Closing down the Railways?

[D365]

How many new roads would be required to accommodate sufficient autonomous vehicles to completely replace rail transport?

And beside the poor space utilisation of private vehicles, there certainly isn’t efficiency in having (for example) 250 motors & 2000 wheels to transport only 500 passengers.

 

[Turtle]

There might be a point in the future where Nuclear Fusion is perfected and we essentially have limitless clean energy, backed with enough computer processing power to control several million small transportation pods allowing for point to point transportation but until then - and even after that - a transport medium allowing the transportation of large amount of people between two destinations at relatively high speed is going have a place, as will a commuter service into major cities with limited road capacity and as an urban transport system.

Paradoxically it would be the ultimate levelling up between north and south and even with reduced commuting it would make a high percentage of London jobs -including finance, the civil service and government - something you had to be in London to take part in.

Crossrail has just been completed and HS2 and EWR are being built. Rail in some format to another is secure for a generation or two.

One of the few advantages of growing old is that one's heard it all before. I seem to recollect a newspaper article(Daily Express?) in the mid 1950s promising that by the 1970s all electricity would be free due to nuclear fusion generation.

 

[deltic]

How many new roads would be required to accommodate sufficient autonomous vehicles to completely replace rail transport?

Except possibly in London where you would retain the underground at least in zones 1-3, none. The increased capacity that autonomous vehicles could deliver could be around 50-100% compared to the present road network. Autonomous buses could provide very high-capacity local transport as could coaches on interurban routes.

This assumes autonomous vehicles could operate safely in urban areas which is always ten years distant.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Dec 2022 ==

And beside the poor space utilisation of private vehicles, there certainly isn’t efficiency in having (for example) 250 motors & 2000 wheels to transport only 500 passengers.

Rail is not always very efficient - outside the intercity routes and London commuter routes pre-covid I don't think any TOC achieved an average load of a 100 passengers a train and some were around 40-50 from memory.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Except possibly in London where you would retain the underground at least in zones 1-3, none. The increased capacity that autonomous vehicles could deliver could be around 50-100% compared to the present road network. Autonomous buses could provide very high-capacity local transport as could coaches on interurban routes.

This assumes autonomous vehicles could operate safely in urban areas which is always ten years distant.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Dec 2022 ==


Rail is not always very efficient - outside the intercity routes and London commuter routes pre-covid I don't think any TOC achieved an average load of a 100 passengers a train and some were around 40-50 from memory.

Always have to take into account those huge gaps between one train and the following train. That sort of waste of space would not be allowed on the roads except perhaps country lanes !.

 

[6Gman]

But the perpetrators of this political agenda claimed the basis for it was purely economic…

If you ask me, going back to the 1955 modernisation plan, BR standard steam engines should have seen out their design life, running on domestically produced coal until ~2005, being replaced directly by electrification and renewables, with no need for any Diesel, line closures or road building, especially motorways.

How would you have recruited staff to do the utterly filthy jobs around steam depots?
How would you have equated continued use of steam locos with clean air legislation?

 

[507020]

How would you have recruited staff to do the utterly filthy jobs around steam depots?
How would you have equated continued use of steam locos with clean air legislation?

The thing is you wouldn't do either, because steam would be phased out by electrification, but I do realise that the worst jobs e.g. firebox cleaner were done by those at the bottom and with no recruitment, the entire grade would soon be lost to promotions and better working conditions.

Always have to take into account those huge gaps between one train and the following train. That sort of waste of space would not be allowed on the roads except perhaps country lanes !.

These can actually be eliminated entirely with improved signalling. If you always know the speed and distance to the train in front of you, as well as your own speed and braking distance in real time, you can simply slow down to approach the train in front with no gap. If it is stopped? Then you can run all the way up to it at ever decreasing speed and actually touch it before encountering any danger.

 

[Peter Sarf]

But the perpetrators of this political agenda claimed the basis for it was purely economic…

If you ask me, going back to the 1955 modernisation plan, BR standard steam engines should have seen out their design life, running on domestically produced coal until ~2005, being replaced directly by electrification and renewables, with no need for any Diesel, line closures or road building, especially motorways. In 1981 it was concluded that blanket electrification Aberdeen - Penzance could be completed by 2001 and paid for by 2007, but of course it was not paid for.

On another note, passenger rail transport is already imported in that it is provided by the likes of Abellio, Arriva, JR East, Keolis, MTR and Trenitalia.

Rising labour costs were of course a certainty, so this labour intensity of coal actually worked in the favour of a gradual and timely phaseout in favour of renewables. The point was an entire workforce existed until it was culled entirely overnight, which was not appropriate.

My concern is that Britain becoming a new export market for other economies to supply fossil fuels, either coal itself or oil and gas to replace coal, who were less concerned with environmental factors created a much bigger issue than simply giving a few miners a pay rise.

With railways already devolved to ScotRail, TfW and Translink, it is a certainty that the network could only suffer total closure in England. What are the odds of all 3 building fixed links to a point in the Irish Sea e.g. the Isle of Man to form a connection avoiding England in such a circumstance?

Surely the development of autonomous and electric road vehicles is a worst case scenario, even if autonomy is able to eliminate road traffic collisions entirely, which isn’t looking likely at the moment. The issue is single or low occupancy vehicles in general, either carrying either a single passenger as a car or a single wagon/shipping container as a HGV.

Ultimately, in 5 billion years time when the death of the sun is upon us and it expands to engulf the Earth, all terrestrial railways will be destroyed, even if they are still operating at this point, but if humanity or an alien species have managed to build railways on another planet, the technology will be able to live on.

My bold - What the real problem was is that in the UK we modernised too late and what some think is we should have done it even later. The 1950s steam building bonanza was a dead end. Electrification was the obvious way forward so we in the UK built not even diesel but steam !. In the UK we are too slow to modernise.

How would you have recruited staff to do the utterly filthy jobs around steam depots?
How would you have equated continued use of steam locos with clean air legislation?

Your right. Worse still, at that time, there was a labour shortage. We were recruiting from all over our former colonies. So we really needed to be rid of labour intensive practices. A steam engine required two persons to operate it, someone to get a fire lit many hours beforehand so as to get steam up before it could be used and someone to clean it out afterwards. A diesel took one person to start it, drive it, and turn it off.

We worry about diesel emissions but they are nothing compared to what coal was doing.

It is not some conspiracy to suggest that a loss making industry should try and make itself more efficient. What is a conspiracy is to think that a loss making monopoly used by a minority of the population deserves to be propped up by the tax payer.

I want as much of the railways intact as is possible. That means being more efficient as otherwise even more jobs will go down the pan. I would love to evade government interference but I will have whatever subsidy the railways can get.

 

[skyhigh]

If you ask me, going back to the 1955 modernisation plan, BR standard steam engines should have seen out their design life, running on domestically produced coal until ~2005

I've seen some silly suggestions on here but this takes the biscuit. Steam trains in widespread use until 2005...

 

[Thirteen]

With the best will in the world, there was no chance that steam engines could have been retained until 2005.

 

[The Ham]

If the railways were to choose in this country we'd need some form of measurable threshold at which we'd start looking at it. Given that was a low point of circa 0.7bn in the 90's and or want being discussed then, this would probably be the threshold.

OK there has been one point where it was lower, but there was a major pandemic, which kind of changes the rules.

However passenger numbers have been showing healthy recovery (if slow than many world like) with the current 12 months only have been exceeded in 43 years out of 150. Whilst if we had 4 lots of the last quarter this would have only been exceeded 22 times in the last 150 years.

In reality we should probably be both opening and closing lines and stations as the network and demand evolves.

Indeed. With any change (opening or closure) requiring a business case to do it, so that the costs/benefits are understood.

 

[Thirteen]

If the railways were to choose in this country we'd need some form of measurable threshold at which we'd start looking at it. Given that was a low point of circa 0.7bn in the 90's and or want being discussed then, this would probably be the threshold.

OK there has been one point where it was lower, but there was a major pandemic, which kind of changes the rules.

However passenger numbers have been showing healthy recovery (if slow than many world like) with the current 12 months only have been exceeded in 43 years out of 150. Whilst if we had 4 lots of the last quarter this would have only been exceeded 22 times in the last 150 years.



Indeed. With any change (opening or closure) requiring a business case to do it, so that the costs/benefits are understood.

TBH the process of closing the railways would be very lengthy given you need a consultation period not just from the population but businesses as well and the cost of making a lot of people redundant which is probably the main reason the railways being closed down is unlikely to ever to happen in our lifetime.

 

[Peter Sarf]

TBH the process of closing the railways would be very lengthy given you need a consultation period not just from the population but businesses as well and the cost of making a lot of people redundant which is probably the main reason the railways being closed down is unlikely to ever to happen in our lifetime.

I fear this - The government provides less money so something has to be cut. Given the TOCs and Network Rail rely on subsidy what does a TOC do if they don't get enough subsidy......

 

[507020]

What the real problem was is that in the UK we modernised too late and what some think is we should have done it even later. The 1950s steam building bonanza was a dead end. Electrification was the obvious way forward so we in the UK built not even diesel but steam !. In the UK we are too slow to modernise.

Before WW2 there were many more electrics on the network than Diesels. It was then business as usual with building steam engines after the war and by the time we realised the need for modernisation, we didn’t modernise enough, with most lines receiving Diesels instead of electrification and others being closed instead of modernised.

My point is that by the time of the modernisation plan, we should have admitted 2 things, that we must proceed with blanket electrification since we were too late for Diesels, retaining steam temporarily in the meantime and also that every inch of the network was vitally important and must not be closed, with no valuable 4 track sections being lost or lines being singled either.

Your right. Worse still, at that time, there was a labour shortage. We were recruiting from all over our former colonies. So we really needed to be rid of labour intensive practices. A steam engine required two persons to operate it, someone to get a fire lit many hours beforehand so as to get steam up before it could be used and someone to clean it out afterwards. A diesel took one person to start it, drive it, and turn it off.

We worry about diesel emissions but they are nothing compared to what coal was doing.

It is not some conspiracy to suggest that a loss making industry should try and make itself more efficient. What is a conspiracy is to think that a loss making monopoly used by a minority of the population deserves to be propped up by the tax payer.

I want as much of the railways intact as is possible. That means being more efficient as otherwise even more jobs will go down the pan. I would love to evade government interference but I will have whatever subsidy the railways can get.

Electrics are much less labour intensive still than Diesels, with no one needing to turn them on and off or refuel them. Some of the inefficiencies of retained steam could have been offset by running electrics instead of Diesels.

Diesel is a truly filthy fuel though. Any suggestion that it was a clean replacement for coal was untrue, however bad coal was, leading to new problems which we still have today.

It is a conspiracy to suggest that the railway is purely a profit making enterprise and not an industry with any wider benefits which make it a necessity to have in a developed economy and whose use by a majority of the population should be encouraged and incentivised above the use of road vehicles.

Should the NHS be propped up by the taxpayer when the majority of the population is not chronically ill? The subsidy needs to be sufficient to sustain and increase the service. Any subsidy that results in service cuts at a time we should be investing in and increasing them is a conspiracy.

I've seen some silly suggestions on here but this takes the biscuit. Steam trains in widespread use until 2005...

No. Not widespread use. ~2005 is an estimate allowing for delays to blanket electrification which could have been completed by 2001. If it had been delivered early, steam could have been eliminated in the 1990s. By 2005 there couldn’t possibly have been more than single figure numbers of steam trains left on the main line, even in my suggested scenario where no line closures or road building had taken place, but remember no Diesels would have ever run on this network. By 2023 we could be celebrating 20 years of a 100% electric network, with many, many more places served and shorter journey times than we are left with.

However passenger numbers have been showing healthy recovery (if slow than many world like) with the current 12 months only have been exceeded in 43 years out of 150. Whilst if we had 4 lots of the last quarter this would have only been exceeded 22 times in the last 150 years.

And remember that this is with demand and capacity artificially suppressed by the extreme number of cancellations relative to 2019 and all the recent strike days. With a full service and proper train lengths on all lines passenger numbers may be at record levels.

 

[Falcon1200]

Except possibly in London where you would retain the underground at least in zones 1-3, none.

(Responding to my query on how many new roads would be required to accommodate sufficient autonomous road vehicles to replace rail transport)

None - seriously? You have clearly never seen a train arrive at Glasgow Central, or Manchester Piccadilly, or Birmingham New St, or a host of other towns and cities, and disgorge scores if not hundreds of passengers, and then gone outside the station and seen the city centre already congested and afflicted with road vehicles - Despite the numbers travelling by train!

 

[deltic]

(Responding to my query on how many new roads would be required to accommodate sufficient autonomous road vehicles to replace rail transport)

None - seriously? You have clearly never seen a train arrive at Glasgow Central, or Manchester Piccadilly, or Birmingham New St, or a host of other towns and cities, and disgorge scores if not hundreds of passengers, and then gone outside the station and seen the city centre already congested and afflicted with road vehicles - Despite the numbers travelling by train!

Pre-Covid in the busiest hour 24,000 people arrived at Birmingham's main line stations in the peak hour of 8-9. Around 20,000 cars also crossed central Birmingham cordons in the same hour. If autonomous vehicles, including buses can double throughput on the road network then one could easily see the same number moved by road as travelled by train.Not saying its desirable but it is potentially doable.

 

[SussexSeagull]

One of the few advantages of growing old is that one's heard it all before. I seem to recollect a newspaper article(Daily Express?) in the mid 1950s promising that by the 1970s all electricity would be free due to nuclear fusion generation.

TBF they have made some progress of late but my broader point is there would need to be a lot of progress in energy sources and technology before trains wouldn't have at least some place in transportation and even then it is doubtful they would entirely disappear.

 

[The Ham]

Pre-Covid in the busiest hour 24,000 people arrived at Birmingham's main line stations in the peak hour of 8-9. Around 20,000 cars also crossed central Birmingham cordons in the same hour. If autonomous vehicles, including buses can double throughput on the road network then one could easily see the same number moved by road as travelled by train.Not saying its desirable but it is potentially doable.

There's no way that you could get double the vehicles on the roads. Pretty much the only way to do it would be to offer more car shares. Some of the concern about safety could be resolved by having pods within a vehicle (so a car sized vehicle with two areas for passengers).

If you could get the average car occupancy to about 3 then you'd double the capacity.

However to do that you'd probably need to price accordingly (say 10 for your own vehicle, 7 for your own pod, 5 for you to have your own seat on a bus like vehicle) with the fastest (i.e. from your door direct to your destination) being the most expensive whilst the slowest (likely need to divert to pick up/drop others sort of along your route) would be the cheapest.

 

[Falcon1200]

If autonomous vehicles, including buses can double throughput on the road network then one could easily see the same number moved by road as travelled by train.

That is an almighty big if; Given that rush-hour traffic is already nose-to-tail in city centres, and their surroundings, how could double the traffic possibly be accommodated? Where do these vehicles stop to drop off their passengers, for how long, how does other traffic pass when they stop, and where do the empty vehicles go?
I occasionally use the M77 and M8 into Glasgow in the peaks and the vehicles are running as close as possible, often not even leaving braking distance. Autonomous vehicles might be able to respond faster than a human but still need space and time to stop.

 

[paul1609]

Plenty. More or less what runs on strike days.

Would there any that were viable if they met the full cost of their infrastructure?

 

[Bald Rick]

Would there any that were viable if they met the full cost of their infrastructure?

Definitely. Although how you divide the infrastructure costs on shared routes would be a factor.

 

[Nottingham59]

Definitely. Although how you divide the infrastructure costs on shared routes would be a factor.

Are you able to say roughly how busy a line has to be to cover its full costs of operation, including infrastructure maintenance and renewals?

E.g. Would an 8tph commuter line, full and standing in the peaks be busy enough?
Or does it need long-distance high-speed business travellers willing to pay £1-2/mile for an anytime return ?

 

[The Ham]

Definitely. Although how you divide the infrastructure costs on shared routes would be a factor.

One factor of the current system of how the NR costs are shared out is the appearance of splitting the enhancement costs across the network, when in reality these should be allocated against future savings/future passenger numbers.

Likewise the loan costs, how should these be shared out (especially given that some of the benefits of infrastructure projects are tax income from the wider economy from the ability of people to get to where they need to be more easily).

 

[Bald Rick]

Are you able to say roughly how busy a line has to be to cover its full costs of operation, including infrastructure maintenance and renewals?

There’s so many variables, it’s quite difficult to be definitive.

 

[A0]

My point is that by the time of the modernisation plan, we should have admitted 2 things, that we must proceed with blanket electrification since we were too late for Diesels, retaining steam temporarily in the meantime and also that every inch of the network was vitally important and must not be closed, with no valuable 4 track sections being lost or lines being singled either.

You needed diesel and electrics, but for different things. Simply saying we should have gone for blanket electrification is naive.

In terms of network size, closures had been happening before WW2 - so you're saying some of the most obscure, 'Holman Stephensesque' branch lines should have been retained ? Things like the Mid Suffolk Light railway for example which basically served a few hamlets ?

And which 'valuable 4 track sections' were lost post war? It's worth remembering that, for example, Hadley Wood on the ECML was only 2 track in 1945 and it wasn't until 1959 that it was rebuilt to 4 track.

 

[The Ham]

There’s so many variables, it’s quite difficult to be definitive.

I'd imagine that even with what rolling stock is being used results in many various factors which alter the answer (type of energy, efficiency, weight, top speed, line speed, outside temperature, to name a few which come to mind).

For instance a lighter EMU is going to be cheaper to run than a comparable heavier one, it being a cold day (with high energy requirements for heating) would be more expensive than a spring day where no heating/cooling is needed, a unit running at a high line speed close to it's maximum (85mph on a 90mph DMU) is going to be working harder than one going a little slower but in a unit with a higher top speed (80mph on a 100mph DMU).

Easy factor may only change that trains numbers by a small amount but with the potential for there being a lot of variables it could make quite a difference in the average numbers per train.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'd imagine that even with what rolling stock is being used results in many various factors which alter the answer (type of energy, efficiency, weight, top speed, line speed, outside temperature, to name a few which come to mind).

For instance a lighter EMU is going to be cheaper to run than a comparable heavier one, it being a cold day (with high energy requirements for heating) would be more expensive than a spring day where no heating/cooling is needed, a unit running at a high line speed close to it's maximum (85mph on a 90mph DMU) is going to be working harder than one going a little slower but in a unit with a higher top speed (80mph on a 100mph DMU).

Easy factor may only change that trains numbers by a small amount but with the potential for there being a lot of variables it could make quite a difference in the average numbers per train.

Those are largely insignificant. The variables I was thinking about are:

Length of train (longer the better)
average loading% (higher the better)
average passenger journey length
average fare per passenger km
average speed of journey (and therefore productivity of resource, quicker is better)
staffing arrangements (DOO better)
complexity of infrastructure


So, for example, a half hourly Stansted express (12car, well loaded all day, 50km average passenger length, high fares, relatively high average speed and therefore good resource utilisation, DOO, simple infrastructure for the most part) will pay its way…

… whereas a 4-6 tph Snow Hill lines service won’t.

 

[yorksrob]

You needed diesel and electrics, but for different things. Simply saying we should have gone for blanket electrification is naive.

In terms of network size, closures had been happening before WW2 - so you're saying some of the most obscure, 'Holman Stephensesque' branch lines should have been retained ? Things like the Mid Suffolk Light railway for example which basically served a few hamlets ?

And which 'valuable 4 track sections' were lost post war? It's worth remembering that, for example, Hadley Wood on the ECML was only 2 track in 1945 and it wasn't until 1959 that it was rebuilt to 4 track.

The 4 track section between Leeds and Shipley would be useful today.

 

[Nottingham59]

The 4 track section between Leeds and Shipley would be useful today.

As would be the four tracks from Stalybridge to Standedge.

 

[Ken H]

As would be the four tracks from Stalybridge to Standedge.

and 4 tracks from Leeds station to Crossgates.

 

[507020]

You needed diesel and electrics, but for different things. Simply saying we should have gone for blanket electrification is naive.

In terms of network size, closures had been happening before WW2 - so you're saying some of the most obscure, 'Holman Stephensesque' branch lines should have been retained ? Things like the Mid Suffolk Light railway for example which basically served a few hamlets ?

And which 'valuable 4 track sections' were lost post war? It's worth remembering that, for example, Hadley Wood on the ECML was only 2 track in 1945 and it wasn't until 1959 that it was rebuilt to 4 track.

Some European countries do actually have blanket electrification and others retain main line steam. I am aware of single figure numbers of steam engines which run twice a year in Switzerland where overhead wires are dismantled for the winter.

I don’t know where this sentiment that only obscure branch lines closed and these are what should be reopened. I am talking about through routes of strategic importance, e.g. Manchester avoiding lines, both Bolton - Bury - Rochdale to the north and Cadishead - Timperley to the south, both of which would ease today’s congestion, or Southport - Preston, Chinley - Matlock, or Woodhead.

Also I was referring to 4 track sections on what today are considered to be secondary routes, not lines like the ECML.

The 4 track section between Leeds and Shipley would be useful today.

As would be the four tracks from Stalybridge to Standedge.

and 4 tracks from Leeds station to Crossgates.

Very much so. Also 4 tracks through Standedge itself and on the other side and it could have been quadrupled through to York, but also the Atherton with 4 tracks Victoria - Wigan and various loops with another pair of tracks on another alignment.