What are the railways in this country for?

[LNW-GW Joint]

There is only one purpose for the railway industry and that is to be as profitable as possible for its shareholders. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just naive.
But the railway industry in the UK makes a net loss you say - and that's why the UK taxpayers are being bled dry by the most byzantine operating structure ever dreamt up just to create that dividend for the fat cats at the top.
Sensible - No! Purposeful Ho Yus!

But the competition - the road (bus/coach), air and sea (ferry) sectors - seem to manage quite well outside government ownership and operation.

 

[Essan]

To ensure the British public always have at least thing to moan about. Every day of the year.

 

[Rail Blues]

. If a car goes through five owners before being scrapped, then the emission costs of construction and disposal are shared over five peo

But surely that's predicated on each of those five people not having a car before or after owning that one which probably won't be the case.

As an aside, this article is pretty interesting and suggests that the emissions on embodied energy in the car is equal to the emissions pumped out in use.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car

 

[Warwick]

There is a sweet distance for rail tavel - providing there are railway stations nearby. I live eighteen minutes walk from Penzance railway station - or about six minutes on the M6 bus.
Penzance to Plymouth? I'd drive it.
Penzance to Bristol? Debatable
Penzance to London? Take the train.
I'm off to Horsham for a very quick visit on Tuesday. Definitely the morning day train there via Reading and Dorking and Dorking, back on the sleeper via Victoria and Padders.
What must be borne in mind for the car is that it's door to destination travel at a time to suit.

 

[yorksrob]

But surely that's predicated on each of those five people not having a car before or after owning that one which probably won't be the case.

As an aside, this article is pretty interesting and suggests that the emissions on embodied energy in the car is equal to the emissions pumped out in use.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car

It's worth remembering that a train's 40 year lifespan will work in its favour in terms of embedded carbon.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

(Talking about being profitable..)

But the competition - the road (bus/coach), air and sea (ferry) sectors - seem to manage quite well outside government ownership and operation.

I would argue that the main reason for that those sectors receive substantial hidden subsidies, by virtue of not having to pay for much of the damage to the environment and to the lives of other people that they cause. This is most obviously the case for air, which pays next to no fuel duties, causes significant pollution high in the atmosphere and causes a massive noise nuisance near most airports. Sea doesn't cause the noise problems but still contributes to pollution as well has having a bad impact on marine life and pollution in the sea itself. Buses and coaches likewise cause some pollution and noise (albeit not as much as cars per journey) and also use a road network that is paid for out of public funds. They also get to use bus stops, bus-only lanes, bus stations, often have local authority support in publishing timetables etc. (I'm not sure whether and to what extent they have to pay for those). And of course many bus routes do receive direct subsidies too.

(To be clear, rail also receives similar hidden subsidies, although I would imagine not to anything like the same extent)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Three purposes:

Providing for high-capacity and fast long-distance travel
Allowing commuters to get to work
Enabling local journeys in a convenient way to solve many of the issues cars cause (congestion, financial, and environmental costs)

Also worth pointing out that rail can enable higher productivity because, provided you can get a seat, it's often possible to work on laptops or read/study on trains, in a way that's usually much more difficult in cars or buses.

 

[stut]

Allowing the vast majority of wealth to remain in London, to the detriment of the rest of the country.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

But the competition - the road (bus/coach), air and sea (ferry) sectors - seem to manage quite well outside government ownership and operation.

They each all receive a very significant indirect subsidy - for roads, the costs of maintaining roads and of policing them etc. is far less than what the users pay for using them (RFL, fuel duty, VAT). For air, airports and their surrounding infrastructure are often co-funded by Governments or councils (e.g. roads and rail links), plus the Government subsidises the CAA, air traffic control as well as fuel (as there's no VAT). For the ferry sector it's less so, but again a lot of the infrastructure is subsidised and they pay very little tax on their fuel.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Using up to 280 characters, what is the purpose of the railways?

It has three main purposes IMO:

1. To take people to and from work or education quickly and more efficiently than road transport can.
2. To make rural communities more connected to the outside world.
3. To enable faster, cheaper and/or more convenient medium and long-distance journeys for leisure and business travellers.

I think the mere fact that there is a rail network encourages people to make certain journeys - and things like rural lines are in some cases vital to making a longer journey viable by rail, thus meaning that the Intercity services would otherwise have considerably fewer passengers if all branch and less important lines were closed. I think the system must be considered as a whole rather than as individual lines or companies.

As for why I use the railways -

1. I like travelling.
2. A car is completely unaffordable for me as it has high initial and annual costs even if I don't use it (although this of course depends very much on things like your age and driving experience - I'm referring to insurance as the main annual cost).
3. It's often quicker than any other means of transport.
4. You can do other things whilst you're travelling - work, free time, sleep etc. You can obviously do none of those whilst driving, I get motion sickness in buses if I look down and in a plane there's rarely WiFi or mobile internet signal!

 

[Abpj17]

Allowing the vast majority of wealth to remain in London, to the detriment of the rest of the country.

How do you work that out? Several TOCs are owned overseas.

 

[furnessvale]

To transport people.

.................and freight!

 

[The Ham]

I have heard mixed statements on this (it is often said by those who are anti-public transport trying to counter green advocacy), but bear in mind that not everyone buys a new car. If a car goes through five owners before being scrapped, then the emission costs of construction and disposal are shared over five people. The problem is that many people need a car for a limited number of journeys which may not be practical by train, so will always own a car, then it comes down to the marginal reduction in emissions by them choosing to use the train over the car when they can on a per journey basis.

Depending on where you live depends on if you need to own a car for journeys that aren't possible by train.

I've been aware of people who owned child car seats but only ever used them in car club cars as most of their travel was possible by train, most of their shopping was delivered and they could use buses for going out of an evening.

The cost per mile of a car is very low if you ignore your fixed costs or you drive a lot of miles.

Very few people actually have an idea of their cost per mile. If you assume the following per year:
£500 insurance
£140 VED
£200 servicing
£1,000 purchase costs
£60 breakdown cover

£1,900 a year total.

That's quite a reasonable budget to spend on other transport modes. Yes it should be possible to get lower than that, but probably not by much.

Assuming that fuel costs are 10p a mile to get down to the 45p a mile you're looking at needing to drive 5,500 miles on a year (again you may get away with doing a bit less than that). To get down to 35p per mile you'd be needing to do about 7,600 miles (with a total cost of £2,660).

For a lot of people £2,500 would give you a reasonable season ticket and quite a lot of one of costs for other travel.

Even if you still need a car or could well be that you could just have one car rather than two.

 

[James James]

This assumes that if there were no passengers on the train because they chose to drive, the train wouldn't run. This is not really what happens in reality. A train might be empty or lightly loaded for part of its journey, but can fill up quickly once it stops at a popular station, or it reaches its terminal station and makes its journey back at peak time. If the choice for me is to drive or use a train carrying fresh air, then if the train is running regardless, then driving means both my car and the train are emitting pollution, whereas if I take the train, my car is idle and not emitting pollution. This argument holds as long as the number of trains running doesn't increase as demand increases (i.e. you just cram on more standing passengers, and the extra pollution from rail travel comes from transporting extra weight). This argument doesn't hold for aircraft since airlines do respond to increased passenger demand by flying more planes, I don't think this happens much on the rail network. The more people that are persuaded to choose the train over the car, the more efficient in terms of passenger miles per gallon the train becomes, and the less traffic there is on the roads, which makes road journeys faster and more fuel economical for those who have to drive. Cars are a very inefficient use of space, which is evident from the congestion in cities resulting from a lot of people all wanting to take one car each into a small area at the same time.

On top of this - lightly loaded trains are still sensible for enabling a public-transport based life in the first place. As soon as you force people to own a car (by not providing decent public transport), you've lost much more environmentally than you would by running a lightly loaded train, because that person will now most likely use acar for a larger proportion of their journeys. Without a car they might typically use that lightly loaded train to get to a station where they change to a very heavily loaded "efficient" service. Yes, the first train is super inefficient for its short journey, but those other trains are more efficient since they can carry even more passengers.

 

[furnessvale]

On top of this - lightly loaded trains are still sensible for enabling a public-transport based life in the first place. As soon as you force people to own a car (by not providing decent public transport), you've lost much more environmentally than you would by running a lightly loaded train, because that person will now most likely use acar for a larger proportion of their journeys. Without a car they might typically use that lightly loaded train to get to a station where they change to a very heavily loaded "efficient" service. Yes, the first train is super inefficient for its short journey, but those other trains are more efficient since they can carry even more passengers.

Cue Serpell, who believed he could curtail the GWML at Exeter, and everyone from west of there would use a car or bus to travel to Exeter and use the train from there!

 

[The_Engineer]

To carry as much freight as possible……

 

[Domh245]

Depending on where you live depends on if you need to own a car for journeys that aren't possible by train.

I've been aware of people who owned child car seats but only ever used them in car club cars as most of their travel was possible by train, most of their shopping was delivered and they could use buses for going out of an evening.

The cost per mile of a car is very low if you ignore your fixed costs or you drive a lot of miles.

Very few people actually have an idea of their cost per mile. If you assume the following per year:
£500 insurance
£140 VED
£200 servicing
£1,000 purchase costs
£60 breakdown cover

£1,900 a year total.

That's quite a reasonable budget to spend on other transport modes. Yes it should be possible to get lower than that, but probably not by much.

Assuming that fuel costs are 10p a mile to get down to the 45p a mile you're looking at needing to drive 5,500 miles on a year (again you may get away with doing a bit less than that). To get down to 35p per mile you'd be needing to do about 7,600 miles (with a total cost of £2,660).

For a lot of people £2,500 would give you a reasonable season ticket and quite a lot of one of costs for other travel.

Even if you still need a car or could well be that you could just have one car rather than two.

Unfortunately it's unequal amounts of data, but the last 3 fill ups that I've made have averaged £0.157 across 815 miles - not including any of the other costs of motoring (as the car* has been borrowed from my Dad).

By comparison, since January my rail travel has averaged £0.138 across 2458 miles (exclusively London - Nottingham, or Nottingham - West Midlands, mainly off peak) with a railcard. Obviously that figure for rail would go up if I included bus and tube travel at either end, if it were to be far more peak time travel, or was without a railcard, but equally the costs of running the car would be far higher as well if I included the cost of insurance (being 'young' this is still stupidly high), tax & maintenance (or the M6 toll). However, you can't really account for the useful time gained whilst on the train, nor the fact that I'm beginning to find driving quite irritating between city driving and motorways that are a permanent crawl, from roadworks (M1) or congestion (M6 through Birmingham)

*2004 Vauxhall Meriva 1.6l petrol achieving ~30-38mpg

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed. Most routes which have lightly loaded services have other services which are fairly heavily loaded. Infact, I can't think of any routes I've travelled on any number of times which I haven't experienced at a busy time. The only exceptions I can think of are the dearly missed Addiscombe branch, and the Bromley North branch, both of which I've only ever travelled in the off-peak.

It seems to me that any Nation has two choices with regard to rail travel:

1) try and fit the network to specific flows that are full/profitable. In this case, the railway will fulfill some limited purpose in public transport, but will never be a national system and will be irrelevant to the majority of the population.

2) Maintain a network that attempts to link the majority of decent sized population centres and accept that not all routes will be overly busy and some will reguire subsidy. But you will have a viable national public transport network.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Indeed. Most routes which have lightly loaded services have other services which are fairly heavily loaded. Infact, I can't think of any routes I've travelled on any number of times which I haven't experienced at a busy time. The only exceptions I can think of are the dearly missed Addiscombe branch, and the Bromley North branch, both of which I've only ever travelled in the off-peak.

It seems to me that any Nation has two choices with regard to rail travel:

1) try and fit the network to specific flows that are full/profitable. In this case, the railway will fulfill some limited purpose in public transport, but will never be a national system and will be irrelevant to the majority of the population.

2) Maintain a network that attempts to link the majority of decent sized population centres and accept that not all routes will be overly busy and some will reguire subsidy. But you will have a viable national public transport network.

I love your comment on "dearly missed Addiscombe" ..friend was the ASM at Elmers End circa 1981 , and the staff referred to it as "the Popper"

Anyway , the search for a profitable core network has eluded many past Governments and so on. Well documented by Messrs Austin et al.

 

[underbank]

Of course, it's not just comparing mpg. There are some rail journeys which are a lot shorter than a comparable road journey, i.e. a bridge over an estuary or a tunnel under a hill can mean the rail journey is only a fraction of the road journey and an awful lot quicker. MPG is only useful if the distances/times are comparable.

 

[yorksrob]

I love your comment on "dearly missed Addiscombe" ..friend was the ASM at Elmers End circa 1981 , and the staff referred to it as "the Popper"

Anyway , the search for a profitable core network has eluded many past Governments and so on. Well documented by Messrs Austin et al.

Indeed - I like to think I'm not the only one who considers Addiscombe dearly missed. It certainly had a charm of its own when experienced in the splendid isolation of a 2EPB

I echo your point regarding Messers Austin et al.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Indeed - I like to think I'm not the only one who considers Addiscombe dearly missed. It certainly had a charm of its own when experienced in the splendid isolation of a 2EPB

I echo your point regarding Messers Austin et al.

Wonderful little line , and the "2EPB's carried a unique (unofficial) headcode of 1 white / 1 red blind.

Saved winding it round each end ..!

 

[yorksrob]

Wonderful little line , and the "2EPB's carried a unique (unofficial) headcode of 1 white / 1 red blind.

Saved winding it round each end ..!

You learn something new every day.

Very efficient !

 

[al78]

To ensure the British public always have at least thing to moan about. Every day of the year.

No need for the railway to provide that, the smart-phone-dumb-users provide plenty of excuses for a rant (amongst other things).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

You learn something new every day.

Very efficient !

One suspects - out of hours , it was DOO ...

 

[yorksrob]

One suspects - out of hours , it was DOO ...

Ha ha

 

[stut]

How do you work that out? Several TOCs are owned overseas.

OK, there's a degree of hyperbole in there, but it's nothing to do with ownership of the railway. The railways are the key to the SE's prosperity. There's no way to workforce required to sustain London's position would be able to get there with other means of transport (and the lion's share of investment goes to just doing that).

Open Access railways, high speed lines, all of these are about getting out of the regions and into London, ensuring there's no need for that unpleasant business of setting up shop somewhere else.

 

[The Ham]

OK, there's a degree of hyperbole in there, but it's nothing to do with ownership of the railway. The railways are the key to the SE's prosperity. There's no way to workforce required to sustain London's position would be able to get there with other means of transport (and the lion's share of investment goes to just doing that).

Open Access railways, high speed lines, all of these are about getting out of the regions and into London, ensuring there's no need for that unpleasant business of setting up shop somewhere else.

Yes there's an element of London centricity in the rail network, but then that's down to the fact that there's an element of that within the economy, government and the arts. (Not that makes it right).

Due to this being a issue that had been ongoing for a long time it results in it being a big problem to overcome and to a certain extent being self reinforcing.

As is being going on for a long time it had resulted in 2/3rds of rail passengers traveling within the South East (generally excluding Intercity services), which then means that there's a need for money where the passengers are. (Again not saying that it's right or not, just how it is)

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Depending on where you live depends on if you need to own a car for journeys that aren't possible by train.

I've been aware of people who owned child car seats but only ever used them in car club cars as most of their travel was possible by train, most of their shopping was delivered and they could use buses for going out of an evening.

The cost per mile of a car is very low if you ignore your fixed costs or you drive a lot of miles.

Very few people actually have an idea of their cost per mile. If you assume the following per year:
£500 insurance
£140 VED
£200 servicing
£1,000 purchase costs
£60 breakdown cover

£1,900 a year total.

That's quite a reasonable budget to spend on other transport modes. Yes it should be possible to get lower than that, but probably not by much.

Assuming that fuel costs are 10p a mile to get down to the 45p a mile you're looking at needing to drive 5,500 miles on a year (again you may get away with doing a bit less than that). To get down to 35p per mile you'd be needing to do about 7,600 miles (with a total cost of £2,660).

For a lot of people £2,500 would give you a reasonable season ticket and quite a lot of one of costs for other travel.

Even if you still need a car or could well be that you could just have one car rather than two.

I'm sure that most motorists do a lot more than 7600 miles a year. I'm retired and don't travel nearly as much as I used to, but I do more than 7600 miles a year.

 

[satisnek]

I think the literal answer is: to carry passengers plus a few bulk freight flows. Sixty years ago the answer would have been very different, and much longer.