Should some longer rural routes be sacrificed and the money spent elsewhere on the network?

[Meerkat]

There is no GSM-R on the WHL, Far North or Kyle lines. RETB carries voice and token data on the same channel and at a frequency that allows far fewer masts providing far wider geographic coverage than is possible with GSM cells.

GSM-R was an example. The RETB infrastructure needs replacing soon doesn’t it (frequency issues??). I thought that’s why they were playing with Starlink - to cut the cost of building lots of new infrastructure on a barely used line.

I think that would still be already accounted for: If the person driving becomes more productive by virtue of driving, then that will ultimately be reflected in them earning a high salary, and will therefore be factored into their decision to drive.

Society gains from the mobility cars bring - greater recruitment pools, easier service provision etc etc.

 

[HSTEd]

If GSM-R is truly too expensive (and I am skeptical), there is always the TETRA based solution that the Finns are apparently using for ETCS.

That doesn't have the huge reliability risks associated with Starlinks (Musk can't just turn it off after another tantrum).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Society gains from the mobility cars bring - greater recruitment pools, easier service provision etc etc.

Sure. But that's already baked into the cost-benefit for the individual motorist. The societal gains from the mobility are reflected in that the motorist is commuting to a job for which she/he can get a higher salary or go to shops and other places she/he might otherwise not be able to get to.

The reason I drew attention to external costs (pollution, noise, etc.) is because they are not borne by the individual motorist, so they are costs that will not factor into the motorists decision of whether to drive - leading to decisions to drive where the costs actually exceed the benefits. If you want to find some external benefits to offset those external costs against, then for a fair comparison you need to find benefits that benefit the rest of society but without benefitting the motorist who is choosing to drive.

 

[The Ham]

Society gains from the mobility cars bring - greater recruitment pools, easier service provision etc etc.

Yet society loses on factors like:
- road congestion
- lower quality of health
- higher accident rates
- loss of social cohesion
- reduction of public transport
- loss of independence for those who can't drive
- higher costs
- lower air quality
As I've previously highlighted the government could provide all public transport for free for the cost of £1,000 per tax payer (current government cost per tax payer £32,000). This compares with the average cost of car ownership of over £3,600 per year.

Given that the number of cars is comparable than the number of tax payers (so the same £1,000 would actually mean slightly less money to spend on public transport, but in my calculation I'd over counted and there's already some subsidy to public transport so it's not an extra £1,000 in taxes) it's not unreasonable to do the following comparison.

If we assume the cost to provide free public transport per car is £1,000, how does that compare to the costs of car ownership?

Even at just over half that average cost of car ownership (£2,000) the government could spend twice as much on public transport as it currently would cost and it would only be quite a limited number of people who would find it cheaper to run their own car than pay taxes to find public transport (even though very few directly pay taxes of £32,000).

However to earn as a take home salary an extra £2,000 to pay for a car means earning about £2,800 more for a basic rate tax payer as:
£15,000 is a take home salary of £14,320
£17,800 is a take home salary of £16,335
Or
£15,000 (with 3% pension contribution) is £14,110
£17,880 (with 3% pension contribution) is £16,114

That's also not assuming things like student loans, or other deductions.

Also a car meaning that you can get a better job only works if you have enough money to buy a car in advance of having a job. (That may mean having enough money to qualify for a loan). Which is fine all the time you have that better job, however as soon as you don't then it's a burden.

There's also the possibility that it stifles business development, in that someone considering starting their own business needs to personally make more money, whilst if public transport was free (as long as society as a whole was making enough) then individuals would be more able to take the risks to start a business.

It's the same argument as to why we should have the NHS, as if healthcare was linked to employment, then an individual is less likely to set up a business as they would have to self fund their health insurance, adding to their personal costs they need to have.

 

[yorksrob]

Lots of potentially decent towns are ruined by too much traffic IMO.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

As I've previously highlighted the government could provide all public transport for free for the cost of £1,000 per tax payer (current government cost per tax payer £32,000). This compares with the average cost of car ownership of over £3,600 per year.

ALL public transport? So you're suggesting that, if, say, a person living in London wants to go on holiday in the Lake District, they should be able to take the Avanti train to Oxenholme completely free? Have you thought about the impact this would have on those trains - which even with today's high fares very often leave London jam-packed with scarcely a single seat free - at least until the train reaches Preston 2 hours later when the train empties a bit. The result of free fares would likely be that no-one would be able to board those trains at all unless they'd booked about 3 months in advance, so you would actually be forcing people who currently use the train to travel on that route at shorter notice to drive instead. The result would be increased congestion and far more pollution along the M6 because more people would be travelling (to take advantage of the free rail travel) but there isn't actually any capacity to accommodate those extra people on the trains - so they'd end up driving.

Same story on the ECML.

I totally agree with you about the harm cars cause, but making all public transport free is not the answer.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't believe the economy would be much smaller if cars didn't exist.

You are entitled to your opinion. In this world of no cars, are there no vans or HGVs either? If so, how does ‘stuff’ move around the country ?

And what about buses, or dustbin lorries, or fire engines, or ambulances?

Lots of potentially decent towns are ruined by too much traffic IMO.

Agreed.

Lots aren’t though (see central York, for example).

That is a matter of policy for local politicians.

 

[yorksrob]

Agreed.

Lots aren’t though (see central York, for example).

That is a matter of policy for local politicians.

You'd have to be doing something pretty spectacular to ruin York though !

 

[Technologist]

I agree that in theory, if you could build a train for optimal comfort and a bus for optimal comfort and compare, the train would beat the bus. The train also has the advantage that you are more likely to be able to bring a bike on it if you need one for ongoing transport. In the UK, it is extremely unlikely we are going to ever get trains even approaching optimal comfort (or the best examples on the continent) so we are left with the status quo which is a bit of a lottery as to the comfort level, either by train or bus. Local bus journeys around my part of SE England tend to be uncomfortable due to the poor state of the roads and the rattly nature of some buses, fortunately I very rarely need to use bus services.

Sorry you think that all else being equal something that runs on steel wheels will have better ride quality than something that runs on rubber wheels?

There is no technical reason why a bus couldn’t have fully independent suspension with Multimatic TASV dampers. Which run on a smooth road would essentially give you perfect ride quality and even lean you into corners.

A bus is a large vehicle it should in theory be able to offer a better ride than a car as the wheel base is long and the ratio of sprung to unsprung mass can be higher on a larger vehicle.

The fact that it doesn’t is because cars are bought by the owner and buses are bought by the procurement department of a bus company. How many live axles do you find on a modern car.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You are entitled to your opinion. In this world of no cars, are there no vans or HGVs either? If so, how does ‘stuff’ move around the country ?

And what about buses, or dustbin lorries, or fire engines, or ambulances?

I think that's up to you to determine if there are no vans or HGVs etc. in this hypothetical World without cars. It was after all you who brought up the suggestion of a World in which cars didn't exist (in post #627) Since the context is a discussion about getting people to use cars less, I assumed you meant, private cars were not used, but buses and HGVs and all 'public' road vehicles still exist - and that was the sense in which I answered.

 

[yorksrob]

Sorry you think that all else being equal something that runs on steel wheels will have better ride quality than something that runs on rubber wheels?

There is no technical reason why a bus couldn’t have fully independent suspension with Multimatic TASV dampers. Which run on a smooth road would essentially give you perfect ride quality and even lean you into corners.

A bus is a large vehicle it should in theory be able to offer a better ride than a car as the wheel base is long and the ratio of sprung to unsprung mass can be higher on a larger vehicle.

The fact that it doesn’t is because cars are bought by the owner and buses are bought by the procurement department of a bus company. How many live axles do you find on a modern car.

It should in theory, but never seems to add up in reality.

Passengers choose based on the reality on the ground.

 

[stevieinselby]

Sorry you think that all else being equal something that runs on steel wheels will have better ride quality than something that runs on rubber wheels?

It depends what you mean by "all else being equal". In the real world, rails are maintained to a higher standard than roads, because there are much more serious safety concerns about rails in poor condition than roads in poor condition. So your steel wheels running on steel rails will typically have a smoother ride than rubber tyres bumping over rutted and pot-holed tarmac.

 

[Egg Centric]

Sorry you think that all else being equal something that runs on steel wheels will have better ride quality than something that runs on rubber wheels?

There is no technical reason why a bus couldn’t have fully independent suspension with Multimatic TASV dampers. Which run on a smooth road would essentially give you perfect ride quality and even lean you into corners.

A bus is a large vehicle it should in theory be able to offer a better ride than a car as the wheel base is long and the ratio of sprung to unsprung mass can be higher on a larger vehicle.

The fact that it doesn’t is because cars are bought by the owner and buses are bought by the procurement department of a bus company. How many live axles do you find on a modern car.

Ride quality, as perceived by passengers, is as much about acceleration/jerk (including lateral) as it is about the literal "ride quality". Because of the physical limitations on acceleration and braking and the ideal curves that metal rails bring trains are one heck of a lot smoother than buses and outside of guided busways or motorways it's hard to see a way that would change

 

[al78]

Sorry you think that all else being equal something that runs on steel wheels will have better ride quality than something that runs on rubber wheels?

There is no technical reason why a bus couldn’t have fully independent suspension with Multimatic TASV dampers. Which run on a smooth road would essentially give you perfect ride quality and even lean you into corners.

A bus is a large vehicle it should in theory be able to offer a better ride than a car as the wheel base is long and the ratio of sprung to unsprung mass can be higher on a larger vehicle.

The fact that it doesn’t is because cars are bought by the owner and buses are bought by the procurement department of a bus company. How many live axles do you find on a modern car.

My thinking is that the ride quality of a bus is going to be determined by the quality of the road, which in places is awful. The stretch of the M6 north of Birmingham between the M42 and the M5 junctions being one example: thump, thump thump thump, thump, admittedly that was in my car.

 

[Bald Rick]

The stretch of the M6 north of Birmingham between the M42 and the M5 junctions being one example: thump, thump thump thump, thump, admittedly that was in my car.

That is because almost all of it is on Viaduct, and the ‘thumps’ are the expansion joints. It’s been like that since it opened in 1972 (and the joints have been renewed at least twice to my knowlegde).

 

[Mag_seven]

Whilst we appreciate that this is a speculative thread we do seem to be drifting off topic somewhat so if we could get back to discussing the sacrificing of rural routes then that would be great.

 

[al78]

Lots of potentially decent towns are ruined by too much traffic IMO.

<Cough> Horsham </Cough>

I've lived there for 23 years and in that time it has turned from a nice market town into yet another traffic choked clone of most other UK urban areas. This is particularly notable whenever they need to do one of their month long roadworks on one of the primary roads around the town.

Horsham isn't alone, last time I went for a job interview in Exeter outside of the peak rush hour the roads were rammed.

 

[yorksrob]

<Cough> Horsham </Cough>

I've lived there for 23 years and in that time it has turned from a nice market town into yet another traffic choked clone of most other UK urban areas. This is particularly notable whenever they need to do one of their month long roadworks on one of the primary roads around the town.

Horsham isn't alone, last time I went for a job interview in Exeter outside of the peak rush hour the roads were rammed.

I must admit, I've not visited Horsham. At least it has a decent railway service (I would have said good, however the Shoreham and Guildford lines are missing).

 

[al78]

I must admit, I've not visited Horsham. At least it has a decent railway service (I would have said good, however the Shoreham and Guildford lines are missing).

To be fair it is a nice town structurally but the traffic much of the time is awful. Much of the reason it has got worse is due to new housing and therefore more residents but the road network hasn't expanded to accommodate more vehicles (they just stick traffic lights on all the bypass roundabouts instead) and because it is on the edge of the London commuter belt, at least some of the housing is cheap by SE England standards (that is why I can afford to live there).

Sorry, back on topic, isn't the suggestion of sacrificing some rural routes to free up money to be spent elsewhere on the network essentially Beeching version II?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry, back on topic, isn't the suggestion of sacrificing some rural routes to free up money to be spent elsewhere on the network essentially Beeching version II?

I guess it depends a bit on how you interpret the suggestion - it is after all, speculative. But Beeching was designed and implemented in order to reduce the subsidy spent on railways (and perhaps in the vain hope of reducing the subsidy to zero), explicitly with the assumption that doing so would reduce the mileage travelled on the railways. That doesn't seem to me like the same thing as closing some lines with the specific aim of spending the money saved on improving other lines (and therefore, presumably, not reducing the subsidy to rail).

 

[al78]

I guess it depends a bit on how you interpret the suggestion - it is after all, speculative. But Beeching was designed and implemented in order to reduce the subsidy spent on railways (and perhaps in the vain hope of reducing the subsidy to zero), explicitly with the assumption that doing so would reduce the mileage travelled on the railways. That doesn't seem to me like the same thing as closing some lines with the specific aim of spending the money saved on improving other lines (and therefore, presumably, not reducing the subsidy to rail).

The motivation might be different but the effect would be similar, some people living in more sparsely populated areas losing their rail service. My understanding of the Beeching cuts was that rural loss making lines were to be substituted with bus routes which are cheaper to run than trains and in a sense more suitable as a train is a very inefficient way of transporting a few people at a time. Trains work best when you have a lot of people in one place all wanting to go to similar places e.g. the radial London commuter routes.

I think this comes down to a discussion of how much we compromise between money, quality of life of a subset of people and the bigger picture. I can see the argument for replacing lightly used rail routes with bus services, but if they are lightly used, which private operator is going to be willing to take them on? Do we care if a small percentage of the population lose a public transport service if the result of that is more money can be invested where it will benefit a lot more people? Do people bear responsibility for living in a sparsely populated area which is difficult and inefficient to serve with public transport? Will closing some routes make it harder to divert trains around line closures (e.g. SE England when the Brighton main line is shut)? Is efficiency a good thing if it comes at the expense of robustness? As far as the bigger picture is concerned, we should be asking ourselves why, as one of the world's wealthiest countries, do we seem to forever be snip snip cost cutting at the expense of a not always insignificant subset of the population? Why is it so expensive and time consuming to get anything significant built and running, and sometimes a failure (e.g. HS2)? Do we want to emulate car-is-king America where public transport provision is little more than lip service?

 

[The Ham]

ALL public transport? So you're suggesting that, if, say, a person living in London wants to go on holiday in the Lake District, they should be able to take the Avanti train to Oxenholme completely free? Have you thought about the impact this would have on those trains - which even with today's high fares very often leave London jam-packed with scarcely a single seat free - at least until the train reaches Preston 2 hours later when the train empties a bit. The result of free fares would likely be that no-one would be able to board those trains at all unless they'd booked about 3 months in advance, so you would actually be forcing people who currently use the train to travel on that route at shorter notice to drive instead. The result would be increased congestion and far more pollution along the M6 because more people would be travelling (to take advantage of the free rail travel) but there isn't actually any capacity to accommodate those extra people on the trains - so they'd end up driving.

Same story on the ECML.

I totally agree with you about the harm cars cause, but making all public transport free is not the answer.

Generally the issue with road capacity isn't due to people travelling long distance, but rather a lot of people travelling short distances.

The person talking about Horsham, is a good example, whilst there'll be people driving through there to go to other places, generally a lot of traffic movements undertaken by people are less than 10 miles.

The average person travels a little less than 6,000 miles a year and undertakes about 930 journeys a year, that's about 6 miles on average.

The number of trips each person makes which are over 100 miles is fairly low.

Whilst there's 1,062 miles travelled per person on average which is over 100 miles, at most that's 10 such journeys (note that to go somewhere and then come back counts as two journeys), however if someone does around 240 miles each way, then they would nearly use up half the average on one round trip.

Even if you were to double the numbers long distance travel isn't going to be a significant issue.

The thing with travel of over about 3 hours is that you are starting to get into the realms of it being an overnight stay rather a day trip.

Based on the assumption of being awake for 16 hours and it taking an hour from bed to being on a train and from getting off a train to back to bed as well as 7 hours of travel (3.5 hours from Euston to Oxenholme)would just about leave 7 hours of day - assuming everything goes smoothly.

Yes there would be an increase in people doing it, but probably not all that many. Looking for a midweek day in August you can get to Oxenholme for about 13:30, then leave there at 20:40 for about £70 currently.

If you're not doing a day trip then places to stay will act as a limiting factor (I doubt there's a lot of spare accommodation in August in the Lakes).

Another factor is that people have things that get in the way of doing things they like all the time, so for a lot of people they're unlikely to do much more than they currently do.

We have family 240 miles away, we can afford to go there whenever we like, we tend to still only go about 6 times a year because otherwise we wouldn't get anything else done.

Also, with other options of day trips by rail closer to London, people won't just all go to the furthest flung places.

Yes you might want to exclude long distance rail travel from being totally free, you may exclude rail (at least to begin with), or there maybe other things you may consider.

For example, you would need to look at increasing capacity (some like XC having 9 or even 11 coach trains could be a fairly easy win to create a lot of capacity).

However, the bottom line is often the travel cost maybe less of a factor than other "costs" (the cost of the time to make the journey, the cost of not doing your other tasks, the available/cost of accommodation, the ability to transport what you need, the cost of food out of the house, etc.).

 

[GlitterUnicorn]

The motivation might be different but the effect would be similar, some people living in more sparsely populated areas losing their rail service. My understanding of the Beeching cuts was that rural loss making lines were to be substituted with bus routes which are cheaper to run than trains and in a sense more suitable as a train is a very inefficient way of transporting a few people at a time. Trains work best when you have a lot of people in one place all wanting to go to similar places e.g. the radial London commuter routes.

I don’t think the motivation is very different. It’s just economics.

Beeching saw profit and loss as the most important factor, and underestimated social value and benefits to local businesses that you can’t easily put a cash value on.

We’re better at understanding social value now, but a lot of the value of these rural routes is pretty intangible. We have to decide what we do and don’t value.

At the risk of sounding too much like an enthusiast, I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with the idea of subsidising a loss making route on the basis that it’s beautiful and should be cherished. I don’t think that’s an entirely invalid argument if someone wanted to make it.

 

[Egg Centric]

At the risk of sounding too much like an enthusiast, I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with the idea of subsidising a loss making route on the basis that it’s beautiful and should be cherished. I don’t think that’s an entirely invalid argument if someone wanted to make it.

It's an incredibly valid argument and we mustn't be shy to make it because the "social value" argument is (despite some here who consistently valiantly make it without showing their workings) doomed for so many of these lines now with increasing wages, safety standards, and general mobility. And that's only going to get worse.

This also btw means that - paradoxically - modernising some lines in terms of signalling/stock/etc is a false economy. If you end up with a soulless battery powered bus on rails then there really is no point in the railway. I think it'd be better if the far north line were currently a class 31 + rake of mk2s. Wouldn't cost much more and would have a lot more soul.

I am very afraid of future continuing attempts to justify these lines focusing in on their transport/social benefits - it's going to end badly one of these days. Imagine if the next government is Reform. Which is going to work better - nonsense economics claims, or nostalgia to a Britain just far enough from living memory that the disadvantages are forgotten? Think chaps!

 

[Bletchleyite]

This also btw means that - paradoxically - modernising some lines in terms of signalling/stock/etc is a false economy. If you end up with a soulless battery powered bus on rails then there really is no point in the railway. I think it'd be better if the far north line were currently a class 31 + rake of mk2s. Wouldn't cost much more and would have a lot more soul.

I see the opposite on the Conwy Valley, where there is now a very Swiss type feel with the 197s and not a downbeat feeling of the little line that's abandoned with 40 year old junk and might close next week.

I am very afraid of future continuing attempts to justify these lines focusing in on their transport/social benefits - it's going to end badly one of these days. Imagine if the next government is Reform. Which is going to work better - nonsense economics claims, or nostalgia to a Britain just far enough from living memory that the disadvantages are forgotten? Think chaps!

The mainstream parties are unlikely to do much with the railway, but Reform are pro car so I could see them kicking off another mini Serpell, yes.

 

[InkyScrolls]

It's an incredibly valid argument and we mustn't be shy to make it because the "social value" argument is (despite some here who consistently valiantly make it without showing their workings) doomed for so many of these lines now with increasing wages, safety standards, and general mobility. And that's only going to get worse.

This also btw means that - paradoxically - modernising some lines in terms of signalling/stock/etc is a false economy. If you end up with a soulless battery powered bus on rails then there really is no point in the railway. I think it'd be better if the far north line were currently a class 31 + rake of mk2s. Wouldn't cost much more and would have a lot more soul.

I am very afraid of future continuing attempts to justify these lines focusing in on their transport/social benefits - it's going to end badly one of these days. Imagine if the next government is Reform. Which is going to work better - nonsense economics claims, or nostalgia to a Britain just far enough from living memory that the disadvantages are forgotten? Think chaps!

I'm not sure the point of the railway is to have "soul".

 

[yorksrob]

It's an incredibly valid argument and we mustn't be shy to make it because the "social value" argument is (despite some here who consistently valiantly make it without showing their workings) doomed for so many of these lines now with increasing wages, safety standards, and general mobility. And that's only going to get worse.

This also btw means that - paradoxically - modernising some lines in terms of signalling/stock/etc is a false economy. If you end up with a soulless battery powered bus on rails then there really is no point in the railway. I think it'd be better if the far north line were currently a class 31 + rake of mk2s. Wouldn't cost much more and would have a lot more soul.

I am very afraid of future continuing attempts to justify these lines focusing in on their transport/social benefits - it's going to end badly one of these days. Imagine if the next government is Reform. Which is going to work better - nonsense economics claims, or nostalgia to a Britain just far enough from living memory that the disadvantages are forgotten? Think chaps!

You have to remember that the Settle and Carlisle line wasn't saved by outside enthusiasts because of the beautiful scenery. It was saved by the local people because of the perceived value to their communities.

The reality is that you're never going to save a line purely on the basis that its beautiful. There will have to be some social and economic benefit.

I'm not sure about the Far North so much, however around here, the locals of these routes will often tell you how important these routes are to the community, and they're the ones who know

I see the opposite on the Conwy Valley, where there is now a very Swiss type feel with the 197s and not a downbeat feeling of the little line that's abandoned with 40 year old junk and might close next week.



The mainstream parties are unlikely to do much with the railway, but Reform are pro car so I could see them kicking off another mini Serpell, yes.

Interesting one. Reform might go down the Serpell route. On the other hand, a lot of their voter base seem to be older or Northern working class, so mass railway closures may be toxic to them.

I wouldn't want to risk it though.

 

[stuu]

This also btw means that - paradoxically - modernising some lines in terms of signalling/stock/etc is a false economy. If you end up with a soulless battery powered bus on rails then there really is no point in the railway. I think it'd be better if the far north line were currently a class 31 + rake of mk2s. Wouldn't cost much more and would have a lot more soul.

What percentage of the passengers on any train are remotely interested in "soul"? I would suggest the enormous majority of passengers want a reliable service in reasonable degree of comfort, and couldn't care less what is powering it.

 

[35B]

What percentage of the passengers on any train are remotely interested in "soul"? I would suggest the enormous majority of passengers want a reliable service in reasonable degree of comfort, and couldn't care less what is powering it.

I agree completely. The purpose of the railway is to provide transport; the "soul" of the vehicle is a nebulous concept that is very dependent on the observer and the timing. I grew up on the inner suburban lines out of Waterloo, and am mourning the impending departure of the 455s despite their being a very industrial people mover with few visual or other merits. I would never suggest that they have "soul", or that the SUBs that preceded them (and which arguably did) should somehow have been retained.

There are many who would argue that Mk1s, let alone Mk2s, are "soulless", and plenty more who'd be vehemently against the noise of an EE 12SVT (or the 12CSVT of the cl. 37s). The 158s, soulless as they are, reduce the operating costs of this line significantly, and provide relative comfort (including the air-conditioning that is a modern day necessity).

 

[Bletchleyite]

What percentage of the passengers on any train are remotely interested in "soul"? I would suggest the enormous majority of passengers want a reliable service in reasonable degree of comfort, and couldn't care less what is powering it.

As noted I think people on the Conwy Valley prefer the new 197s over rotting 150s or even more rotting 101s. It's a mode of transport, not a preserved line.