DHELM: Why are UK railways so bad?

[al78]

I found this article about the UK railways which looks to be on a website that has articles/podcasts on economy related matters. Having read it it seems quite reasonable if a little like wishing on a star when he talks about what is to be done i.e. a complete system transition.

https://dieterhelm.co.uk/regulation-utilities-infrastructure/why-are-uk-railways-so-bad/

"Travelling by train ought to be a low-cost, low-stress and low-carbon way of getting around. The railways ought to have a simple ticketing system, a timetable set a year ahead, along with the designated platforms. Railway technology is pretty simple, the assets are obvious and well-defined, and digitalisation ought to be massively reducing the costs, bringing labour costs down to a much more automated service.

That’s the theory, and that is what some other countries manage. Switzerland comes to mind. So why are UK railways so bad and yet so expensive? Why are trains often late, cancelled at short notice, reduced in the number of carriages? Why is information so poor? Why do minor technical problems with the trains so often cause chaos? A train door not opening, a hooter not working, toilets out of use, no catering or hot water, no seat reservations, trains in the wrong order and too often a simple lack of information?

The problems are not easily explained away by the two standard and mostly unconvincing scapegoats: the unions and privatisation. They reflect a railway that has lost its basic sense of purpose. There is a culture of decline, and a widespread view that improving the railways is a hopeless task, a bit like reforming the NHS. It is what it is and will ever more be like this."

Paragraphs:

So is it all the fault of the unions?​

Did privatisation mess it all up?​

What is to be done?​

The system transition​

Making it happen​

Is it affordable?​

Closing statement:
"The state of the UK economy resembles that of the 1970s: there is a widespread perception that too many things are not working, of which the railways, the Royal Mail and the NHS are but examples. The default position will probably be to muddle through, with yet more poor productivity and weakened competitiveness. If workers can’t get to work, if the economy has to bear the costs of the railways disruption to the functioning of the economy, and at very high cost too, economic growth will continue to be elusive. The railways are a “burning platform”. The current approach is not sustainable, and therefore it will not be sustained. The longer the current chaos persists, the greater the eventual cost of putting it onto a firm foundation."

Is this analysis reasonable or is he way off base? If the latter what do you think he misses or is wrong about?

 

[twpsaesneg]

I think Professor Helm could do with getting his article peer reviewed by one of his Engineering colleagues for a start. He lost credibility with me when he started talking about using drones to identify where trains are to enable them to be safely signalled.

 

[The exile]

We have spent years “putting money back in the taxpayers’” pockets. Unfortunately there has been no corresponding realisation that you gets what you pays for. Want Swiss style railways? Pay Swiss style taxes!

 

[jfowkes]

He lost credibility with me when he started talking about using drones to identify where trains are to enable them to be safely signalled.

I think this is unfair. It's pretty clear from the article that he is referring to the use of drones in the context of inspection of network assets ("...drone usage in place of manual track inspections..." and "...this in turn requires information about the network and the location of the trains, aided by all the new source of information from drones, satellites and on-the-ground cameras and monitoring systems...")

That second quote is rather ambiguous but I think the "information about the network" bit (emphasis mine) means thinks drone-based systems can feed information about the network (not the trains) into the signalling system. I'm not sure what information that would be though. I can't think of many contexts where drones would feed information into the real-time signalling system.

 

[ComUtoR]

I think this is unfair. It's pretty clear from the article that he is referring to the use of drones in the context of inspection of network assets ("...drone usage in place of manual track inspections..." and "...this in turn requires information about the network and the location of the trains, aided by all the new source of information from drones, satellites and on-the-ground cameras and monitoring systems...")

Network Rail already use Drones

 

[mangyiscute]

My follow up question would be "why do people perceive the railways as a lot worse than they actually are?"
If you ask many people, they seem to suggest that every single train is late, if it runs at all (only about 10% run) and you're paying hundreds of pounds to travel absolutely anywhere - clear hyperbole, but why is this the case, and why do many people refuse to travel by train because of this.
Even people on this site will say about how awful train travel is, for example how they will never ever use cross country due to bad train/overcrowding, when I often use cross country and it is not crowded and on time as it should be and the trains are perfectly adequate if not anything good.
For sure I've had bad experiences, but they are very rare and have always ended up fine, which is similar to any other mode of transport, but you don't see anyone refusing to drive anywhere cause they once got stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam due to an accident.

 

[AlterEgo]

My follow up question would be "why do people perceive the railways as a lot worse than they actually are?"

Because when the railway goes wrong it goes badly wrong, and severe disruption is extremely damaging. The railway cares more about daily dashboards and doesn't take enough steps to deal with dread events like being stranded for 3 hours or being told - no, you have to bugger off home on your own, at your own expense.

Coupled with this is an unserious marketing and comms culture that tries to tell everyone that the things which are bad are actually good and no, you, the passenger are in fact wrong and your opinions are unjustified. All of this is wrapped up in a thick layer of impenetrable twee. Britain has a cultural problem where it identifies problems, claims they are to difficult to fix, and so the decline is presented as entertainment or worse, comfort. See the "this escalator is refusing to escalate" signs for a prime example. No, that is not funny, it is broken, so fix it.

 

[Teddyward]

GA and c2c have better PPM than Swiss railways as far as I can see.

 

[urbophile]

Merseyrail were playing up this morning (two consecutive trains cancelled) so I drove my daughter to work: six miles across the city. I won't do it willingly again (not at that time of day anyway). School run followed by massive queue to get past road works. So the road system isn't fit for purpose either. Nobody (least of all no politician) seems to want to do any more than tinkering with the details.

 

[jfowkes]

Network Rail already use Drones

I know, and I think Prof. Helm knows that too. My read of the article is that he's suggesting more can be done to use drones and other automated/remote monitoring technologies.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Because when the railway goes wrong it goes badly wrong, and severe disruption is extremely damaging. The railway cares more about daily dashboards and doesn't take enough steps to deal with dread events like being stranded for 3 hours or being told - no, you have to bugger off home on your own, at your own expense.

Been on numerous trains from several operators today all ran to time well presented and even had tickets checked on a couple of them but know all too well when it falls apart you are on your own and you have to question the industry goal that its Putting the Passenger First

 

[Deepgreen]

Been on numerous trains from several operators today all ran to time well presented and even had tickets checked on a couple of them but know all too well when it falls apart you are on your own and you have to question the industry goal that its Putting the Passenger First

No, it's putting its shareholders first and passengers can fit in somewhere.

 

[yorkie]

As for the part about dedicated platforms that never change, this would be possible in many cases but only if there was a lot of investment to build additional platforms.

As for "railway technology is pretty simple, the assets are obvious and well-defined," is that really the case? If so, why are there so many microfleets, incompatibilities etc? I don't think this person actually understands the railway system and is just coming up with things that sound good on paper.

GA and c2c have better PPM than Swiss railways as far as I can see.

But if you measured it by delay to passenger journeys, Swiss railways winds hands-down. Furthermore, in Switzerland there are numerous journey opportunities that simply wouldn't exist in the UK as we don't believe in an overall system of planning for, and maintaining, connections in the way the Swiss do.

No, it's putting its shareholders first and passengers can fit in somewhere.

Which shareholders are put first on LNER, TPE, Northern etc?

Because when the railway goes wrong it goes badly wrong, and severe disruption is extremely damaging.

Very true

The railway cares more about daily dashboards and doesn't take enough steps to deal with dread events like being stranded for 3 hours or being told - no, you have to bugger off home on your own, at your own expense.

Indeed; the focus is all too often on getting trains out of platforms ASAP (even if that means leaving people behind and even if the next couple of signals are red) in the misplaced belief that this reduces delays, and statistics of trains being on time, and not on the overall passenger experience.

 

[stuu]

Some reasonable points but a hell of a lot if hyperbole. There is a lack of capacity on the network, there are any number of issues but it does basically function for most people most of the time. 9 out of 10 trains are on time, 97% of the planned timetable runs.

I do agree that the whole country feels like its slowly unravelling though, and the railways don't escape from that malaise

 

[Irascible]

Drones running ahead of trains to check the line is clear isn't the worst idea. I can't imagine anyone sensibly using them to replace signalling ( why on earth anyway when the train can just report where it is itself ).

I do agree that the whole country feels like its slowly unravelling though, and the railways don't escape from that malaise

I used to think the malaise started in the 60s, and then the 50s, and then the 1890s but I'm now pretty convinced the industrial revolution was an accident & the status quo is still asserting itself...

 

[507020]

I think Professor Helm could do with getting his article peer reviewed by one of his Engineering colleagues for a start. He lost credibility with me when he started talking about using drones to identify where trains are to enable them to be safely signalled.

This seems to be implying that the use of drones placed in “geostationary orbit” to perform the role of track circuits for train detection in an inferior way and which would of course need recharging at regular intervals requiring them to land, making the signalling system unusable during this time.

There may be use for drones in a railway environment, but this is certainly not it…

We have spent years “putting money back in the taxpayers’” pockets. Unfortunately there has been no corresponding realisation that you gets what you pays for. Want Swiss style railways? Pay Swiss style taxes!

My understanding is that Swiss wealth, including that invested in it’s railways, is not generated from domestic taxation on citizens, but instead from Switzerland not being a member of the Eurozone, with the Swiss Franc being used for a number of international investments, causing it to increase in value, generating wealth for the Swiss government.

The United Kingdom is also not a member of the Eurozone…

 

[yorksrob]

I think that a lot of problems come down to over-commercialisation and a squeamishness about subsidy. This is why we can't seem to have a consistently competitive fare offer (indeed, some TOC's are actively trying to destroy it).

It's also the cause of rolling stock being scrapped early, rather than being used to cater for growth.

The rot for this set in with Beeching/Marples obviously, and the impossible and destructive hunt for the profitable railway.

 

[stuu]

I used to think the malaise started in the 60s, and then the 50s, and then the 1890s but I'm now pretty convinced the industrial revolution was an accident & the status quo is still asserting itseitself.

You may have a point there! But between the mid 90s and about 2015 it certainly didn't feel as bleak as it does now. The end of Major's term was mired in mediocrity and minor scandal but the wider country didn't feel dragged down with them. But we didn't have widespread food banks and the streets literally falling to bits, I would say objectively things are far worse now

 

[al78]

My follow up question would be "why do people perceive the railways as a lot worse than they actually are?"

Two possibilities that come to mind:

1. System failures across all public services are heavily publicised in the media and people on a population scale are heavily influenced by the media. It is the same with media articles about the EU or immigration, they frequently contain nonsense but are lapped up because they stimulate fluffy emotions. If you are fed reports of a system going pear shaped you will eventually tend to associate that system with failure (learned response).

2. The quality of rail services is very region and time dependent. I have to admit at this time my twice weekly commute to Farringdon is largely uneventful and I get to/from work on time. I experience the occasional niggle 10 min delay but delays at the level of a delay repay are now uncommon. This was not the case in 2022 when I was claiming delay repay a couple of times a month at least, that is if I wasn't working at home because the rail commute was impractical/impossible, and disruption due to industrial action was worse than it is now. The north of England as I understand has suffered far worse with poor service than I have in the south-east. Secondly, trying to get about on Sundays on public transport in general is difficult even here in the SE. Journeys that require connections can take almost as long as cycling the full distance even for journeys up to 20 miles, and to me it is ridiculous that I cannot get from Horsham to Guildford by public transport in a reasonable time on a Sunday (i.e. not two or more hours) given these are two large towns 20 miles apart connected directly by a main road. I have looked into this as I wanted to do a linear walk from Guildford to Dorking along the North Downs/Ranmore Common.

A third possible reason is that believing public transport is poor, expensive and impractical provides justification for living like an American and using the car for virtually every single journey.

 

[bib]

A third possible reason is that believing public transport is poor, expensive and impractical provides justification for living like an American and using the car for virtually every single journey.

I think this is widespread for infrequent users. And not understanding the ticketing system.

Price is the main complaint I've heard from people who don't use the train often/at all. Eg If you don't live in a big city and drive 99% of journeys, and fancy a day trip to London with a friend/partner and think 'oh we could take the train' but then you don't understand the nuances of the ticketing system or want to be flexible and you look up a peak time return and its £400 for 2 people, then you'll either drive or find better things to spend your £400 on eg a package holiday to Turkey for a week, and never look at the train again.

Because when the railway goes wrong it goes badly wrong, and severe disruption is extremely damaging. The railway cares more about daily dashboards and doesn't take enough steps to deal with dread events like being stranded for 3 hours or being told - no, you have to bugger off home on your own, at your own expense.

And I think this is true for more frequent users. I find that I don't really remember the 50 journeys that went well, but I do remember the time I had to get a friend to drive 2 hours to pick me up from the airport because of a train strike and the time I had to rearrange my weekend and panic to find a bus to get home because flooding somewhere else had meant that all the trains were cancelled, and it puts me off relying on the railways for certain journeys. In comparison I don't really remember the times I was stuck in traffic for 30mins because a lorry broke down on the motorway, I think it's generally less stressful/memorable in a car unless you are on a tight schedule, because you know you will get there eventually, whereas you could just get stranded if you missed the last train connection etc

 

[InTheEastMids]

I think Professor Helm could do with getting his article peer reviewed by one of his Engineering colleagues for a start. He lost credibility with me when he started talking about using drones to identify where trains are to enable them to be safely signalled.

I've been reading his work on the energy sector for at least 10 years. There is often, in his work, a technocratic element that some amazing new technology will come along and solve today's problems. (he used to bang on about "next generation solar*"). However, as an economist rather than a technologist, to me he doesn't really understand what other things have to be true for transformational technology to take hold.

*Of course the cost of solar panels has collapsed in the last decade and they are also quite a bit more efficient, but he still thinks them inadequate.

Because when the railway goes wrong it goes badly wrong, and severe disruption is extremely damaging.

Part of this is a facet of them being arguably too busy - too many trains, complex routes and not enough carriages - there is no slack in the system so it's always stretched thin and lacks resilience.
The bedlam at St Pancras when the ECML has been closed is a great example of this, and that's a planned closure.

I think the UK under-prices the economic and people/quality of life costs of disruption in many parts of its utility networks. Helm alludes to this in his musings on the Swiss model but doesn't really offer anything here.

If so, why are there so many microfleets, incompatibilities etc? I don't think this person actually understands the railway system and is just coming up with things that sound good on paper.

I disagree on this point - I think he sort-of does understand that we get all this because of a fragmented industry that has lacked strategic leadership, joined up thinking and long-term thinking about its assets that would encourage rolling electrification. We've had the boom & bust at rolling-stock industry level, and the proliferation of microfleets, and stop/go on electrification because Government has performed poorly. If you consider that these issues are similar across energy, water and transportation, the common feature here is HM Treasury, then I think that's why he's suggesting that there needs to be a much closer look at the economic costs of poor infrastructure.

Furthermore, in Switzerland there are numerous journey opportunities that simply wouldn't exist in the UK as we don't believe in an overall system of planning for, and maintaining, connections in the way the Swiss do.

100% - even cable cars are part of the integrated Swiss model.

The quality of rail services is very region and time dependent.

The general rule I tell people is that if your train doesn't start, end or pass through London it'll probably relatively slow and infrequent. Part of this is a distortion effect of London (e.g. Switzerland has a number of cities like Geneva, Zurich etc., that are all of broadly similar size. But it's staggering how poor a lot of inter-regional services are in the UK. It's partly neglect of our great regional cities that leads to the idea that a 3-car 170 is adequate for e.g. Nottingham or Leicester to Birmingham, but also an indictment upon how poor the UK is becoming, that there isn't enough demand to justify a lot mroe capacity.

 

[yorksrob]

Nottingham or Leicester to Birmingham, but also an indictment upon how poor the UK is becoming, that there isn't enough demand to justify a lot mroe capacity.

How much is that a lack of demand, versus lack of provision of capacity in the first place versus pricing being uncompetitive.

Trans pennine struggled with 3 carriage trains for many years, but subsequent provision has confirmed the demand for longer trains.

 

[mangyiscute]

How much is that a lack of demand, versus lack of provision of capacity in the first place versus pricing being uncompetitive.

Trans pennine struggled with 3 carriage trains for many years, but subsequent provision has confirmed the demand for longer trains.

I totally believe that cross country could fill 8/9 car trains on most of their services if they were provided, look at the current demand with such a poor service. Similarly, in most cases when train fleets have been upgraded and more capacity has been provided, passengers have quickly filled that extra capacity (eg the fast trains out of Paddington to Bristol/Oxford especially are almost always full and they both got a decent capacity boost recently when the IETs came in). It's similar to the argument that you can't just build an extra lane to alleviate traffic on a busy road, because it will induce demand, and cause all of the other smaller roads that this road links to to have inadequate capacity.

The general rule I tell people is that if your train doesn't start, end or pass through London it'll probably relatively slow and infrequent. Part of this is a distortion effect of London (e.g. Switzerland has a number of cities like Geneva, Zurich etc., that are all of broadly similar size. But it's staggering how poor a lot of inter-regional services are in the UK. It's partly neglect of our great regional cities that leads to the idea that a 3-car 170 is adequate for e.g. Nottingham or Leicester to Birmingham, but also an indictment upon how poor the UK is becoming, that there isn't enough demand to justify a lot mroe capacity.

I'd be tempted to say that the only non London intercity link that is any good is the Edinburgh to Glasgow service, which of course is controlled by the Scottish government.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The biggest improvement would be:

1. to stop striving for profitability - certainly try and minimize subsidy. Treat the railways as a service for your citizens and improve quality of life with fewer vehicles on the road.
2. Have a "guiding mind" and less DfT, RDG, HMT interference
3. Have a long term plan that goes across all governments.

 

[HSTEd]

Beyond the myriad organisational issues that people have discussed, the UK is trapped by the oldest railway infrastructure.

Tunnels, cuttings and the like built by hand have left us with the smallest standard-gauge loading gauge in the world.
Indeed Japanese cape gauge railways typically have bigger loading gauges.

That seriously limits us in terms of passenger experience, especially as people have grown bigger in recent decades.

The ancient infrastructure is also a maintenance hog and restricts efficient rapid service operations.

Fixing the railway would require decades of massive investment and probably major organisational and procedural changes that I don't think the industry is really capable of delivering.
Even when the railway industry is able to get large scale political support for a project it seems to collapse into acrimony of one type or another.

 

[nw1]

No, it's putting its shareholders first and passengers can fit in somewhere.

It's arguably not even the shareholders. It's purportedly "the taxpayer", as most current cuts are at the behest of the government, rather than the TOCs - but of course no-one asks "the taxpayer" whether we are willing to fund improved railways through tax.

 

[mike57]

I have a view that the railways are not good at identifying the simple(relatively) to fix problems and sorting them out, on the basis that less problems overall means a better perception, and the hard to crack problems dont seem as bad.

A few examples:

Information: Being interested in railways I can get a feed to my phone which allows me to make some intellegent decisions about my options. If I were to rely on PIS I would get the basic feed. An example, if I can work out that train A is going to be late because the single track section my home station is on is currently occupied by train B going the other why cant the rail PIS system. Get good accurate information out there, even if its not good news.

Ticketing: Its way too complex, and current trends like LNER doing away with returns are just making things worse. Keep revenue neutral, but make it easy for passengers to see they are getting the best deal. Make split ticketing unnecessary. Reduce ticket types, Anytime, offpeak and advance in order of cost should be the only 3 options.

Multiple TOCs: The franchising system has failed, get rid of it, all trains run under one brand, with one national operator, possibly with sectors. In the event of disruption all the pain around ticket acceptance is then binned. Also links back to the previous point on ticketing, TOC is no longer a factor. Keep open access operators, but if you want to keep private involvement with the rest of the system contract companies to run and maintain the trains, but under a central authority.

Capacity: Much of the network is at capacity, but we still see 2 and 3 coach units on major routes, e.g. TransPennine, this comes back to rolling stock orders being cut back to the bare minimum, money saved in the short term is probably lost later on. Address the capcity issues by ensuring that longest trains possible run where capacity is a problem, it wont solve every capacity issue, but its a start.

Rolling stock: Again tied into the Multiple TOC point, microfleets are a problem waiting to happen (e.g. TPE Mk5s), Rolling stock should be procured at a national level and deployed as needed.

Timetabling: Needs to be pragmatic, no more repeats of the May 2018 fiasco, there needs to be a enough slack that a minor problem doesn't bring the whole system to a halt.

Sorting these issues would cost, but not on the same scale as major infrastructure improvements and would go a long way to improving public perception.

On the ageing infrastructure issues maybe set aside a sum each year to deal with issues that will get worse if ignored, again will cost some money but not as much I would suggest as the current approach, which to be honest appears to be 'penny wise pound foolish'

And finally try and get back to arms length operation, and out of the political arena, agree subsidies and then dont interfere. Dont be afraid to go for 'baby steps' improvements, each problem solved is a win.

 

[Dr Hoo]

@mike57 , a good long list but none of them are what I would describe as ‘simple’ or ‘baby steps’!

 

[Energy]

GA and c2c have better PPM than Swiss railways as far as I can see.

Both of which are fairly self-contained and have enough rolling stock.

GA has also got much quicker stock but the timetable hasn't been tightened, its noticeable on the WCML that there isn't much slack at most station stops so when a train gets delayed it often struggles to make up time.

The public would rather a 33 min service which is always on time or early than a 30 min service which is often a minute or two late.

 

[ikcdab]

My follow up question would be "why do people perceive the railways as a lot worse than they actually are?"
If you ask many people, they seem to suggest that every single train is late, if it runs at all (only about 10% run) and you're paying hundreds of pounds to travel absolutely anywhere - clear hyperbole, but why is this the case, and why do many people refuse to travel by train because of this.
Even people on this site will say about how awful train travel is, for example how they will never ever use cross country due to bad train/overcrowding, when I often use cross country and it is not crowded and on time as it should be and the trains are perfectly adequate if not anything good.
For sure I've had bad experiences, but they are very rare and have always ended up fine, which is similar to any other mode of transport, but you don't see anyone refusing to drive anywhere cause they once got stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam due to an accident.

You have to remember that most people travel on crowded trains at peak times. That's why they are crowded and they are classed as peak. So if you take a random selection of people, then most of those will report trains are crowded. You will find very few people reporting they have travelled on lightly-loaded trains despite (my guess based on the trains passing my bacvk door) that most trains are not crowded.