Have Trains had their day?

[Bletchleyite]

That the particular mechanical kerb guidance system used doesn't allow vehicles to reverse out of trouble makes the system less resilient in that respect to rail based modes. On the other hand every 'level crossing' with an ordinary road is a place a bus can use as a junction to leave the guideway in an emergency. Swings and roundabouts.

And because it's a bus operation, if a bus gets stuck you just open the doors and tell people they can get off. No waiting 3 hours for rescue.

 

[PTR 444]

The difference being, though, that you can route buses around such a blockage on regular roads. Try running a Class 150 down the A-whatever-it-is.

Except that once a bus is already on the blocked section, there’s no way out (although as alluded to, passengers can evacuate much easier than they could on a train).

 

[HSTEd]

Except that once a bus is already on the blocked section, there’s no way out (although as alluded to, passengers can evacuate much easier than they could on a train).

A section of the guideway being out of action is unlikely to lead to the sorts of hours of mass disruption seen on the railway. Trapped buses are trapped, yes, but passengers can far more easily be evacuated onto buses on the other guideway or along the guideway to an access point. Bus service can resume relatively rapidly, albeit without the trapped vehicles, and a support vehicle can likely reach the broken bus and tow it out far more easily than a similar operation can be conducted on the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A section of the guideway being out of action is unlikely to lead to the sorts of hours of mass disruption seen on the railway. Trapped buses are trapped, yes, but passengers can far more easily be evacuated onto buses on the other guideway or along the guideway to an access point. Bus service can resume relatively rapidly, albeit without the trapped vehicles, and a support vehicle can likely reach the broken bus and tow it out far more easily than a similar operation can be conducted on the railway.

And in essence that's caused by one thing that is often the elephant in the room on these matters - that we accept a substantially lower safety standard for roads (a busway is legally a road) than rail.

There are other countries where if your train breaks down you just get off.

 

[HSTEd]

And in essence that's caused by one thing that is often the elephant in the room on these matters - that we accept a substantially lower safety standard for roads (a busway is legally a road) than rail.

There are other countries where if your train breaks down you just get off.

Ultimately the side of a busway is a much safer place to be than the side of a British railway.
Normally busways are provided with proper walking paths besides them, or at least grassy surfaces.

A railway has few if any walkways and is mostly made up of ballast that shifts under your feet and has trip hazards all over the place.
And a train is far less able to stop after seeing people in the track than a bus is.

A railway comparable to a busway would have slab track, continuous evacuation walkways alongside and likely have all trains fitted with track brakes.
There is essentially zero chance that such railways will be common in my lifetime, given the collapse of the high speed rail programme.

 

[PacerTrain142]

Your idea is something I’ve thought about before. The government from the 1980’s would have probably loved to implement your idea. Instead, to save money, they compromised and chose to replace old DMU’s with a bus-like train called a pacer, which, until quite recently were still being used on many parts of the rail network. They were cheap to run, saving money and reducing fares for passengers and some argue saved some branch lines from closing down. They have an interesting history and if you want to find out more about them then there’s plenty of info available on the internet.

But I’ve sometimes thought. Why not take it a step further and convert some railways to busways (or just private tarmac high speed roadways) or maybe light rail/tramways?

It would be a poor solution for busy commuter routes like say London to Brighton where you need long trains to transport high volumes of people, or for high speed routes with large passenger numbers and big gaps between stations, but I think it would be a good cost-effective solution for routes with low speed limits, small passenger numbers and smaller gaps between stations. Routes like my locale (Colne - Preston), Preston - Ormskirk, Settle - Carlisle and Darlington - Bishop Auckland.

Routes where there’s only 1 train per hour (or even less), usually consisting of a 2 car sprinter unit (or even a 1 car 153) and previously a class 142 pacer train (essentially a bus on rails) and only a small handful of passengers. For these lines, converting it to a busway/tramway, or even just building new cheap rail buses would be a great cost effective solution.

You could also increase the frequency to a bus or tram every half hourly (or even quarter hourly) which would not be viable with heavy rail. I think for routes like this, I don’t think it would be any slower either due to the low speed limits, smaller distance between stations and the slow acceleration of diesel sprinter trains. If anything, it might actually be quicker, due to the faster acceleration and better braking of buses. Buses can go faster round curves too, whereas trains can only safely go round tight curves at 10-20 mph.

They converted the Oldham Loop in Manchester from heavy rail into a tramway about 15 years ago and it was a big success (having previously been operated by pacer trains with a lot of squealing and bouncing) so I don’t see why other routes can’t do the same.

Why are such motorised vehicles allowed on public pedestrian pavements when electric scooters and boards with a sentient being aboard (well a teenager anyway) are not?

To be honest, I don’t have a problem with people who ride electric scooters, skateboards or push bikes on the pavement, as long as they’re being careful and not going at 90 miles an hour. It’s one of those things that is technically illegal (like not cleaning up after a dog, which is a much bigger issue) but is never or rarely enforced. E-scooters are a great way to commute to work but many public transport operators are now reluctant to accept them for some reason, even though many of them can be folded up and take up less space than a bike.

 

[Krokodil]

The difference being, though, that you can route buses around such a blockage on regular roads. Try running a Class 150 down the A-whatever-it-is.

Here you go:

[Image shows a class 158 passing Berwyn station - on the road!!]

but many public transport operators are now reluctant to accept them for some reason, even though many of them can be folded up and take up less space than a bike.

There are a lot of dodgy imports which have a habit of catching fire.

 

[deltic08]

I have sometimes thought about the practicality of converting railways to busways and concluded it would just not be as good as railways at transporting large number of people. Theoretically, a single carriageway busway could accommodate 900 buses an hour, however stations and junctions would reduce that considerably, perhaps to something like 200 buses an hour. 200 buses carrying 50 passengers equates to 10,000 passengers an hour. A railway with 18 trains per hour each carrying 1,000 passengers, can carry 18,000 passengers, almost double that of the busway.

Buses also will never be as fast as trains. A non stop bus with an average speed of 60 mph would take approx 7 hours to travel to London to Edinburgh, whereas a train today can do it in four and half hours.

Longer term, driverless cars I think will pose somewhat of a threat to trains, particularly for shorter journeys, however realistically I can’t see them becoming common until the 2040’s as there are a number of issues with them to iron out. Even when they do start becoming common, the issue of congestion will still there and they will still take a lot longer than trains.

900 buses an hour one every 4 seconds apart. Imagine travelling at 60mph only four second apart, impossible. No bus would be able to stop without all 900 coming to a stop on a single carriageway busway increasing commute time extensively.
It would take 2 minutes to empty 50 passengers and fill again. The queue of backed up buses waiting for 900x2 minutes to empty and fill again would be 8 miles long. I make it a waiting time of 30 hours which is a day and a half. 200 buses an hour would be a queue 10 hours waiting for the last bus to terminate. Bonkers of an idea.

 

[778]

This could sound antagonistic but it’s absolutely not meant to be, Have Trains had their day?

Commuter lines and Intercity services probably have a good future as well as long distance bulk freight trains, but country branchlines and rural railways will probably become obsolete in the long term.

 

[miklcct]

A railway comparable to a busway would have slab track, continuous evacuation walkways alongside and likely have all trains fitted with track brakes.
There is essentially zero chance that such railways will be common in my lifetime, given the collapse of the high speed rail programme.

Tuen Ma Line in Hong Kong MTR is a railway with slab track and continuous evacuation walkways on viaducts and in tunnels. I am not sure if it is the truth but I have heard that new 25kV lines in Hong Kong require off-track evacuation as a safety measure.

 

[PacerTrain142]

900 buses an hour one every 4 seconds apart. Imagine travelling at 60mph only four second apart, impossible. No bus would be able to stop without all 900 coming to a stop on a single carriageway busway increasing commute time extensively.
It would take 2 minutes to empty 50 passengers and fill again. The queue of backed up buses waiting for 900x2 minutes to empty and fill again would be 8 miles long. I make it a waiting time of 30 hours which is a day and a half. 200 buses an hour would be a queue 10 hours waiting for the last bus to terminate. Bonkers of an idea.

I agree it would not work for busy routes, but for quiet shuttle routes like Preston to Ormskirk, Cardiff Bay to Cardiff Queen Street or Darlington to Bishop Auckland, it would work really well. All those routes used to be served by what was essentially a bus on rails anyway.