Concept Aims
Our Project Aims were:
Awareness of a more sustainable way of travel
Community cohesion
Encourage train support in the wider community rail ideals
Raise interest in growing at the station
Signpost greening groups/activites
Improve awareness around mental health support/reducing anxiety
Highlight importance of COP26 & climate action within the communities
Delighting passengers & inspiring a new generation
What Happened
Recent decline in passengers travelling and lack of confidence in public transport due to covid had urged the Rail 74 CRP/St Charles Primary to take action with simple acts of kindness with a green theme to support climate action for change/COP 26 which is being held in Glasgow which the line reaches.
Many of the school children in the area had not travelled by train and unaware of the sustainable travel aspect of choosing rail so included a visit to Glasgow Central will inspire them to choose rail and a more sustainable lifestyle.
We linked this to a local school, called St Charles Primary Newton, who had just adopted the station and have big growing plans for the front of the station which will they wanted to launch. They agreed to get involved and interact with making seed bombs and giving out the freebies to tell the community about their growing plans & promote Avanti’s Brand Image as a sustainable way to travel.
Freebies of green love will consist of flower bombs, seed matchsticks and individually wrapped biscuits with Avanti & CRP branding on them.
People needed to know how to get involved in green action and looking after themselves mentally in the area and we linked up with a local green network ‘greening camglen’/COP26 and Samaritains to provide a signposting to passengers in these challenging times. We explained that growing is a proven great support to ease a busy mind and improve wellbeing and the space at front of newton was a great place to start.
In June 2022 we completed the final part of the project by taking 32 kids from the primary on the train to central, meet the station manager, had an engaging learning session on and off the train about community rail,trains & the environment and a special VIP visit to the central tour museum to learn about the stations history & inspire future rail users.
The results
The impacts that have happened due to the project were:
More community locals working together
A stronger link to Community Rail Network
Happier Staff working at the station and on the trains
Happier passengers
Awareness to save our planet !
Young people engaged in rail and their community spaces
Feedback was Customer Feedback:
‘great and thank you;
‘this is so nice !’
‘what a lovely thought – its really made me smile’
‘the garden looks fabulous’
Staff Feedback:
kids were amazing and nice to see front area being transformed
On the visit the kids were noisy but a pleasure to host
Kids Feedback :
‘we love handing our seedbombs and cookies out’
‘I like to talk to the passengers’
‘this is thee best day !’
‘the garden is better than school and we learn too’
‘I want to be a train driver now’
