was not willing to publicise the line and protect the frequency of services. Cecil Parkinson MP, then-Secretary of State for Transport, replied that the line was using "out-of-date, worn-out rolling stock" due to late deliveries from manufacturers, and that British Rail would not encourage people to use it until there was a better service. In 1995, an hourly timetable was introduced for peak times, but services terminated at Avonmouth so that a single Sprinter unit could work the service. There was a better service on Saturdays as more rolling stock was available, but there was no Sunday service. Talk arose again of the line being closed completely. Local tourism expert Bernard Lane described the line's state as: ... the line the railway wished was not there. It was the line that got bus substitution whenever they were short of trains or queues, when a rugby match in Cardiff needed a special. It has a problem in that the route is slow and not very direct; for years it was invisible, short of marketing and lacking a regular interval timetable. Post-privatisation When the railway was privatised in 1997, local services were franchised to Wales & West, which was succeeded by Wessex Trains in 2001. Following action by Friends of Severn Beach Railway (FOSBR, later renamed Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) and a string of protests, services had increased to 10 per day in each direction by 2005, with Bristol City Council paying a subsidy of £138,000 per annum to fund services. A new subsidy agreement had been reached in 2003, following a threat that the end of subsidy would see services along the line halved. However, even with the subsidy, the line still suffered to keep the rest of the network running. Mike Holmes, station manager for most of the line's stations, told the Bristol Evening Post that: Before we put real effort into the Severn Beach line it was really the sacrificial lamb for other services. So if we needed a spare train, we would pull one off the line and cancel it, which was why punctuality and reliability was so poor. After the public campaign in 2006 we decided that we didn't want to take that to carry on any more. Protesters would chant "The Severn Beach is a mighty fine line; Clean and friendly and sometimes on time." The Wessex franchise was amalgamated with the Great Western franchise