Why US commuter rail is so bad...

[SemaphoreSam]

The UK had Mr. Marples (a criminal favouring car/lorry interests over rail) and Dr. Beeching, tasked with culling unnecessary railways from British Rail; in the States we had collusion on a much larger scale to destroy commuter rail (especially well-run electrical tram operations, which were decimated). Few people know how despicable and criminal this was...see the below.

 

[gordonthemoron]

As highlighted by Who framed Roger Rabbit

 

[Taunton]

Extraordinary comments. Beeching (appointed by Marples) proposed getting rid of a lot of stuff which was outmoded and had been since cars became practical, and certainly since the bus became wide-reaching in the 1930s. He also proposed (and for some reason this is constantly glossed over) major new investments in developing proper heavy flows that suited the railway. Merry-go-Round for coal. Freightliners. Frequent, High speed Inter-City. All these came from the various other Beeching reports. They also required a lot of capital investment, which the government gave.

It was Beeching's predecessors who had ordered large numbers of oddball underpowered diesels from every Tom-Dick-and-Harry manufacturer, including for example the 22 trial railbuses from no less than 5 different manufacturers for where traffic levels were so low the railway just did not make sense, and which mostly ran as near-empty stock anyway, as the base passenger load had abandoned the 5-a-day country railway at obscure country stations for the every half-hour bus from the High Street a generation beforehand.

 

[yorksrob]

Extraordinary comments. Beeching (appointed by Marples) proposed getting rid of a lot of stuff which was outmoded and had been since cars became practical, and certainly since the bus became wide-reaching in the 1930s. He also proposed (and for some reason this is constantly glossed over) major new investments in developing proper heavy flows that suited the railway. Merry-go-Round for coal. Freightliners. Frequent, High speed Inter-City. All these came from the various other Beeching reports. They also required a lot of capital investment, which the government gave.

It was Beeching who promoted the disastrous policy of running down and removing "duplicate" routes, many of which served towns in their own right, and which has damaged the resilience of the network ever since.

He was too obsessed with here today, gone tomorrow freight flows and not concerned enough with developing the basic railway concept.

It's hard to see what was "extraordinary" in the opening post. Beeching was employed to cull railway lines and Marples did favour road interests over rail.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Oh dear. A 22-year old documentary consisting almost entirely of conspiracy theory. And ignoring the wider social factors which make the USA so utterly different from other countries. It is what it is, a country in love with its cars.

 

[ac6000cw]

Extraordinary comments. Beeching (appointed by Marples) proposed getting rid of a lot of stuff which was outmoded and had been since cars became practical, and certainly since the bus became wide-reaching in the 1930s. He also proposed (and for some reason this is constantly glossed over) major new investments in developing proper heavy flows that suited the railway. Merry-go-Round for coal. Freightliners. Frequent, High speed Inter-City. All these came from the various other Beeching reports. They also required a lot of capital investment, which the government gave.

It was Beeching's predecessors who had ordered large numbers of oddball underpowered diesels from every Tom-Dick-and-Harry manufacturer, including for example the 22 trial railbuses from no less than 5 different manufacturers for where traffic levels were so low the railway just did not make sense, and which mostly ran as near-empty stock anyway, as the base passenger load had abandoned the 5-a-day country railway at obscure country stations for the every half-hour bus from the High Street a generation beforehand.

Spot on - fully agree.

 

[DelW]

While it's true that Ernest Marples' background was in road construction, and that he saw motorways rather than railways as the future, that was the general view at the time, and to call him a criminal is unwarranted. The railways of those days were not the 'golden age' that nostalgia sometimes suggests, most trains in the late 1950s were slow, dirty and infrequent, and timetables often reflected traffic patterns that had changed a generation earlier. Traffic congestion on motorways was unknown and speeds were unrestricted, so motorway travel was often much quicker than the equivalent train journey.

When I was a child in the 1950s my parents and I went on holiday by train each summer. While Birmingham to London was reasonably quick at (from memory) about 2 & 1/2 hours, a journey from Birmingham to Norfolk or to the South Coast took most of a day, often with several changes. I also remember a journey to Scotland by overnight (non-sleeper) train which left New Street mid evening and didn't reach Glasgow until around 5 or 6 am. With 8 of us in a compartment it was one of the most uncomfortable nights I've ever spent.

 

[SemaphoreSam]

Yeah, we love our cars...Thanks, General Motors! Great gains in last 20 years in commuter patterns.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/06/yep-l/1088205001/

As to the shady Mr. Marples not being a criminal, look at his Wikipedia reference. Sam

 

[Muzer]

It's obvious Marples was above board, because he sold his shares in the road building industry when he became transport secretary.

To his wife.

 

[yorksrob]

When I was a child in the 1950s my parents and I went on holiday by train each summer. While Birmingham to London was reasonably quick at (from memory) about 2 & 1/2 hours, a journey from Birmingham to Norfolk or to the South Coast took most of a day, often with several changes. I also remember a journey to Scotland by overnight (non-sleeper) train which left New Street mid evening and didn't reach Glasgow until around 5 or 6 am. With 8 of us in a compartment it was one of the most uncomfortable nights I've ever spent.

At least you could actually get there on the train then.

Try getting to Gorleston on Sea, Seaton, or Padstow on the train for your holidays (or a daytrip) now.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Yeah, we love our cars...Thanks, General Motors! Great gains in last 20 years in commuter patterns.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/06/yep-l/1088205001/

As to the shady Mr. Marples not being a criminal, look at his Wikipedia reference. Sam

For some reason that USA Today article doesn't bother linking to the report it quotes from. So I found it for myself.

http://inrix.com/scorecard/

Los Angeles being no.1 is no surprise but the predominance of low density housing throughout that region makes high levels of car usage almost inevitable. Yet no.2 is Moscow, a city with a decent Metro system and plenty of suburban rail routes. No.3 is New York which doesn't do too badly for metro or suburban rail service. London comes in at no.7 despite many in this country feeling that it gets too much spent on its public transport. The Russian cities of Magnitogorsk and Yurga are 8 and 9 though I suspect few will have heard of them, particularly the latter. Even Paris, often held up as an example of how urban transport should be, is no.12. Absolutely no mention of Beijing, Shanghai, Manila, Mumbai, Kolkatta, etc. All the INRIX report demonstrates is that urbanisation has drawbacks.

At least you could actually get there on the train then.

Try getting to Gorleston on Sea, Seaton, or Padstow on the train for your holidays (or a daytrip) now.

Given that people today are far more likely to want to go to the likes of Benidorm or Magaluf I'm not sure there's much point in worrying about the volume of people going to minor English resorts. Just niche markets now.

 

[yorksrob]

Given that people today are far more likely to want to go to the likes of Benidorm or Magaluf I'm not sure there's much point in worrying about the volume of people going to minor English resorts. Just niche markets now.

There are still plenty of people who travel to the British coast for a daytrip or a weekend (and in a few cases, longer).

 

[Bald Rick]

There are still plenty of people who travel to the British coast for a daytrip or a weekend (and in a few cases, longer).

Well yes, and I'm one of them.

But not, under any circumstances, to Gorleston on Sea.

 

[yorksrob]

Well yes, and I'm one of them.

But not, under any circumstances, to Gorleston on Sea.

Well, I wouldn't know myself as I've never had the chance to visit !

 

[DelW]

It's obvious Marples was above board, because he sold his shares in the road building industry when he became transport secretary.

To his wife.

He certainly wasn't the most moral of characters, but his only conviction was for drink-driving, which was much more commonplace then and regarded at the time as not much worse than a parking ticket.

Shovelling money into offshore tax havens is unfortunately just as rife among the Establishment now as in the past, no doubt including some current members of the House of Lords.

Though I'm not sure why I'm defending him here, I certainly didn't support him or his policies at the time

 

[glbotu]

So, a couple of things jump out at me reading this thread. The first, is that there is scepticisc around the reality of the great American streetcar scandal. This is historical fact, and is well documented The second, is that the road lobby was frighteningly powerful, to the point where town planning was influenced by them, such that all new housing was built low density to encourage car purchase

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

So, a couple of things jump out at me reading this thread. The first, is that there is scepticisc around the reality of the great American streetcar scandal. This is historical fact, and is well documented The second, is that the road lobby was frighteningly powerful, to the point where town planning was influenced by them, such that all new housing was built low density to encourage car purchase

An interesting comment coming from a poster from a city well-known for having a distinct lack of high-density housing!

 

[Taunton]

So, a couple of things jump out at me reading this thread. The first, is that there is scepticisc around the reality of the great American streetcar scandal. This is historical fact, and is well documented The second, is that the road lobby was frighteningly powerful, to the point where town planning was influenced by them, such that all new housing was built low density to encourage car purchase

The whole "scandal" thing is generally pushed just by streetcar buffs. The fact is that, worldwide, city tramways disappeared in the 1950s (in particular), once buses had become reliable and cheap (and notably faster as well), cars had become widespread, and (point often missed) the capital plant of the systems became life-expired, because they had pretty much all started together, in the 1900-1920 period. The built layouts of cities and suburbia, driven to quite an extent by buses and cars, changed in a way that tramways could not keep up.

Sure there were a few exceptions. But this was the general trend. City tramways also disappeared at this time in MOST of the major urban areas of Britain, France, Australia, etc. They can't all have been conspired against by National City Lines.

 

[glbotu]

An interesting comment coming from a poster from a city well-known for having a distinct lack of high-density housing!

As designed by an American town planner.......

The whole "scandal" thing is generally pushed just by streetcar buffs. The fact is that, worldwide, city tramways disappeared in the 1950s (in particular), once buses had become reliable and cheap (and notably faster as well), cars had become widespread, and (point often missed) the capital plant of the systems became life-expired, because they had pretty much all started together, in the 1900-1920 period. The built layouts of cities and suburbia, driven to quite an extent by buses and cars, changed in a way that tramways could not keep up.

Sure there were a few exceptions. But this was the general trend. City tramways also disappeared at this time in MOST of the major urban areas of Britain, France, Australia, etc. They can't all have been conspired against by National City Lines.

It's very true that US cities had already started to replace their trams with buses well before the 'scandal', but the power of the road lobby in the states should not be underestimated. The reason the US has such strict jaywalking laws is because the road lobby pretty much petitioned to make it so to prevent drivers being liable for pedestrian accidents.

The more 'scandalous' part in my opinion is more the changing of zoning laws to push low density housing as well as strict separation of jobs, homes and entertainment.

 

[Taunton]

That zoning is a silly simplistic bureaucratic approach to make drawing plans easy (you can read Jane Jacobs if you want detail on this) is increasingly recognised. But that is society overall, not the tram scandal. And US cities where NCL did not buy up the tram company dispensed with trams on much the same timescale. The fact that tram and rail tracks have to be paid for out of fare revenue, whereas roads are provided at general public expense, and are there already, is just an overall efficiency. Likewise aviation and shipping do not need to pay for their overall route infrastructure, because there isn't any, they just need to pay for a bit at each end.

The fact is that the population generally likes low density housing over high, their own door-to-door transport over public transport, and such like. This can be seen worldwide, as societies become wealthier.

I don't buy the bit about jaywalking at all. In Britain you have to watch at a street corner for turning traffic. In the US they are required to give way to you. And they do. In Britain you need to accompany children on their way home across the road. In the US when the School Bus stops, everyone else stops.

 

[SemaphoreSam]

Eyes wide shut? Sam

 

[DuncanS]

Try getting to Padstow on the train for your holidays (or a daytrip) now.

I flew to Newquay and then got the bus - was cheaper and about 11 hours quicker than if I'd taken the train and then bus

 

[gordonthemoron]

I thought the demise of trams in the UK was due to WWII war damage and electricity nationalisation?

 

[yorksrob]

I flew to Newquay and then got the bus - was cheaper and about 11 hours quicker than if I'd taken the train and then bus

I'm not really much of a flyer myself, however I'm interested that you got a bus from Newquay. Was that a quick journey and was it comparatively smooth ?

 

[DuncanS]

I'm not really much of a flyer myself, however I'm interested that you got a bus from Newquay. Was that a quick journey and was it comparatively smooth ?

It was a round the houses job via a lot of small villages, took about an hour and a quarter and it may just have been me travelling at different times but the return route was different (which caused confusion to a couple of people on the bus). It was a smaller bus, one of those minibus types that you normally see doing city centre routes.

The roads were fine.

 

[edwin_m]

I thought the demise of trams in the UK was due to WWII war damage and electricity nationalisation?

The main reason was that both the vehicles and the infrastructure were mostly built in the Edwardian era so were needing replacement by the 1930s, by which time reasonably economical and reliable motor buses were available and a new bus was more attractive than a 30-year-old tram. A few cities committed to modernising their tramways in that era, most cities decided to replace with buses or trolleybuses but not all had done so by 1939.

Most trams that were running in 1939 were still running in 1945 because replacement buses and the fuel for them were difficult to obtain in wartime, whereas electricity from domestic coal was relatively unaffected. Any damage was relatively easy to repair.

With the exception of Blackpool-Fleetwood all the tramway survivors of WW2 were gone by the early 60s for basically the same reasons as applied before the war, plus those that modernised in the 30s needing further spending a few decades later in an era where most cities planned to cater for unlimited car travel.

 

[yorksrob]

It was a round the houses job via a lot of small villages, took about an hour and a quarter and it may just have been me travelling at different times but the return route was different (which caused confusion to a couple of people on the bus). It was a smaller bus, one of those minibus types that you normally see doing city centre routes.

The roads were fine.

Ah cheers. The route from Bodmin Road seemed very undulating and not really suited to bus travel, so Newquay might be the better option for a long distance journey.