DfT/Network Rail 'Future Electric Railway' strategy

[WAO]

But if the report deals with life costs rather than first cost it will be an advance. Electrification (or its variations) has to be part of the solution to reducing the present 50% annual subsidy. My view of the railways' losses is that it carries too little traffic in many parts - I look at 10- 12 car workings on the Southern to 2 - 3 car workings elsewhere, with many fixed costs the same.

Gordon Brown's PFI of the naughties gave us instant public investment but at horrible cost later, part of the reason for "austerity".

WAO

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It will be interesting to compare the report against NR’s earlier Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy Interim Programme Business Case of 2020. No doubt the then proposed core electrification routes will reduce considerably if freight traction is not given due consideration.

Yes. That is what I will certainly be doing.

 

[Uncle Buck]

3. Exeter to Basingstoke to Reading (all overhead).

Surely not? Why electrify for one train per hour west of Salisbury, serving a very rural area? This would surely be one of the lowest priority areas for electrification?

This line gets a remarkable amount of attention on this site

 

[Iskra]

Surely the answer is to electrify to the Leeds Loop and add in Derby to Birmingham?

Sheffield-Leeds is already committed, vaguely. No doubt to be cancelled in a few years...

 

[The Ham]

Surely not? Why electrify for one train per hour west of Salisbury, serving a very rural area? This would surely be one of the lowest priority areas for electrification?

This line gets a remarkable amount of attention on this site

Indeed, if the line is to see electrification it would be sections of it. The most likely would be the section within Exeter from Sr Davids to the junction for Exmouth where there's 3tph.

Likewise, around Salisbury where you've got 2tph with the Waterloo services as well as the Salisbury 6 services (Salisbury, Romsey, Southampton, Eastleigh,, Romsey), the Salisbury Bristol services and the Cardiff Portsmouth services.

You might be able to justify from Basingstoke if you then created the ability to turn the Basingstoke Stoppers asking the line rather than them take up a lot of platform space and crossing on the flat east of the station and the capacity issues that creates.

However, as the Basingstoke Stoppers arrive just 10 minutes ahead of the services towards Salisbury (although, as this has to await the departing service it's often held for a minute east of the station so there's a little more padding than that) and leave Basingstoke for Waterloo 4 minutes ahead of the services from Salisbury it's all rather tight. Although, it could be possible to leave Basingstoke, head down the WofE line, have the service go into the London bound platform of the station it's turning at and then sit at Basingstoke for (say) 3 minutes before continuing towards Waterloo to give some timetable robustness.

If the Basingstoke Stopper was running late, then it could be turned at Basingstoke still, and whilst this would constrain paths again it would still mean that platform occupation was far less than is currently the case and would only be an issue if the service was more than 8 minutes late.

Andover (23 minutes from Basingstoke) could work, although you'd need an extra 30 minutes of rolling stock capacity to undertake the round trip (basically the units spend 30 minutes at Basingstoke, so they would be at Andover when they would have otherwise been leaving Basingstoke, so you'd need extra units to have left Andover 30 minutes earlier to cover that service).

That would give you the following timings:
Stopper
Basingstoke xx:28/xx:58
Andover (P1 arrival) xx:51/xy:21
Andover (departure) xy:00/xy:30
Basingstoke xy:24/xy:54

Salisbury services
Basingstoke xx:08/xx:38
Andover (P2) xx24/xx:59
Andover (P1) xx:36/xy:05
Basingstoke xx:55/xy:28

Which is all rather tight, but there could be a bit of a pause added at Basingstoke for the up, former Basingstoke Stoppers, service with the departure time at Andover shifted earlier a little.

With the minor stains between Andover and Basingstoke served by the former Basingstoke Stoppers (and so seeing 2tph) it could be possible to skip then on the Yeovil services at these stations.

This night not be ideal as whilst it would be a possible to change to the Yeovil service when travelling towards Salisbury with nearly no time plenty but would require a 25 minute wait at Andover when returning from Salisbury. Having said that with 2tph rather than 1tph there would be a wider number of services and so there would be a fair chance that the actual "I want to arrive/leave at xx:xx and so need to catch this specific train" wouldn't be much different than the current situation as there would be the potential for far less waiting at (say) Salisbury and Whitchurch (WCH) for the 1tph to turn up.

For example in the evening the existing service from Salisbury is at 17:47 (arriving at 18:14), if you can't get to the station until after then you'd have to wait until 18:47 to head home (arriving 19:14). However, with the above change, the 17:17 and 18:17 services become available. These would arrive at Andover at 17:37 and 18:37, allowing a change to the 18:00 and 19:00 service arriving to Whitchurch 18:09 and 19:09.

Whilst it you can work things well that's slower than the current situation it's not much different if you're running aren't ideal. Although that's only if you skip those stops in the existing services (and even if you did for most of the day you could always keep them in the peak hours - which would make commuting from/to those minor stations to/from Andover and Basingstoke have 3tph for some hours of the day - potentially useful if there was to be some significant house building to happen near those stations).

That could justify the electrification between Basingstoke and Salisbury (as previously mentioned the other services which is they had batteries would also benefit) and could allow works to the junction at Basingstoke to create extra capacity to be delayed as some of the benefits of those works had been dealt with already.

Obviously the ideal would be to extend the Basingstoke Stoppers to Salisbury, however with the number of existing trains there you might struggle to fit them in.

(I think that the reason the WofE line gets a lot of attention is that there a lot of options as to what could be done with it, and so it makes for interesting discussions, even if there's not a lot likely to change anytime soon).

 

[Farnborough]

'Realistic, affordable and deliverable' make me think 'compromise with little scope'. Don't get your hopes up.

The classic Quality Triangle -- You can have two of To Specification, On Time, or On Budget

 

[martin butler]

At the moment if it's down to cost, there will be no further electrification, there will be orders for Battery units to replace DMU's where its feasible to, For example new class of BEMU for GWR, SWR ,and Southern, that will release 170's to be cascaded over, possibly to Chilton, and some 165's, that still have service life left from GWR. With extended batty power, and recharging ramps en-route, they could replace the 158/9 on Salisbury runs.

 

[quantinghome]

It's only really dawning on me how much batteries will be a game changer.

With apologies for focussing on my home turf, take a previously obvious candidate for electrification, the Calder Valley line - several trains per hour in prime commuter territory for Leeds and Manchester. Assuming a practical battery range of around 40 miles, how much would actually need to be electrified, given what is already committed? Leeds-Bradford-Brighouse-Huddersfield wouldn't need anything as the gap of 15 miles from Bradford Interchange to Bradley junction is more than covered by a battery. For Leeds-Todmorden-Manchester, Leeds-Blackpool and Manchester-Todmorden-Blackburn you would need a bit, say from Miles Platting to Rochdale, and Preston to Burnley. But there would be no need to electrify Copy Pit, or Summit tunnel, or the core stretch of the line through Hebden Bridge. Even Huddersfield-Castleford-York could be decarbonised without any additional electrification. Likewise, a commuter line like Leeds-Harrogate-York could be sorted out with a few miles of electrification from York towards Knaresborough.

Looking at long distance routes (mainly cross country - most other intercity routes are already electrified), entire sections, such as Derby-Sheffield, and Bromsgrove - Cheltenham/Gloucester, could be left unelectrified. Electrification can be applied to the least difficult sections thus dramatically reducing costs per km.

So the days of an Indian Railways style rolling programme of 100% electrification are gone. We'll see a few miles of extensions from major cities (and also railway hubs like York and Preston), maybe 30-50% electrification on the remaining unelectrified intercity routes, and taking a lead from the Borders railway, and some isolated sections of a few miles of electrification at the ends of branches - e.g. Scarborough. And that will be enough in the vast majority of cases.

 

[Paul AC]

It's only really dawning on me how much batteries will be a game changer.

With apologies for focussing on my home turf, take a previously obvious candidate for electrification, the Calder Valley line - several trains per hour in prime commuter territory for Leeds and Manchester. Assuming a practical battery range of around 40 miles, how much would actually need to be electrified, given what is already committed? Leeds-Bradford-Brighouse-Huddersfield wouldn't need anything as the gap of 15 miles from Bradford Interchange to Bradley junction is more than covered by a battery. For Leeds-Todmorden-Manchester, Leeds-Blackpool and Manchester-Todmorden-Blackburn you would need a bit, say from Miles Platting to Rochdale, and Preston to Burnley. But there would be no need to electrify Copy Pit, or Summit tunnel, or the core stretch of the line through Hebden Bridge. Even Huddersfield-Castleford-York could be decarbonised without any additional electrification. Likewise, a commuter line like Leeds-Harrogate-York could be sorted out with a few miles of electrification from York towards Knaresborough.

Looking at long distance routes (mainly cross country - most other intercity routes are already electrified), entire sections, such as Derby-Sheffield, and Bromsgrove - Cheltenham/Gloucester, could be left unelectrified. Electrification can be applied to the least difficult sections thus dramatically reducing costs per km.

So the days of an Indian Railways style rolling programme of 100% electrification are gone. We'll see a few miles of extensions from major cities (and also railway hubs like York and Preston), maybe 30-50% electrification on the remaining unelectrified intercity routes, and taking a lead from the Borders railway, and some isolated sections of a few miles of electrification at the ends of branches - e.g. Scarborough. And that will be enough in the vast majority of cases.

You ignore freight, for which partial electrification is not always an answer. Is that a valid stance?

 

[quantinghome]

You ignore freight, for which partial electrification is not always an answer. Is that a valid stance?

Yes, freight is a different issue. However only 800 miles of electrification is needed for 95% of freight to run on electric, according to this report. Some initial infill schemes totalling less than 60 miles are proposed which would allow a lot more freight to run electric. Essentially it's about connecting Southampton and Felixstowe to the WCML. That's most of the work.

But context is important. Rail freight constitutes 0.1% of the UK's carbon emissions compared to 5% for HGVs. Given rail freight emits a quarter the CO2e per tonne.km, if investment is tight then it should be more focussed on increasing rail freight capacity than electrifying it. You could reduce CO2 emissions more by increasing rail freight by 1/3 (i.e. back to 2013 numbers) than by electrifying the entire freight network.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Yes, freight is a different issue. However only 800 miles of electrification is needed for 95% of freight to run on electric, according to this report. Some initial infill schemes totalling less than 60 miles are proposed which would allow a lot more freight to run electric. Essentially it's about connecting Southampton and Felixstowe to the WCML. That's most of the work.

But context is important. Rail freight constitutes 0.1% of the UK's carbon emissions compared to 5% for HGVs. Given rail freight emits a quarter the CO2e per tonne.km, if investment is tight then it should be more focussed on increasing rail freight capacity than electrifying it. You could reduce CO2 emissions more by increasing rail freight by 1/3 (i.e. back to 2013 numbers) than by electrifying the entire freight network.

I see two issues with this.

Firstly, shifting freight to rail may take public sector investment in Ely Upgrades etc., whereas most of the costs of shifting to electric trucks falls on the private sector haulage and charge point operators, and a lot will kind-of happen anyway as a result of zero emission vehicle mandates and the turnover of trucks.

Then once the customer has a choice of an electric truck vs a diesel train, from a carbon reporting perspective, the diesel train might not look great, and that may create an incentive in something that's less efficient but also lower carbon.

To be fair I haven't really considered the impact of HVO on either road or rail transport which skews the carbon calcs.

 

[The Ham]

Yes, freight is a different issue. However only 800 miles of electrification is needed for 95% of freight to run on electric, according to this report. Some initial infill schemes totalling less than 60 miles are proposed which would allow a lot more freight to run electric. Essentially it's about connecting Southampton and Felixstowe to the WCML. That's most of the work.

It will be interesting to see how much weight the actual strategy applies to the red lines (key infill schemes).

 

[stevieinselby]

Surely not? Why electrify for one train per hour west of Salisbury, serving a very rural area? This would surely be one of the lowest priority areas for electrification?

This line gets a remarkable amount of attention on this site

I think one of the reasons for that is that it has diesel trains running a significant distance over electrified lines.
For trains between Salisbury and Waterloo, 60% of the route is already electrified, so you get a disproportionate amount of bang for your buck by electrifying the remaining 30-odd miles, those trains then get to run on electric for the 50 miles from Worting for no more capital cost.
For trains to Exeter, that figure is a less compelling 30% already electrified (making it about 40% for the corridor overall if half of trains terminate at Salisbury and half continue through to Exeter).
So effectively, for every 1 mile you electrify, you get nearly 2 miles of electric running.
There's also the factor that a large proportion of the route beyond Salisbury is single track, which will reduce the cost of electrification compared to double track (I don't know exactly how it works out, I'm guessing it is more than half the cost but still cheaper).
Also consider that these are not piddly little 2-car Sprinters running the route, average train length is 5–6 carriages.

For all these reasons, the route has a better claim to being electrified than you would initially think from a rural line that is largely 1tph.
Of course, if batteries and selective electrification or strategic fast charging can enable the benefits of electrification for much less infrastructure work then that does have the potential to change the picture.

 

[Bald Rick]

For trains between Salisbury and Waterloo, 60% of the route is already electrified, so you get a disproportionate amount of bang for your buck by electrifying the remaining 30-odd miles

And you get the same bang for a small percentage of your bucks by buying EMUs with batteries on rather than spending a couple of hundred million electrifying to Salisbury and buying plain EMUs.

 

[stevieinselby]

And you get the same bang for a small percentage of your bucks by buying EMUs with batteries on rather than spending a couple of hundred million electrifying to Salisbury and buying plain EMUs.

Hence why I said at the end "Of course, if batteries and selective electrification or strategic fast charging can enable the benefits of electrification for much less infrastructure work then that does have the potential to change the picture."
A few years ago, this would have looked like a good bet for bi-modes, to run electric between Waterloo and Worting Junction (or Basingstoke, depending on whether they could change over at speed, I don't know if that's as easy with 3rd rail as with OHLE) and then diesel on the lower frequency line beyond, but we seem to have moved very quickly past the time when that was the optimal way to go.

 

[brad465]

Surely not? Why electrify for one train per hour west of Salisbury, serving a very rural area? This would surely be one of the lowest priority areas for electrification?

This line gets a remarkable amount of attention on this site

That route needs more services IMO - at least 2tph throughout and maybe even 3tph Basingstoke-Salisbury and Exeter-Axminster. However, this still wouldn't warrant full electrification, but with BEMU provision, plenty of islands can be managed, especially at hubs like Salisbury, Yeovil and Exeter where other traffic can take advantage.

 

[cle]

I would do the smaller lines which could provide commuter networks into regional centres. And which could be increased in service.

Bristol new routes as one, but also those around Exeter, Norwich / Cambridge and Newcastle. And make proper urban rail networks out of them.

 

[HSTEd]

You ignore freight, for which partial electrification is not always an answer. Is that a valid stance?

Freight operators probably won't part with their EMD 2-stroke diesels until they are compelled to do so either way.

And you won't make a business case for electrification on the basis of freight, it doesn't pay enough for that.

Most likely we will have a diesel freight railway for a long time, followed by a belated switch to very big battery locomotives.

I think a bigger question is what happens if HGVs start following the Chinese example and start going electric in earnest themselves....

 

[JohnofWessex]

If India with a per capita GDP 1/15th of ours can do Project Unigauge (Converting the 50% of the network that in 1975 was meter gauge to broad gauge) AND has a rail network that is now 99.2% electric then - and there are technical issues that I suspect we have and they dont why the (insert profanity of choice) cant we

 

[The Ham]

Freight operators probably won't part with their EMD 2-stroke diesels until they are compelled to do so either way.

And you won't make a business case for electrification on the basis of freight, it doesn't pay enough for that.

Most likely we will have a diesel freight railway for a long time, followed by a belated switch to very big battery locomotives.

I think a bigger question is what happens if HGVs start following the Chinese example and start going electric in earnest themselves....

Which is why the report linked to earlier in the thread was interesting, in that it highlighted the lines where 95% of freight could have been shifted to electric haulage if enough of those lines were wired up (by which I mean that with batteries you could potentially skip some sections and still not need diesel running).

Quote with the original link:

Yes, freight is a different issue. However only 800 miles of electrification is needed for 95% of freight to run on electric, according to this report. Some initial infill schemes totalling less than 60 miles are proposed which would allow a lot more freight to run electric. Essentially it's about connecting Southampton and Felixstowe to the WCML. That's most of the work.

I would imagine that quite a bit of those lines where XC run (Basingstoke/Reading, Didcot/Oxford, Birmingham/York, Bromsgrove/Bristol) would probably have enough of a passenger service to justify at least some electrification.

 

[quantinghome]

If India with a per capita GDP 1/15th of ours can do Project Unigauge (Converting the 50% of the network that in 1975 was meter gauge to broad gauge) AND has a rail network that is now 99.2% electric then - and there are technical issues that I suspect we have and they dont why the (insert profanity of choice) cant we

TL;DR - it's not that we can't, it's that we won't. We would have to more than double capital investment in rail to reach the level of investment India is making.

Longer explanation:

India's capex spend on rail is around 0.85% of its GDP. The UK's is 0.37% (most of which is HS2).

India is not a poor country. It's GDP is over 4 times larger than the UK's once you account for Purchase Power Parity, so that means its total rail capex is effectively 10 times that of the UK.

India's rail network route length is MASSIVE - 69000 km (the UK has 16000 km) so that's 4.3 times the route length.

That means India is investing roughly 2.2 times the amount the UK is, per km of railway line.

Why the difference? 65% of India's rail revenue is freight. And the golden rule of railway economics is that freight makes money and passengers don't. Hence India's railway actually makes a surplus, whereas UK rail's revenue is only half its outgoings, (the other half of its operational income comes from the government). The UK government actually spends more money supporting railway opex than capex.

In fact, once you combine the Indian and UK governments' opex and capex spend on their respective rail networks, it works out around the same % of GDP. But the Indian government can put all that into capex, especially into profitable freight, for which it is building brand new electrified lines for double-stack container trains (the pantographs are ridiculously long). Meanwhile, the UK government has to spend over half of its rail spend supporting rail operational costs.

 

[brad465]

TL;DR - it's not that we can't, it's that we won't.

Longer explanation:

India's capex spend on rail is around 0.85% of its GDP. The UK's is 0.37% (most of which is HS2).

India is not a poor country. It's GDP is over 4 times larger than the UK's once you account for Purchase Power Parity, so that means its total rail capex is effectively 10 times that of the UK.

India's rail network route length is MASSIVE - 69000 km (the UK has 16000 km) so that's 4.3 times the route length.

That means India is investing roughly 2.2 times the amount the UK is, per km of railway line.

Why the difference? 65% of India's rail revenue is freight. And the golden rule of railway economics is that freight makes money and passengers don't. Hence India's railway actually makes a surplus, whereas UK rail's revenue is only half its outgoings, (the other half of its operational income comes from the government). The UK government actually spends more money supporting railway opex than capex.

In fact, once you combine the Indian and UK governments' opex and capex spend on their respective rail networks, it works out around the same % of GDP. But the Indian government can put all that into capex, especially into profitable freight, for which it is building brand new electrified lines for double-stack container trains (the pantographs are ridiculously long). Meanwhile, the UK government has to spend over half of its rail spend supporting rail operational costs.

I'm not surprised freight is a large part of India's rail revenue; firstly it's massive, so long drives are harder. Second, who would take a chance on India's roads? The UK has relatively safe roads and of course much shorter drives (apart from those that come from across the channel).

 

[Sad Sprinter]

TL;DR - it's not that we can't, it's that we won't. We would have to more than double capital investment in rail to reach the level of investment India is making.

Longer explanation:

India's capex spend on rail is around 0.85% of its GDP. The UK's is 0.37% (most of which is HS2).

India is not a poor country. It's GDP is over 4 times larger than the UK's once you account for Purchase Power Parity, so that means its total rail capex is effectively 10 times that of the UK.

India's rail network route length is MASSIVE - 69000 km (the UK has 16000 km) so that's 4.3 times the route length.

That means India is investing roughly 2.2 times the amount the UK is, per km of railway line.

Why the difference? 65% of India's rail revenue is freight. And the golden rule of railway economics is that freight makes money and passengers don't. Hence India's railway actually makes a surplus, whereas UK rail's revenue is only half its outgoings, (the other half of its operational income comes from the government). The UK government actually spends more money supporting railway opex than capex.

In fact, once you combine the Indian and UK governments' opex and capex spend on their respective rail networks, it works out around the same % of GDP. But the Indian government can put all that into capex, especially into profitable freight, for which it is building brand new electrified lines for double-stack container trains (the pantographs are ridiculously long). Meanwhile, the UK government has to spend over half of its rail spend supporting rail operational costs.

But it makes me wonder how much of our railways’ poor financial performance is because of poor economic conditions, caused by poor infrastructure like, amongst other things, weak infrastructure spending

 

[quantinghome]

I'm not surprised freight is a large part of India's rail revenue; firstly it's massive, so long drives are harder.

Yes, that's ultimately what it comes down to. Rail freight is competitive over longer distances. Hence why even the road-addicted US transports 25% of freight by rail.

Second, who would take a chance on India's roads?

Based on personal experience, lorry drivers!

The UK has relatively safe roads and of course much shorter drives (apart from those that come from across the channel).

True, although India's roads are being rapidly modernised. 25 years ago the "golden quadrilateral" project aimed to connect up the main cities by dualling existing roads and was regarded as very ambitious. But now it's moved on to full-on greenfield motorway projects, with over 1000 km being added every year.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2026 ==

But it makes me wonder how much of our railways’ poor financial performance is because of poor economic conditions, caused by poor infrastructure like, amongst other things, weak infrastructure spending

Maybe a bit, but the fundamentals probably matter more. We actually carry a decent amount of passenger traffic by rail. It's just that passenger traffic doesn't make money (and probably never really has). Freight has always been the moneymaker, but it's just not competitive against road until you get to distances over 300 miles, which rules out most of the UK market.

 

[The Ham]

But it makes me wonder how much of our railways’ poor financial performance is because of poor economic conditions, caused by poor infrastructure like, amongst other things, weak infrastructure spending

Indeed, there's 3 ways to make money:
- charge for your labour
- sell something (ideally that's been made)
- rent stuff

The last, arguably, doesn't add value (and the higher the value of the rent the more it's taking true value out of the economy) and unfortunately it's what makes up a lot of UK spending (especially private rental sector for housing) and is arguably worse when the rent payments are repaying debt as it's not money being recycled within the economy.

It would be better to pay people to build something as that generates money which goes around and around the economy, rather than pay private landlords for a house which they are effectively renting off a bank and very little goes into the economy.

Electrification of the railways would be high quality jobs, however, building social houses and public important buildings (Hospitals, Care Homes, etc.) could save councils money in the long term.

Yes, public bodies can be bad at doing business deals (however, so can any organisation without the skills) however, that shouldn't be a reason why they should do none and if they have skill gap they should look to either hire in those skills (i.e. a project manager) or get trained (just as any private business would).

The thing with improvements to our infrastructure is that it makes it easier for people to charge for their time (they can get to more places) or to sell stuff (they can get the materials needed to then and move the products to customers more easily) which boosts the economy.

 

[Mikey C]

Hence why I said at the end "Of course, if batteries and selective electrification or strategic fast charging can enable the benefits of electrification for much less infrastructure work then that does have the potential to change the picture."
A few years ago, this would have looked like a good bet for bi-modes, to run electric between Waterloo and Worting Junction (or Basingstoke, depending on whether they could change over at speed, I don't know if that's as easy with 3rd rail as with OHLE) and then diesel on the lower frequency line beyond, but we seem to have moved very quickly past the time when that was the optimal way to go.

Does the 3rd rail network between London and Salisbury have the juice to power more trains (as they would be using the 3rd rail) AND charge their batteries?

 

[HSTEd]

Does the 3rd rail network between London and Salisbury have the juice to power more trains (as they would be using the 3rd rail) AND charge their batteries?

Even if it doesn't, power supply upgrades on the third rail section will be very much cheaper than any 25kV electrification project.

 

[Bald Rick]

Does the 3rd rail network between London and Salisbury have the juice to power more trains (as they would be using the 3rd rail) AND charge their batteries?

yes (between London and Worting Junction).

 

[eldomtom2]

Yes, that's ultimately what it comes down to. Rail freight is competitive over longer distances. Hence why even the road-addicted US transports 25% of freight by rail.

Well the other key advantage freight rail has in the US is a near-total lack of competition from shipping. Compare with Japan, which despite having many profitable passenger railways has seen its one and only national freight operator struggle to turn a profit - which is also a useful reminder that it's not as simple as freight = profitable, passengers = unprofitable.

 

[quantinghome]

Well the other key advantage freight rail has in the US is a near-total lack of competition from shipping. Compare with Japan, which despite having many profitable passenger railways has seen its one and only national freight operator struggle to turn a profit - which is also a useful reminder that it's not as simple as freight = profitable, passengers = unprofitable.

Japan is pretty much the only country where passenger services are profitable.

Rail freight is competitive over road haulage for distances greater than a few hundred miles, so works well in larger countries. So rail freight Japan will suffer from the same fundamental economics as it does in the UK.