From Dream To Reality: Go-Op, Britain’s First Cooperative Railway
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.
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.