounting for some of the rises from Bingham (four per cent), Collingham (47 per cent) and Lowdham (45 per cent).
The least used station was Elton & Orston, which has one service a day in each direction – at 6.25am city-bound and arriving at 5.10pm from the city. This saw passengers drop from 172 a year to 166.
The biggest station, Nottingham, saw a four per cent rise in passengers, taking it to 6.2 million – the first time it has been over six million.
The opening of East Midlands Parkway in January 2009 also helped passenger numbers rise dramatically, with 182,412 travellers using it in its first full year.
However, some lesser used stations – including some on the Nottingham to Skegness route and the Lincoln-Nottingham-Leicester route – had their services reduced as East Midlands Trains changed the timetable to focus on its "core market."
These changes saw passenger numbers reduce at stations including Aslockton (25 per cent), Netherfield (23 per cent), Rolleston (23 per cent) and Thurgarton (28 per cent).
East Midlands Trains is the main operator in Notts but some stations are also used by other operators including East Coast, CrossCountry and Northern Rail.
An East Midlands Trains spokesperson, said: "It's pleasing to see that the number of passengers travelling from our stations in Notts has shown such a positive increase.
"The introduction of the new Sunday services on the Robin Hood line would account for some of the impressive increases at Bulwell, Hucknall, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Mansfield, Newstead, Shireoaks, Sutton Parkway and Worksop.
"Passengers are now benefiting from better punctuality than ever before, and coupled with our �30m fleet refurbishment programme and our �10m station improvement programme, we are certain that even more people will turn to rail as a smarter, greener way to travel."
But while David Thornhill, chairman of Notts Campaign for Better Transport said the overall increase was pleasing, he said cuts to small stations had left people without a "coherent" service.
"The small stations had their services decimated," he said. "My local station Radcliffe-on-Trent is hardly used now. There is no coherent way to catch trains. The service is awful. It also really hits you that if you provide a regular, reliable, quality service such as the Robin Hood line, station after station people will forget their car and use the train.
"We do recognise there is an issue on affordability so we would like to see a reduction of some of the fares, especially peak fares, and then you would see an even bigger increase in passengers."
Notts County Councillor Richard Jackson, cabinet member for Transport and Highways, said: "The county council is extremely pleased to see that its hard work promoting rail services has helped produce yet another year of growth in rail patronage across the county, continuing the trend of the last ten years.
"At Attenborough, Collingham, Lowdham, and Newark Castle, the county council has negotiated increased frequency of services with the DfT and East Midlands Trains – these figures for rail patronage show spectacular year-on-year growth of up to 50 per cent."
Councillor Jane Urquhart, city council portfolio holder for transport and area working, said: "We're delighted that there is such an increase in passenger usage and it demonstrates that there is a demand for train travel."
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