There are certainly problems in the industry, which is why I'd like those problems to be fixed rather than just accepted as the way things are and used to justify continued decline!
This decline has been 30 years in the making at this point, I have begun to come to the conclusion that it is hubristic to believe it can be stopped, at least without decades of political capital.
Electric cars are part of the decarbonisation picture but are far from everything, for a start they have other environmental problems beyond the tailpipe problem they solve. I suspect you'd do a lot better environmentally with a massive investment in buses rather than electric cars, not that this is an either or situation... But if everyone is going to have to drive city to city then you'll end up with a nightmare traffic and parking situation that will end up ripping the heart out of cities to make space for more cars - the American model.
Buses might do better environmentally, assuming the bus companies can find anyone to actually drive the buses. The reality is Britain can't even recruit enough bus drivers to operate its current, comparatively tiny, bus fleet reliably.
Even if pay rose into the stratosphere, I'm highly skeptical that you'd be able to recruit enough bus drivers for a hugely expanded bus system without resorting to conscription. Bus driving is hardly the most attractive of careers at the end of the day.
And a bus without a driver is simply a paperweight.
So yes I do somewhat agree regarding the fundamental problems in the industry but they are the result of deliberate fragmentation through flawed public policy, and can be fixed. The problems aren't a reason not to fund rail projects, they're an impediment placed in the way of improvement by politicians who'd anyway rather everybody drove for largely ideological reasons rather than for transport efficiency, so have no incentive to sort out the mess.
Support for the current industry model is found even in political parties that do not traditionally hate public transport.
There is no serious political party that currently campaigns for the end of this model, and in order to end it you would have to fight all the vested interests in the railway industry, simultaneously.
Fixing it would require a decade long fight with virtually everyone in and around the industry before any serious work could start. Ultimately, decarbonisation simply doesn't have that long. And that's assuming a government is willing to spend the political capital in vast quantities to make it happen, and the reality is they are not.
For a start, if there was a long term strategy in place things like electrification and other large projects would be able to be done much more efficiently. How much time and money did we just lose by starting, half building and then cancelling HS2?
Network Rail and the wider industry has been given permission for several long term plans in its existance, the problem is they are fundamentally unable to deliver on what they promise.
They've been given billions and told to get to worse on the Great Western and elsewhere, and have failed miserably.
You can't blame the politicians for the High Output Plant System debacle, although I imagine many would try.
With an excuse over cost just as you're arguing here, but which is actually mostly down to inflation rather than real terms cost increase, and also continued changes to the plan rather than following a proper strategy leading to more and more money being spent on redesigns for no reason.
Primarily the result of comically inaccurate pricing to start with, but this is very much off topic.
It'd be a poor show if we decide we just can't do infrastructure any more in this country and that all we can do to decarbonise is get electric cars and let public transport rot. None of this is inherent to the railway industry, and none of it is beyond us to solve.
Even if it can be solved, and I am no longer sure it can be, it would take a decade or two before the railway industry is in any way suitable for large scale expansion in capacity.
By then, the carbon budgets will be gone or we will already have achieved a large measure of decarbonisation.
It will already be history.
Pure electric/plug-in hybrid cars are already 20+% of vehicle sales.
In a decade motor fuel sales will have started a precipitous and terminal decline.
I'd be happy to debate this all more, but this is wandering rather far off topic!
