From dream to reality: Go-op, Britain’s first cooperative railway
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With approval to run trains between Swindon, Taunton and Weston-super-Mare, services could start in 2026. The idea for the country’s first cooperative rail service came to Alex Lawrie in 2004 after another frustrating trip across Somerset. Having moved to Yeovil four years earlier with his young family, his job as a cooperative development manager involved daily trips across the south-west trying to set up member-owned businesses.
![[The six directors sit around a table with a Christmas tree in the background]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7ff7d1b415b5bfdd6a43e7f5fb34113fa23e7ce1/0_389_5833_3500/master/5833.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
A reluctant motorist, he quickly became frustrated with the rail service he was depending on to get around. “It baffled me, trains came at seemingly random intervals, there were only a few trains serving a big town like Yeovil, hours would pass without a train coming,” Lawrie says. “I couldn’t understand it, I was like, ‘There are the rails, they all link up, more or less, how hard can it be to get a better service?’”.
![[The railway line]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/70532e9fc9c5f73b410c98296dff94f13abe782b/0_163_5947_3569/master/5947.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
While most passengers would grumble and leave it at that, Lawrie took the matter into his own hands. Despite having no experience in the sector, he bought a rail atlas, and so began the process of trying to improve services through the creation of a new operator.
Fast forward 20 years and the 56-year-old’s plan that began as notes jotted down on a sheet of A4 paper is close to becoming a reality. The plan for the cooperative railway – Go-op – has received approval from the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) to run a new service between Swindon, Taunton and Weston-super-Mare.
