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Original Comment

Sounds like nonsense to me. Do surfers really want to use the train? Will they travel in their wetsuits? How do they get to Boscombe from either Pokesdown or Bournemouth stations? I can just see them now trying to take a board and the rest of their gear on a Yellow Bus. :-D

I'd guess it's a ripping wheeze thought up by Ellwood or his spin doctor to get a bit of publicity pre-election...

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Surfers travelling by train to Boscombe reef not allowed to bring boards

9:00am Saturday 27th February 2010

Photograph of the Author By Melanie Vass »

SURFERS taking the train to Boscombe’s new reef are being told they can’t bring their boards with them.

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood called for “heads to be knocked together” and the blanket ban on surfboards to be lifted.

He raised the issue in Parliament after discovering that South West Trains do not allow passengers to travel with surfboards – although snow boards are permitted.

And he said he was surprised to learn that changing the rules and allowing individual train companies to determine their own policy on surfboards was no easy matter.

“There is a surprising amount of red tape and a worrying number of organisations needed to change something so simple,” he said.

“I have written a rather plain-speaking letter to the Secretary of State asking for him to knock some heads together.”

A South West Trains spokesperson said: “We work closely with Bournemouth Borough Council and have been supportive of the surf reef at Boscombe Pier, last year providing funding towards a bus link between the station and the seafront to encourage visitors to the reef.

“There are restrictions on the size of items carried on our trains and, due to their large size, surfboards are among the items not permitted.

“We know however that there any now many hire shops available for people choosing to travel by train to Bournemouth.”

A spokesperson for the Association of Train Operating Companies said they were hoping to get to a position soon where individual train companies could decide their own policies.

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