What are the railways in this country for?

[tbtc]

Whatever prompted this thread?

I suggested it (on another thread) as there seems to be a lot of cross-purpose chat on here about what the railways are for. Some of this was tied into the excuses given for Why The Railway Must Be Nationalised (e.g. it's a "public service", which is a wonderfully nebulous excuse for doing whatever people want to do). Some of it was just the general contradictions that people have about railways (e.g. the fact that subsidies are larger now than in the 1980s is A Bad Thing, but at the same time we shouldn't close anything unprofitable because the Social Good is unquantifiably important).

Is the railway intended to move large numbers of people on stable/predictable flows as efficiently as possible (which is how I'd see it) or do people measure its role in terms of a "green" agenda or a priority of "social mobility" or in terms of "job creation" (or retention)?

If people want the railway to be "green" then that suggests removing some unelectrified lines (e.g. the average loading from Burnley to Colne is just over twenty, so the equivalent number of people would actually pollute the environment less if they all drove).

Should the railway exist as a comprehensive network so that people don't need to learn to drive, and motorists will find it cheaper to take the train than the equivalent fuel that they'd use on a journey?

Some people on here want to use the railway as a tool to achieve other things - e.g. instead of investing in the biggest cities we should be trying to encourage regeneration of smaller places that are off the beaten track, we should improve rural railways to encourage tourists to visit villages where they will spend money in tea-shops.

Should the railway exist to encourage changes in society, e.g. providing departures from most cities until midnight would encourage people to stop "drink driving".

Some people want the railways to be flexible enough to deal with things like getting everyone home from late night concerts/ sporting events, some people want the railway to be flexible enough to cope with the hoards trying to get to Glastonbury Festival or to Windermere/ Newquay in the summer holidays.

Does it matter if it's a "network", or just deals with (say) 90% of current journeys?

Is the railway about civic pride, putting places on the map, something that every conurbation of over a few thousand people should be part of?

Some people want the railway to offer as many direct links as possible so that people making occasional journeys don't have to change (especially if those journeys involve things like Airports, where a lot of luggage may be involved).

Some people want the railway to be about history, keeping old liveries, retaining the architecture that the Victorians built for us.

How many busy weekends does a tourist route need to off-set the quiet midweek days of November/ February?

Should we apply the same criteria to freight as we do for passenger services? How many cars do we need to keep off the road to be equivalent to keeping one lorry off the road?

I can accept that heavy rail is a relatively blunt instrument that takes a long time to adapt to changes, so is too inflexible to cope with all of the demands that people on here would put on it. It's wonderful at carrying five hundred people at once between big cities but pretty poor at dealing with only fifty people. Sometimes a tram or coach would be more appropriate - on some lines a minibus would be more appropriate.

There are some flows where rail will never compete, either because they are too short (e.g. few people will wait for an hourly train from Darnall into Sheffield when there's a bus every five minutes) or because they are too long (rail isn't going to attract many people from Glasgow/ Edinburgh to Cardiff/ Bristol, when a flight gets you there in a fraction of the time, so I don't lose sleep over trying to compete for that traffic).

Focus on doing what heavy rail is best at - moving large numbers of people (whether urban or inter-city), coping with stable demand. Not everyone will have a station within walking distance of their house.

 

[The Ham]

The value of something cannot always be expressed in terms of monetary value. There is convenience and quality of life to consider as well. Even if owning a car is more expensive than using public transport, not owning a car does require sacrifices (I know because I had voluntarily been car free for three years before I had a near fatal accident on my bicycle). For example, I cannot transport 200kg of manure to my allotment on my bicycle or public transport, and my allotment site is not ideal for bulk deliveries. If I want to go on a group walk 25 miles away in a remote area a car is the only practical way of getting to the walk. If owning a car allows someone to partake in hobbies and interests, then that will enhance their quality of life, and thus be worth the monetary cost for them.

However there's an element of how often do you do those things for which you "need" a car?

As an example someone I knew justified owning a large car because they needed it for doing the University pick up/drop off once a year. Likewise how often do you need to transport manure to your allotment? It could be that it's better value to hire a vehicle to move it when you need to.

Likewise driving 25 miles to go for a group walk (assuming that you need to drive every time and can't get a lift with your walking buddies, even to a local station), could be something that happens maybe upto 30 times a year. Yes, on that number of occasions it would be fairly costly, but then that's more than one every other week so quite a big part of your life.

Yes there will be those where they can justify the extra cost, however very few actually know what those extra costs are.

There's also limiting factors associated with owning a car, such as having to spend time getting it maintained. Which for those in some locations could be a bit tricky, even for those where locations are convenient opening times may not be. This could mean having to take time off work or arriving late/leaving early. Alternatively using up your free time to maintain the car yourself.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suggested it (on another thread) as there seems to be a lot of cross-purpose chat on here about what the railways are for. Some of this was tied into the excuses given for Why The Railway Must Be Nationalised (e.g. it's a "public service", which is a wonderfully nebulous excuse for doing whatever people want to do). Some of it was just the general contradictions that people have about railways (e.g. the fact that subsidies are larger now than in the 1980s is A Bad Thing, but at the same time we shouldn't close anything unprofitable because the Social Good is unquantifiably important).

I think there is some ambiguity there... Are you asking what the railways ought to be for (in an ideal world), or what they are actually used for today? I'd imagine the two answers would be slightly different, and I'd say that what they 'ought to be for' is a more interesting discussion

My own view is that rail ought to be the backbone of our passenger transport system: It ought to be the 'default' mode of transport for journeys over - say, around 20 miles, and the way that the majority of such journeys are made. That's because it offers a combination of low land-take, low pollution, low congestion caused per journey, benefits to health (walking to station), safety, and comfort, that for the most part cannot be matched by any other mode of transport.

For freight, rail should be the default way of transporting goods over all bulk flows, with goods swapped from rail to lorry only for last legs of journeys.

But that of course requires the kind of investment and expansion of the rail network that is going to take decades, even with a fully committed Government.

 

[satisnek]

Most freight today is not bulk but individual containers and it is growing.

Ah, but the train between Terminal A and Terminal B is a bulk flow, is it not?

 

[Bantamzen]

The railway network *should* be part of a wider transport solution, offering for the most part a more energy efficient option, and where it may not be considered for both social mobility and to help local economies. It has been argued that where loadings are light, the car may offer a more environmentally friendly solution. Whilst this may be true in certain circumstances, it needs a lot more data to be shown to actually be the case most of the time.

For example, if a line to a small village with just a handful of users from it's station was closed, we would need to understand what journeys those people were actually undertaking each day. If they were just travelling to the next town to commute or shop, then maybe there would be a case for closure, providing of course that the next town didn't already have congestion issues, or that travelling time was not significantly greater. There's little point arguing that the car would be better if it meant significantly increasing their journey time, especially if much of that was spent at a standstill in traffic jams.

However, if these people were using said line to connect to onward rail services on a regular basis, then the question has to be asked would they continue to travel to said rail connections, or would they simply abandon rail altogether and drive considerably longer distances? Or what if those handfuls of people were tourists coming into rural areas and helping to keep local economies alive? What would the impact be if the line were closed, would things continue as is or would people simply migrate to where work is and increase the pressure eon nearby towns & cities?

This is what annoys me greatly about some arguments on these forums, that lightly loaded services could, maybe even should be axed simply on the basis of numbers. The rail network should be about connectivity as well as efficiency, but also about keeping economies going and so a balance needs to be struck. You can't just look at a line and say there's not enough people using it, get rid. You need to understand what the impact would be of closing it to the people using the services along it.

 

[SteveP29]

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)

The Railway should be a vital part of an integrated transport network. It provides speed, capacity and value when other modes of transport cannot.

Those are the sensible and ideal answers,. the reality is that since 1991, it's for extracting as much of your cash from your pocket.

 

[DarloRich]

I suggested it (on another thread) as there seems to be a lot of cross-purpose chat on here about what the railways are for. Some of this was tied into the excuses given for Why The Railway Must Be Nationalised (e.g. it's a "public service", which is a wonderfully nebulous excuse for doing whatever people want to do). Some of it was just the general contradictions that people have about railways (e.g. the fact that subsidies are larger now than in the 1980s is A Bad Thing, but at the same time we shouldn't close anything unprofitable because the Social Good is unquantifiably important).

Is the railway intended to move large numbers of people on stable/predictable flows as efficiently as possible (which is how I'd see it) or do people measure its role in terms of a "green" agenda or a priority of "social mobility" or in terms of "job creation" (or retention)?

If people want the railway to be "green" then that suggests removing some unelectrified lines (e.g. the average loading from Burnley to Colne is just over twenty, so the equivalent number of people would actually pollute the environment less if they all drove).

Should the railway exist as a comprehensive network so that people don't need to learn to drive, and motorists will find it cheaper to take the train than the equivalent fuel that they'd use on a journey?

Some people on here want to use the railway as a tool to achieve other things - e.g. instead of investing in the biggest cities we should be trying to encourage regeneration of smaller places that are off the beaten track, we should improve rural railways to encourage tourists to visit villages where they will spend money in tea-shops.

Should the railway exist to encourage changes in society, e.g. providing departures from most cities until midnight would encourage people to stop "drink driving".

Some people want the railways to be flexible enough to deal with things like getting everyone home from late night concerts/ sporting events, some people want the railway to be flexible enough to cope with the hoards trying to get to Glastonbury Festival or to Windermere/ Newquay in the summer holidays.

Does it matter if it's a "network", or just deals with (say) 90% of current journeys?

Is the railway about civic pride, putting places on the map, something that every conurbation of over a few thousand people should be part of?

Some people want the railway to offer as many direct links as possible so that people making occasional journeys don't have to change (especially if those journeys involve things like Airports, where a lot of luggage may be involved).

Some people want the railway to be about history, keeping old liveries, retaining the architecture that the Victorians built for us.

How many busy weekends does a tourist route need to off-set the quiet midweek days of November/ February?

Should we apply the same criteria to freight as we do for passenger services? How many cars do we need to keep off the road to be equivalent to keeping one lorry off the road?

I can accept that heavy rail is a relatively blunt instrument that takes a long time to adapt to changes, so is too inflexible to cope with all of the demands that people on here would put on it. It's wonderful at carrying five hundred people at once between big cities but pretty poor at dealing with only fifty people. Sometimes a tram or coach would be more appropriate - on some lines a minibus would be more appropriate.

There are some flows where rail will never compete, either because they are too short (e.g. few people will wait for an hourly train from Darnall into Sheffield when there's a bus every five minutes) or because they are too long (rail isn't going to attract many people from Glasgow/ Edinburgh to Cardiff/ Bristol, when a flight gets you there in a fraction of the time, so I don't lose sleep over trying to compete for that traffic).

Focus on doing what heavy rail is best at - moving large numbers of people (whether urban or inter-city), coping with stable demand. Not everyone will have a station within walking distance of their house.

this post is FAR to sensible and grounded in the real world to be of use here. We want fantasy world stuff!

 

[Dai Corner]

Focus on doing what heavy rail is best at - moving large numbers of people (whether urban or inter-city), coping with stable demand. Not everyone will have a station within walking distance of their house.

Is what the railways should be used for. But railways are, like the NHS, something the British public are generally happy to fund generously through their taxes. Consider the protests when closures were proposed and the statutory process for doing so and compare them with those for bus services. No politician dares to suggest closing a railway.

This is good news for most on this forum; railway workers keeping their jobs and enthusiasts getting to travel on interesting but lightly-used, loss-making routes.

 

[mallard]

The UK rail network is, at least from a standpoint of strategy in England, entirely for one thing; getting people to/from London.

Any other uses are bascially vestigal "the infrastructure is there, so we may as well use it, but we must not inconvenience London passengers even slightly". Non-London routes get basically zero investment and useful regional services are enthusiastically sacrificed to make marginal improvements to London-bound journeys.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The UK rail network is, at least from a standpoint of strategy in England, entirely for one thing; getting people to/from London.

Any other uses are bascially vestigal "the infrastructure is there, so we may as well use it, but we must not inconvenience London passengers even slightly". Non-London routes get basically zero investment and useful regional services are enthusiastically sacrificed to make marginal improvements to London-bound journeys.

Of course, of course. This is why Preston to Blackpool has been electrified and the route via Bolton too. Then there's the little matter of Glasgow to Edinburgh electrification. It also explains why major amounts of taxpayers' money will be spent improving the line between Manchester and Leeds. And it goes without saying that those embittered tribalists up north will have made sure that no contaminated money from London was used to pay for these Northern upgrades.

 

[mallard]

This is why Preston to Blackpool has been electrified and the route via Bolton too.

To enable direct London-Blackpool services and to improve connections around northern (Greater) Manchester for London-bound journeys via Picadilly or Preston, especially relevant once HS2 reaches Manchester.

Then there's the little matter of Glasgow to Edinburgh electrification.

at least from a standpoint of strategy in England

When did Edinburgh or Glasgow move to England?

It also explains why major amounts of taxpayers' money will be spent improving the line between Manchester and Leeds.

A vaslty scaled down "improvement" that's left over from a previous strategy and is still recieving much resistance from the London authorities.

And it goes without saying that those embittered tribalists up north will have made sure that no contaminated money from London was used to pay for these Northern upgrades.

The national strategy has changed significantly since then.

 

[Indigo Soup]

When did Edinburgh or Glasgow move to England?

To be fair, strategy in Scotland is similar (though less extreme) - what benefits the Central Belt gets approved, anything else has to fight over scraps.

 

[The Ham]

I think there's an element of "spending doesn't benefit me so therefore it's all so much better on the the South on lines where London flows are great".

However, let's take Farnborough Main as a case study, it has 3 million passengers, is within 1 hour of London and hasn't seen much improvement over the last 5 years.

Yet, it's due to not sure to receive any new rolling stock during the next franchise, nor is it going to receive any new services. It also hasn't had any new rolling stock for over 15 years, with most of that rolling stock that was being replace was over 40 years old.

To be fair it may receive some additional stock, however only due to that stock is being released by circa 30 year old trains.

It's not even that is a station which is on a line where it's the only major station. For instance the next 4 stations along the line (outwards from London) over circa 20 miles total circa 9 million passengers. With, other than Basingstoke which may see some improvements from GWR and XC, less chance of thing improving.

As such, even prime commuter towns aren't likely to see improvements not has it had much recently.

 

[al78]

However there's an element of how often do you do those things for which you "need" a car?

As an example someone I knew justified owning a large car because they needed it for doing the University pick up/drop off once a year. Likewise how often do you need to transport manure to your allotment? It could be that it's better value to hire a vehicle to move it when you need to.

Likewise driving 25 miles to go for a group walk (assuming that you need to drive every time and can't get a lift with your walking buddies, even to a local station), could be something that happens maybe upto 30 times a year. Yes, on that number of occasions it would be fairly costly, but then that's more than one every other week so quite a big part of your life.

Yes there will be those where they can justify the extra cost, however very few actually know what those extra costs are.

There's also limiting factors associated with owning a car, such as having to spend time getting it maintained. Which for those in some locations could be a bit tricky, even for those where locations are convenient opening times may not be. This could mean having to take time off work or arriving late/leaving early. Alternatively using up your free time to maintain the car yourself.

Transporting manure is something I do around half the weekends in the year (it takes a lot to supply an allotment). Walking is no problem, I do walks that I can get too using a bicycle and/or train, but if I wanted to go on a walk near Guildford on Sunday morning for example, it takes ages to get there from Horsham by train (and is probably quicker to cycle the 18 miles from my house). Getting my car serviced is not a problem, just drop it off at the garage half a mile away and use my bicycle for transport until it is ready. Where my car does come in useful is when I have evening activities planned after work, I have the sort of line manager who likes to come and discuss something five minutes before I am about to leave the office, then wibbles on for half an hour, often repeating himself in that time. The extra 20 minutes saved by driving to work instead of cycling means being able to attend social evening activities with confidence. Finally, when it comes to visiting family, having a car allows me to do a days hillwalking in the Lakes or Snowdonia. Try getting from Salford to Snowdonia by public transport , climb the Glyders, then get back in time for an evening meal.

In recent years, the car has come in useful when the trains were almost unusable thanks to relentless strike action, where once I had to hire a car at the last minute to get up to Salford to assist my father because when I went to buy a rail ticket, I was told I wouldn't make it.

 

[kieron]

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).

That's part of it, but it's a bit more extreme on the railways. As an example, if everything is running to time you can typically get from Shotton to London more quickly than to Leeds, despite it being more than twice as far away. This is down to faster lines and fewer intermediate stops on the southbound train.

Road transport (for one) doesn't experience an equivalent effect, as it's motorway almost all the way in either case, and long distance coaches don't stop too often anyway.

 

[The Ham]

That's part of it, but it's a bit more extreme on the railways. As an example, if everything is running to time you can typically get from Shotton to London more quickly than to Leeds, despite it being more than twice as far away. This is down to faster lines and fewer intermediate stops on the southbound train.

Road transport (for one) doesn't experience an equivalent effect, as it's motorway almost all the way in either case, and long distance coaches don't stop too often anyway.

That's not always true about roads, if you are traveling from Oxford to Southampton, although there's an option to go via Motorways (via London) but the quickest route only involves a short trip on the M3 otherwise it's A roads.

In fact most motorways are London and Birmingham centric (although that's not a lot different to the railways really), with a lot heading to/from/around them.

 

[Indigo Soup]

That's not always true about roads, if you are traveling from Oxford to Southampton, although there's an option to go via Motorways (via London) but the quickest route only involves a short trip on the M3 otherwise it's A roads.

In fact most motorways are London and Birmingham centric (although that's not a lot different to the railways really), with a lot heading to/from/around them.

The big difference is that the road network doesn't have such a sharp difference between 'main' and 'branch' lines. Come off a trunk road on to a non-trunk primary route (i.e. an 'A' road - the railways don't really have equivalents to 'B' roads) and the maximum speed drops from 70mph to 60mph, if at all.

If the railways worked on a similar principle, all the main lines would be 125mph - including the Cross-Country and Transpennine routes - with 100mph freight. Off the main lines, speeds would generally be 100/110mph, with freight running at 75mph.

 

[Dai Corner]

That's not always true about roads, if you are traveling from Oxford to Southampton, although there's an option to go via Motorways (via London) but the quickest route only involves a short trip on the M3 otherwise it's A roads.

The big difference is that the road network doesn't have such a sharp difference between 'main' and 'branch' lines. Come off a trunk road on to a non-trunk primary route (i.e. an 'A' road - the railways don't really have equivalents to 'B' roads) and the maximum speed drops from 70mph to 60mph, if at all.

Do you guys actually drive long-distance?

Oxford-Southampton is A34 (mostly 70mph dual carriageway, not far off motorway standard) to Winchester then the M3. Bristol-Southampton is either A4 to Bath then A36 (you won't do 60mph all the way by that route) or M4 and A34 which is longer but mostly faster and quicker.

 

[The Ham]

Do you guys actually drive long-distance?

Oxford-Southampton is A34 (mostly 70mph dual carriageway, not far off motorway standard) to Winchester then the M3. Bristol-Southampton is either A4 to Bath then A36 (you won't do 60mph all the way by that route) or M4 and A34 which is longer but mostly faster and quicker.

The point is that the A34 isn't a motorway, with the motorways bring centred around London and Birmingham.

The reason that the A34 isn't a motorway is there not an alternative route, which is the requirement for a road to be a motorway.

As such motorways have a viable alternative, which means there's an element of duplication. For those that know the routes it's fairy easy to get (as an example) London to Southampton not using the motorway network. The same isn't quite so true for Oxford to Southampton.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Do you guys actually drive long-distance?

Does 22,000 miles a year count as long distance?

Oxford-Southampton is A34 (mostly 70mph dual carriageway, not far off motorway standard) to Winchester then the M3. Bristol-Southampton is either A4 to Bath then A36 (you won't do 60mph all the way by that route) or M4 and A34 which is longer but mostly faster and quicker.

I would consider Oxford-Southampton to be on 'main lines' in railway terms, on exactly the grounds you cite. Generally, the trunk road network is pretty good, with a few oddities like the A36 and the A49.

The reason that the A34 isn't a motorway is there not an alternative route, which is the requirement for a road to be a motorway.

Strictly speaking, it's the other way around. No alternative route is provided because the A34 wasn't built as a motorway, which is because political considerations meant building a motorway was impossible. In practice, it's a motorway, and there are quite a few such roads- there are even a few Class A roads that have the alternative route and the special roads order, meaning they're only missing the blue signs. In fact, the road network is much less London-centric than the rail network. The M62 more-or-less parallels the North Transpennine route, and the M5 more-or-less parallels the Cross-Country route between Birmingham and Bristol; both are built to the same standards as the M1 and M6. For the railways to equal that, the comparable rail routes would need to be four-tracked with a 125mph line speed.

Then you add the deficiencies of the non-trunk routes. On the railways, there's the speed issue - coming off of a 125mph main line on to a 75mph secondary route is like coming off a motorway and being stuck at 40mph. Some of the secondary lines have a 90mph limit, which isn't all that much better - to match the difference between trunk roads and non-trunk roads, the line speed on things like the S&C or the Cotswold line would need to be at least 100mph and preferably 110mph.

 

[backontrack]

I've definitely gone over the 280 character limit here, but whatever.

The UK rail network allows people to travel without owning a car. It is also important for both high-capacity commuter journeys and for faster long-distance services, and trains also allow a more environmentally-friendly and safer alternative to the car. The network should be a crucial component of a fully-integrated public transport network designed to help get people from A to B, as smoothly and as quickly as possible. The social obligation of the railways has long outweighed the financial dimension; i.e. people before profit.

In terms of integration: the main rail routes are the arteries and veins of the nation, transporting people (the 'red blood cells' of this admittedly-feeble analogy) around the 'body'. Rail branches and bus routes are the capillaries. Without them, the cells start to die. So bus services and branch lines are still very important.

 

[Harbornite]

Non-London routes get basically zero investment and useful regional services are enthusiastically sacrificed to make marginal improvements to London-bound journeys.

I must have imagined all those new rolling stock orders for West Midlands Railway, TPE and Northern, none of which serve London!

 

[backontrack]

Britain's railways aren't built around the south-east with little regard to what ministers and executives regard as 'the provences'?

I must have imagined these then...



(The Yorkshire Post, Manchester Evening News and Lancashire Post - all urging Theresa May to end the North's railway crisis.)

 

[Harbornite]

No one's saying that the Southeast doesn't do rather better than the rest of the country in comparison (though having said that, there's been plenty of cancellations in the SE) rather that it is incorrect to state that 'non-London routes get basically zero investment'.

I thought this point was obvious but maybe not!

 

[Dentonian]

I've definitely gone over the 280 character limit here, but whatever.

The purpose of the UK rail network allow people to travel without owning a car. It is also important for both high-capacity commuter journeys and for faster long-distance services, and trains also allow a more environmentally-friendly and safer alternative to the car. The network should be a crucial component of a fully-integrated public transport network designed to help get people from A to B, as smoothly and as quickly as possible. The social obligation of the railways has long outweighed the financial dimension; i.e. people before profit.

In terms of integration: the main rail routes are the arteries and veins of the nation, transporting people (the 'red blood cells' of this admittedly-feeble analogy) around the 'body'. Rail branches and bus routes are the capillaries. Without them, the cells start to die. So bus services and branch lines are still very important.

Much as I agree with your second paragraph, I'm afraid the role of Rail is definately NOT to allow people to travel without a car (or bicycle). The vast majority of the UK population do not live within walking distance of a Rail station - whether measured as physically possible for people with health problems or impractical and time consuming to do so twice a day for 240 working days a year in all weathers. Although cuts in bus services have started to narrow the gap, in the mid 2000s the average distance to a railhead in the UK was nearly SEVEN times that to a bus stop. Admittedly, there are regional and local variations, with the gap being narrower in TfL land, if you include the Tube, and rural areas where buses barely exist. Equally, the gap is wider for must people in northern suburbs.

As for Integration, I've made my views very clear on other threads, suffice to say that quite apart from political reasons (small "p") why it would never work, the old saying was never more appropriate; A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

 

[backontrack]

The railway network *should* be part of a wider transport solution, offering for the most part a more energy efficient option, and where it may not be considered for both social mobility and to help local economies. It has been argued that where loadings are light, the car may offer a more environmentally friendly solution. Whilst this may be true in certain circumstances, it needs a lot more data to be shown to actually be the case most of the time.

For example, if a line to a small village with just a handful of users from it's station was closed, we would need to understand what journeys those people were actually undertaking each day. If they were just travelling to the next town to commute or shop, then maybe there would be a case for closure, providing of course that the next town didn't already have congestion issues, or that travelling time was not significantly greater. There's little point arguing that the car would be better if it meant significantly increasing their journey time, especially if much of that was spent at a standstill in traffic jams.

However, if these people were using said line to connect to onward rail services on a regular basis, then the question has to be asked would they continue to travel to said rail connections, or would they simply abandon rail altogether and drive considerably longer distances? Or what if those handfuls of people were tourists coming into rural areas and helping to keep local economies alive? What would the impact be if the line were closed, would things continue as is or would people simply migrate to where work is and increase the pressure eon nearby towns & cities?

This is what annoys me greatly about some arguments on these forums, that lightly loaded services could, maybe even should be axed simply on the basis of numbers. The rail network should be about connectivity as well as efficiency, but also about keeping economies going and so a balance needs to be struck. You can't just look at a line and say there's not enough people using it, get rid. You need to understand what the impact would be of closing it to the people using the services along it.

I agree completely.

 

[backontrack]

Much as I agree with your second paragraph, I'm afraid the role of Rail is definately NOT to allow people to travel without a car (or bicycle).

Fair enough; I've edited that post now. It's not the purpose of the railway, but it's still an important part of it; we, for example, have never owned a car, so can't just drive up and down the country.

As for Integration, I've made my views very clear on other threads, suffice to say that quite apart from political reasons (small "p") why it would never work, the old saying was never more appropriate; A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

That doesn't mean that more effort shouldn't be put into it. There are areas of the country where there is successful intermodal integration (e.g. the Yorkshire Dales).

 

[backontrack]

No one's saying that the Southeast doesn't do rather better than the rest of the country in comparison (though having said that, there's been plenty of cancellations in the SE) rather that it is incorrect to state that 'non-London routes get basically zero investment'.

I thought this point was obvious but maybe not!

Without wishing to turn this into another North-South divide debate (especially as the answer to that is already clear)...

Non-London routes get, comparatively speaking, much, much lower levels of investment. A few orders for new units still doesn't change that much; you could argue that it's the bare minimum required (especially as all they're doing is replacing decrepit Pacers and Sprinters with units that are a bit more modern). Wholesale electrification is needed to redress the balance.

 

[cactustwirly]

Without wishing to turn this into another North-South divide debate (especially as the answer to that is already clear)...

Non-London routes get, comparatively speaking, much, much lower levels of investment. A few orders for new units still doesn't change that much; you could argue that it's the bare minimum required (especially as all they're doing is replacing decrepit Pacers and Sprinters with units that are a bit more modern). Wholesale electrification is needed to redress the balance.

Thats because 'Northern' routes bleed money, and SE make money.
Investment in the SE, benefits more people, and gives a bigger financial return.
I'm not saying don't invest in the provinces, but you can't realistically expect the investment to be equal.

 

[backontrack]

Thats because 'Northern' routes bleed money, and SE make money.
Investment in the SE, benefits more people, and gives a bigger financial return.
I'm not saying don't invest in the provinces, but you can't realistically expect the investment to be equal.

But is it unreasonable to suggest a bit more investment in the North?