Do branch lines contribute much financially to the greater network?

[yorksrob]

...and yet you get so worked up about the cost of a bit of new vinyl every five years, yet turn a blind eye to the millions spent elsewhere...

If "elsewhere" is runnung a train service, that's what the millions are supposed to be spent on.

I thought that the Forum mantra was that "passengers like direct services, having to change en-route makes journeys unattractive"?

Or is it okay to change, as long as that means more time spent on trains, rather than taking a direct coach?

Well, we know that railway passengers don't like to change trains, but we also know that they don't like long coach journeys. Otherwise, the coach market would be larger than it is.

Face it, the opening of the bridge to Skye, and the removal of tolls makes the railway redundant for most of the journeys that it used to be competitive for - move on and focus resources on routes where rail can compete better

I'm sure that those who are inclined to drive would have driven previously. I've just not seen any evidence that there has been a large scale switch of rail passengers to other transport modes.

Even if you electrify it, you're still operating mass transportation for passenger numbers that'll struggle to half fill a minibus a lot of the time - this is the danger with people tempted to play the "climate emergency" card, it works both ways, a lightly used train isn't very "green" if the passengers would emit less pollution if they travelled by other means

It's lucky that the Whitby line wouldn't face such an issue, although it still always seems to be in the closure enthusiasts top ten for some reason.

Ultimately environmental factors have to exist alongside quality. Yes, it would probably be more carbon neutral to cross the Atlantic by sailing ship, but the quality offered by flying is also a consideration.

Even if you add on the people working at staffed stations and the slightly increase in staff numbers on some InterCity services (mainly catering), those wages are still spread between hundreds of people on a typical InterCity service, the thousands of people who use that station each day - whereas even if a rural DMU only has two members of staff (and no cleaner/ trolley, no staffed stations), the two members of staff are being paid for by a much smaller number of people who use that service over the course of the day

And that's why those services have fewer staff.

A ten/twelve coach train is much more efficient to run than a two coach train because there's still only one driver/conductor to pay for, but that driver/conductor has ten times more people on board their service - even if you add in several ticket office staff and a second conductor, the InterCity route wins hands down

Yes, it's a shame that so many parts of the network are run using 2-carriage DMU's. Building in some scope for expansion in capacity, even if by enabling older rolling stock to be used more cost-effectively for longer would enable the railway to increase its passenger base and increase revenue. Instead in many parts of the regional railway, shorter trains seem to be the trend (at least TPE is bucking it though). Servicable carriages are being withdrawn with only like for like, or no replacement at all.

So the Government would own all trains and lease them to TOCs? The Government would set up an open market where TOCs would have to compete for the stock that they wanted? The Government would control all new builds of trains too, and the taxpayer left with the waste of money spent on modern stock that nobody wants to touch (e.g. 350/2s)? Do you think that a Government that had inflicted a decade of austerity on public services would be keen to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayers money on new trains?

I think you'll find that the Government already controls all of these things. What would be better would be if the trains became part of the franchise, so the TOC would get to use them for less money as their costs were paid off.

Ah, not, wait, I've got it... you know deep down that by forcing all train orders to be entirely funded/ordered by the Government, we'd see very little in the way of new trains other than when old ones were literally falling apart, which means we'd have to be stuck with all of your favourite childhood trains... sneaky!

It would be better if there was some sort of banking mechanism whereby train operators could borrow to fund the renewal of rolling stock. The loan would be fixed to the railway, so if a franchise changed hands, the new incumbent would inherit the cost of paying down the loan. However, once that loan had been paid off, the rolling stock would belong to the railway.

 

[Starmill]

the option of building a platform close to Stranraer town centre to replace that on the pier really should be tried before closing the line.

It's all capex though isn't it. Why should Scottish Ministers put money into Stranraer Town station when a similar value could buy stations in places like Abronhill or Bonnybridge, where the benefits would be many times larger?

 

[Meerkat]

Well, we know that railway passengers don't like to change trains, but we also know that they don't like long coach journeys. Otherwise, the coach market would be larger than it is.

I'm sure that those who are inclined to drive would have driven previously. I've just not seen any evidence that there has been a large scale switch of rail passengers to other transport modes.

Those who can drive will already be driving. For the rest a coach is fine - I don’t see why the taxpayer has to fund the mode the passenger wants rather than the one that will do the job.

 

[yorksrob]

Those who can drive will already be driving. For the rest a coach is fine - I don’t see why the taxpayer has to fund the mode the passenger wants rather than the one that will do the job.

Because non-motorists have votes too.

 

[tbtc]

Surely no one who spends any time on the ECML can be proposing such an idea.....?

I don't think anyone is suggesting such a thing - we were just talking about the lines that were potentially up for closure in the 1960s - back when passenger numbers were a lot lower and there was potentially scope for diverting all Edinburgh - London passengers down the WCML (just like there was talk of Sheffield's services running to Euston or Kings Cross and closing part of the WCML)

I'm not saying it'd have been a great idea, just that I can understand why it might have been considered (just like the way that HS2 will change travel patterns by taking some people to Euston instead of their existing London termini, which may affect how busy trains are between say Doncaster and Peterborough, if the vast majority of Yorkshire passengers are now going to Euston)

I'm arguing against the idea that we can lop off the lightly used parts of the network and voila! the network's funding problems are solved. It's not where the main problem is.

I don't think anyone is claiming that we would solve *all* of the funding problems, but we do have a funding problem ahead and a lot of people seem dead against making any cuts whatsoever - suggesting that there's no point in saving millions of pounds unless it entirely balances the books

I wonder if there's similar approaches taken elsewhere, e.g. there's no point in me losing half a stone in weight, I'm not going to bother losing any weight unless I can get down to the size of a Supermodel... there's no point in making any improvements unless they solve all of my problems...

It was a general point that you and @A0wen are generally quite anti-rail (or perhaps rather very right wing on how it should be funded)

You keep assuming that anyone not as blindly pro-rail as you must hate the railways... feels like a bit of a straw man... it's perfectly possible to be pro-rail without needing blinkers

I believe it is only right that, in the context of various new/previously closed lines being opened, the ones that make the worst losses are sensibly reviewed. These lines are mostly where their raison d'etre has disappeared (Stranraer, Barton on Humber, Kyle of Lochalsh), or are hopelessly outmaneouvred by roads (Conwy Valley, Far North). There are possibly a few others (Newquay, Gunnislake, Felixstowe, Whitby?) . Yes it is only single numbers and is well compensated by openings elsewhere in more promising territory. Note - I only say reviewed, but sensibly without misty eyed rail enthusiasm

Agreed - Barton on Humber is another pointless branch line - are we keeping it open on the off chance that the Humber Bridge falls down and the ferry returns? We'd be much better using the stock to extend some of the Doncaster - Scunthorpe services through to Cleethorpes instead

I suggested in the thread about new cities that any promotion of a large town to "city" status should require tiny settlement with a cathedral to be downgraded - maybe the same should apply to stations - if you want a handful of new stations to be built then you need to nominate some lightly used ones to close (obviously the new stations would have much higher passenger numbers than the ones replaced, the railway would grow overall)

 

[Bletchleyite]

The cost of providing the driver, conductor and catering, signalling staff at Barrhill, station staff at Stranraer and Wick, and fuel and maintenance miles on the trains is what is at stake.

Classic Beeching. You could remove catering and all staffed stations without closing the line, therefore they do not count as against bus operation.

Would the signaller not be needed for freight?

 

[Starmill]

Classic Beeching. You could remove catering and all staffed stations without closing the line, therefore they do not count as against bus operation.

Would the signaller not be needed for freight?

On paper, you could remove the conductor too. But also, could you actually, in practice? You certainly could easily shut booking offices, but at the moment the staff at Stranraer do things like tanking the train, and at Wick there's a crew depot. Could you actually remove them or get better value out of them without withdrawal of the services? Probably not much. Incidentally if consolidation of train crew depots is a possibility from withdrawing services north of Tain you might be able to add some driver manager efficiencies.

No freight potential for Girvan - Stranraer. Signalling isn't a major cost for the Far North.

 

[daodao]

As much as that's your view, this thread is about the financial contribution of secondary lines. And the subsidy required per trip for the Far North and Stranraer lines is higher than the West Highland and Kyle lines. That makes a lot of sense once you're aware of the tourism picture. They also have significant scope for future growth - scope that definitely doesn't exist in Stranraer.

I have previously stated that subsidies should be considered in terms of per passenger mile, otherwise the Far North line is penalised inappropriately. Subsidies are not warranted based on the number of tourists using a line, they should solely be related to the local population served, or potentially disadvantaged if the line is closed. Lines should not be subsidised for the benefit of tourists.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have previously stated that subsidies should be considered in terms of per passenger mile, otherwise the Far North line is penalised inappropriately. Subsidies are not warranted based on the number of tourists using a line, they should solely be related to the local population served, or potentially disadvantaged if the line is closed. Lines should not be subsidised for the benefit of tourists.

I agree with you on per passenger mile (for once! )

I don't agree on the latter. Tourism is important to the economy in many areas, and pushing people into cars is negative. If anything I think we seriously underdo promoting to tourists, though those 153s with their "your Scottish Nan's living room" interior are a start.

 

[yorksrob]

Lines should not be subsidised for the benefit of tourists.

Why not ? The tourists could be an important part of the local economy.

 

[Starmill]

I have previously stated that subsidies should be considered in terms of per passenger mile, otherwise the Far North line is penalised inappropriately.

The difficulty with doing that is that you end up penalising some very intensively used routes. For example various of the Glasgow Electrics carry people short distances and overcrowding makes them costly to operate because significant extra money needs to be spent on a very busy route - extra station staff, extra trains at peak times etc. But in fact the growth potential and the economic activity Glasgow commuting supports means that you want to be supporting it more, not less.

In any case dividing by passenger km doesn't much change the figures. It doesn't put the Far North ahead of the Kyle line for example, because so very very few people use the Far North.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

Subsidies are not warranted based on the number of tourists using a line, they should solely be related to the local population served, or potentially disadvantaged if the line is closed.

Again that's your view. Lots of rail revenue comes from tourists, not locals.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

Why not ? The tourists could be an important part of the local economy.

Imagine the case for the St Ives services based on people who live only in St Ives and Carbis Bay. But that's very far from the true picture.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

I don't agree on the latter. Tourism is important to the economy in many areas, and pushing people into cars is negative. If anything I think we seriously underdo promoting to tourists, though those 153s with their "your Scottish Nan's living room" interior are a start.

There are even a variety of subsidised bus services in Cornwall that frankly are only really run for the benefit of tourists. But, of course, if they're well used... why not?

 

[yorksrob]

Imagine the case for the St Ives services based on people who live only in St Ives and Carbis Bay. But that's very far from the true picture.

Indeed. Or Windermere based on the population of Windermere/Bowness !

 

[daodao]

I don't agree on the latter. Tourism is important to the economy in many areas, and pushing people into cars is negative.

Lots of rail revenue comes from tourists, not locals.

I stated that "Lines should not be subsidised for the benefit of tourists." That does not mean that lines that otherwise merit subsidies should not be promoted for tourist use, where appropriate. Many local authorities such as Derbyshire have withdrawn most of their subsidised tourist-oriented bus services over the last few years, but are still subsidising bus services for the benefit of the local population, which is as it should be.

Imagine the case for the St Ives services based on people who live only in St Ives and Carbis Bay.

The St. Ives line functions in part as a park and ride facility, so presumably any subsidy helps to reduce the need for parking facilities in St Ives itself. It is a special case, as are some other specific tourist-oriented public transport services to congested "honeypots". These should be distinguished from subsidising tourist-related public transport services to empty countryside, such as the Kyle line or West Highland Extension.

 

[Starmill]

Many local authorities such as Derbyshire have withdrawn most of their subsidised tourist-oriented bus services over the last few years, but are still subsidising bus services for the benefit of the local population, which is as it should be.

There are all kinds of reasons why local authorities may wish to, and actually do, subsidise bus services run primarily for the use of tourists. It could be anything from the economic effects of increasing visitor numbers to reducing the use of parking spaces in a town centre.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

You keep assuming that anyone not as blindly pro-rail as you must hate the railways... feels like a bit of a straw man... it's perfectly possible to be pro-rail without needing blinkers

As I regularly argue, it's actually more pro-public transport to take the view that reallocating spending scarce subsidy money to the routes where they'll bring the most benefits is the answer, even if it means some difficult decisions over things like how to serve the route north of Tain. I accept that the decisions are difficult and undesirable but that's politically the place we've been put into. The sector has just got to choose how to best spend the money it already has.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

It is a special case, as are some other specific tourist-oriented public transport to congested "honeypots". These should be distinguished from subsidising tourist-related public transport services to empty countryside, such as the Kyle line or West Highland Extension.

It's not really a special case though is it? There are lots of places where inward visitors are similar in number to locals accessing their nearest major city. The Looe branch, Barnstaple and Windermere services perform a similar function, to name just a few. Nobody proposes closure there, but they'd probably perform even worse than Far North if 'tourist pounds' were disallowed.

 

[Meerkat]

Just because tourism might good for the local economy that doesn’t mean that subsidising trains in those areas makes good value. How much tourism does the Far North generate - don’t passengers just go up and get the next train back?
For the touristy lines I’m inclined to think they should go for Caledonian Sleeper concept (not practice!) - crank up the prices and the service level, but with some kind of discount card for the locals.

 

[Starmill]

How much tourism does the Far North generate -

Next to none. Nor are there any obvious ways in which it might be useful to the local tourist industry. There's Dunrobin Castle (note also served by bus) but that's about it.

Skye however is a major draw for tourist activities.

 

[quantinghome]

I don't think anyone is claiming that we would solve *all* of the funding problems, but we do have a funding problem ahead and a lot of people seem dead against making any cuts whatsoever - suggesting that there's no point in saving millions of pounds unless it entirely balances the books

I wonder if there's similar approaches taken elsewhere, e.g. there's no point in me losing half a stone in weight, I'm not going to bother losing any weight unless I can get down to the size of a Supermodel... there's no point in making any improvements unless they solve all of my problems...

The funding problem is due to a lack of passengers, caused by a temporary health emergency. You solve it by attracting people back to using railways. Fine to make some temporary reductions in service but making permanent cuts on the unwarranted assumption that passengers are not going to return is not a good long term plan.

Surely getting passengers back is a better way of plugging the funding hole? How about something innovative like an adult railcard? £50 - 1/3rd off fares after 9.30am.

 

[tbtc]

Why not ? The tourists could be an important part of the local economy.

Tourists are important

But, if your argument is about how important they are to the local economy then the subsidy per passenger needs to be seen in the context of how much they spend

For example, there's a difference between subsidising people to go somewhere that they might be spending a lot of money and subsidising people to climb a hill/ sit on a beach (which is a lovely day out, sure, but not going to contribute a great deal to the local economy)

So if we are talking about coastal Scottish resources, a train to somewhere like St Andrews may bring in a lot of money from the kind of high spending tourists and the large sums that come with the hotels/ golf - whereas there's not a great deal of money to spent at Kyle of Lochalsh, it's a nice day trip from Inverness but how much money do most tourists spend there? There's a Co-op but you'd have to spend a lot there for the supermarket profits to be equivalent to the subsidy (e.g. you might have to spend hundreds of pounds in the Co-op to generate the same profit for them as £20 worth of subsidy costs the taxpayer - I know the sandwiches are expensive, but even still...)

If we are just spending that twenty quid to subsidise a journey so that someone can climb a hill then there's to much in the way of economic benefit

As I regularly argue, it's actually more pro-public transport to take the view that reallocating spending scarce subsidy money to the routes where they'll bring the most benefits is the answer, even if it means some difficult decisions over things like how to serve the route north of Tain. I accept that the decisions are difficult and undesirable but that's politically the place we've been put into. The sector has just got to choose how to best spend the money it already has

Agreed - there are a lot of difficult discussions that will need to be had in an era of shrinking budgets, but a generation of rising tides has meant a number of people are in denial about the need to ever have any awkward conversations

Maybe privatisation has insulated them from these kind of problems, they've forgotten that BR closed stations pretty much every year and closed or at least threatened to close lines too - rather than occasionally taking the pragmatic decisions about where best to spend finite budgets (and that a pound spent on subsidy each year is a pound that could be invested each year)

The funding problem is due to a lack of passengers, caused by a temporary health emergency. You solve it by attracting people back to using railways. Cutting services on the unwarranted assumption that passengers are not going to return is not a good long term plan.

If you want to believe that commuters and business passengers are going to go back to pre-Covid levels then, great, but I think that it's exposed some underling problems and that even if passenger numbers bounce back to 2019 levels the cost of Covid (and Brexit etc) means that the Government can't afford to keep propping things up even if the railway didn't need a penny more in subsidy in 2023 than it did in 2019

 

[RT4038]

I reckon the first part of the UK to get anywhere near that is Wales with Trawscymru, made possible (ironically) by very few bus services being commercially viable in more rural parts of Wales, thus creating a situation of de-facto full regulation as near enough everything is tendered. The question is - have they got the guts to go the whole way with it?

I would suggest that the Welsh Government have the means with the Trawscymru network to do it. However, I suspect that the funding budgets are not managed by the same people yet [even though some of the funds eventually come from the same source, this is not quite the same] and there are plenty of administrative and financial details to be thrashed out before getting to, or close to, your wish list of features. The additional funding required to get your wish list is probably not going to be covered (in the short term at least) by savings in converting the Conwy Valley line into the bus network and there may not be that many other lines in Wales suitable for this treatment. It is not guts, but funding.

There are even places where a bus of almost that quality does exist, for instance the X4/5 from Penrith to Keswick or the X5 from Oxford to Bedford via Buckingham and MK, and the simple expedient of adding them into the railway timetable and ticketing system might increase use a fair bit.

The funding regime is not there to support your wish list, and to go off at half-cock doing bits of the list only will probably bring the concept into disrepute. Your 'simple expedient' is not quite so simple to put into practice (think revenue apportionment to start with, let alone connections scheduled and actual, delay, capacity, staff training for ticket issue and acceptance etc etc). I suspect services like these are going to have to fall in the DfT/rail industry funding ambit before any real progress is going to be made.

 

[A0]

Because non-motorists have votes too.

So what?

If there is a provision that's sufficient. No reason the state should provide further provision just to satisfy a few whims. Sorry - that's how public services work, they ensure there is a basic level of service there, not multiple choices with different flavours to suit your personal predelictions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2022 ==

The funding problem is due to a lack of passengers, caused by a temporary health emergency. You solve it by attracting people back to using railways. Fine to make some temporary reductions in service but making permanent cuts on the unwarranted assumption that passengers are not going to return is not a good long term plan.

Surely getting passengers back is a better way of plugging the funding hole? How about something innovative like an adult railcard? £50 - 1/3rd off fares after 9.30am.

Except an idea like that railcard would need to increase rail usage by at least 1/3rd to offset the loss of revenue.

I.e. you'd need 3 people to travel with those railcards to gain the same revenue (excluding the cost of the railcard) - all that would happen is regular travellers would buy such a railcard and reduce their spend and even if they travelled more, would probably still end up spending less and the marginal number of new customers you'd attract would probably not cover the gap you've created.

It would be interesting to know how many 2 Together railcards are in use - which was introduced in 2014, costs £30 and offers 1/3rd off for 2 people travelling, and whether there is any evidence that lead to any attributable increase in revenue.

 

[Starmill]

The funding regime is not there to support your wish list, and to go off at half-cock doing bits of the list only will probably bring the concept into disrepute. Your 'simple expedient' is not quite so simple to put into practice (think revenue apportionment to start with, let alone connections scheduled and actual, delay, capacity, staff training for ticket issue and acceptance etc etc). I suspect services like these are going to have to fall in the DfT/rail industry funding ambit before any real progress is going to be made.

There are lots of different models that could work.

At one end you could do something similar to the current arrangement for St Andrews, where the local bus service serves the interchange station but otherwise does its own thing to its own timetable, as any local bus might, but you've effectively createda virtual railway station in St Andrews Bus Station. There used to be a ScotRail office there - others can confirm if there still is. Edinburgh Airport also has one of these.

At the other end of the scale would be TOC employed staff driving buses and able to issue rail tickets onboard, with liveried vehicles and full bus stops with signs in the style of railway stations with ticket machines and so on. The buses could be leased or owned outright.

If it were up to me I'd do several trials using a range of these to see what outturn custom would be like. I would do some where there's already a popular bus service, such as Penrith - Keswick, some where there is a train but its infrequent, such as Kyle of Lochalsh - Inverness, running a bus half way between each train, some where there's a possibility to reorganise the railway timetable to improve the service, such as running an extra train between Inverness and Tain and then using a bus to run from Tain to Wick avoiding Lairg, some where there's a railway route but the bus might serve part of the market better such as Tiverton Parkway - Tiverton - Barnstaple - Bideford and some where the bus just replicates the train such as Llandudno - Blaenau Ffestiniog.

 

[MattRat]

Those who can drive will already be driving. For the rest a coach is fine - I don’t see why the taxpayer has to fund the mode the passenger wants rather than the one that will do the job.

Everyone will drive, pollution will sky rocket. Well done (sarcasm).

Surely I don't have to explain why the car is terrible at mass transit?

 

[Greybeard33]

There are even places where a bus of almost that quality does exist, for instance the X4/5 from Penrith to Keswick or the X5 from Oxford to Bedford via Buckingham and MK, and the simple expedient of adding them into the railway timetable and ticketing system might increase use a fair bit.

I share your high opinion of the Stagecoach Lake District services. I believe that public transport usage in the National Park would increase significantly if the "honeypot" destinations (Keswick, Ambleside, Bowness, Grasmere) appeared in the railway journey planners, with PlusBus ticketing. Even without any changes to the existing bus timetables.

 

[Starmill]

I share your high opinion of the Stagecoach Lake District services. I believe that public transport usage in the National Park would increase significantly if the "honeypot" destinations (Keswick, Ambleside, Bowness, Grasmere) appeared in the railway journey planners, with PlusBus ticketing. Even without any changes to the existing bus timetables.

I think that there's a very good chance of this, combined with an eticket rollout.

It would also only need a very small improvement to things here like changing the bus stop layouts slightly to make the transfers seamless. Minor increases to evening frequency in some areas would also help, or where not possible consideration given to having the bus wait for the train, and you're almost all the way there already to a quality network which can make substantial cuts in Lakea car usage.

Sadly we're not yet there, despite how relatively little resources this would need.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Tourists are important

But, if your argument is about how important they are to the local economy then the subsidy per passenger needs to be seen in the context of how much they spend

For example, there's a difference between subsidising people to go somewhere that they might be spending a lot of money and subsidising people to climb a hill/ sit on a beach (which is a lovely day out, sure, but not going to contribute a great deal to the local economy)

In a purely financial way, yes. However there are other less tangible benefits of reducing car use by tourists. If you remove rail, people will switch to car. They won't switch to buses, generally.

If you want to believe that commuters and business passengers are going to go back to pre-Covid levels then, great, but I think that it's exposed some underling problems and that even if passenger numbers bounce back to 2019 levels the cost of Covid (and Brexit etc) means that the Government can't afford to keep propping things up even if the railway didn't need a penny more in subsidy in 2023 than it did in 2019

Certainly that is the right wing view. But austerity is not the only option, as the Scandinavian countries demonstrate - a more progressive approach to taxation is also an option. Austerity has in my view been a terrible and unnecessary policy caused by nothing other than the Conservative unwillingness to increase income and Council tax to pay for the package of services needed to support society (and things far more essential than rail have been wrongly cut in my view).

And no, this isn't "tax others". I would be happy to pay more tax if the value of it was made clear.

 

[A0]

Everyone will drive, pollution will sky rocket. Well done (sarcasm).

Surely I don't have to explain why the car is terrible at mass transit?

Except car tail pipe emissions have been *falling* consistently over the last 10 years due to the move to hybrid and EVs even when mileage increases - so try harder.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2022 ==

Certainly that is the right wing view. But austerity is not the only option, as the Scandinavian countries demonstrate - a more progressive approach to taxation is also an option. Austerity has in my view been a terrible and unnecessary policy caused by nothing other than the Conservative unwillingness to increase income and Council tax to pay for the package of services needed to support society (and things far more essential than rail have been wrongly cut in my view).

And no, this isn't "tax others". I would be happy to pay more tax if the value of it was made clear.

BIB - ah, the good old "more progressive tax system" - usually short hand for tax "the rich" more. So let's unpack this one a little.

The UK's personal allowance (before you start paying income tax is £ 12,570, Sweden's is £ 1639, yes that's right, less than £ 2000.

Sweden's income tax rate between the personal allowance and £43,588 is 32%, the UK between £ 12,000 - £ 50,270 is 20%.

Above that, Sweden has a tax rate of 52%, the UK has 40% between £ 50,000 and £ 150,000 and 45% over £ 150,000.

So if you moved the UK tax system to be more like Sweden (or "progressive" in your words") where would the biggest impact be? Lower and middle earners by a country mile - who would be faced with a tax rate which is 50% higher than the UK and anyone on an "average" salary (£ 25,000) would also be paying tax on over 90% of their income rather than the ~ 50% they do at present.

And whilst this would, no doubt also hit "the rich" it's worth pointing out that the top one per cent pay 30 per cent of all income tax revenues: a higher share than at any time in past twenty years. In other words, three in every ten pounds that the government receives in income tax is paid by just over 300,000 individuals.

So you don't have "enough" of the rich to generate the tax revenues you desire to fund such schemes, so alot of people would have to pay alot more - good luck selling that and good luck arguing "it's progressive" because I'm not sure many people would concur.

 

[Wynd]

Except car tail pipe emissions have been *falling* consistently over the last 10 years due to the move to hybrid and EVs even when mileage increases - so try harder.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2022 ==



BIB - ah, the good old "more progressive tax system" - usually short hand for tax "the rich" more. So let's unpack this one a little.

The UK's personal allowance (before you start paying income tax is £ 12,570, Sweden's is £ 1639, yes that's right, less than £ 2000.

Sweden's income tax rate between the personal allowance and £43,588 is 32%, the UK between £ 12,000 - £ 50,270 is 20%.

Above that, Sweden has a tax rate of 52%, the UK has 40% between £ 50,000 and £ 150,000 and 45% over £ 150,000.

So if you moved the UK tax system to be more like Sweden (or "progressive" in your words") where would the biggest impact be? Lower and middle earners by a country mile - who would be faced with a tax rate which is 50% higher than the UK and anyone on an "average" salary (£ 25,000) would also be paying tax on over 90% of their income rather than the ~ 50% they do at present.

And whilst this would, no doubt also hit "the rich" it's worth pointing out that the top one per cent pay 30 per cent of all income tax revenues: a higher share than at any time in past twenty years. In other words, three in every ten pounds that the government receives in income tax is paid by just over 300,000 individuals.

So you don't have "enough" of the rich to generate the tax revenues you desire to fund such schemes, so alot of people would have to pay alot more - good luck selling that and good luck arguing "it's progressive" because I'm not sure many people would concur.

An admirable attempt to dismiss the argument in full by focusing only on income tax. We all know that there are major leaks in the tax system, offshore accounting being one, that is a major cost to the public purse.

To be more topical, there is a lot of discussion on a couple of Scottish lines, and some great rebuttal arguments respectively.

It is true that the arguments need to move beyond pure sentiment to protect these lines. Budgets are tight no doubt, but increasing income should IMHO be the focus, not on saving small sums where we can.

Scotland, as did Wales, endured a massive reduction in rail infrastructure and it goes far beyond sentiment alone to say that the Scottish network should be trimmed no further and on the contrary requires significant expansion, particularly in the North East.

Integrated bus-rail connections that are utterly guaranteed, with a ficus on offering real alternatives to owning a car should be the focus. Nearly all of Scotland outside the central belt requires car ownership if you are more than a few miles from a station. Its not a sustainable position to be in going forwards.

 

[Meerkat]

Everyone will drive, pollution will sky rocket. Well done (sarcasm).

Surely I don't have to explain why the car is terrible at mass transit?

They wont drive, as we have already said the train is for those who can't drive, as they will already be driving. Exactly how many cars does the Far North or Kyle line take off the roads? Those doing it for the train trip likely as not wont go that way at all. And a lot of those on the train will have driven to one end or the other to do the train ride.

Nearly all of Scotland outside the central belt requires car ownership if you are more than a few miles from a station. Its not a sustainable position to be in going forwards.

Why not? They need a car because they are the middle of nowhere so traffic isnt really an issue.

 

[A0]

An admirable attempt to dismiss the argument in full by focusing only on income tax. We all know that there are major leaks in the tax system, offshore accounting being one, that is a major cost to the public purse.

An oft cited claim by people who wear tinfoil hats - the reality is, unfortunately both less interesting and less profitable.

HMRC estimate £ 4.6bn is lost to "off shore evasion" - note, EVASION - and there's no guarantee that you would continue to receive £ 4.6bn a year.

But to put that in context, the UK government's tax revenues are about £ 800 bn - so you're talking about "recovering" less than 1%. By comparison 1p on income tax would raise circa £ 6bn.

Arguing to change legal "avoidances" is fine - but again, no guarantee you'd increase revenue. How do you define "operations" for a global IT company where profit is concerned ? How do you determine where "work" is done ? Those are things you need to understand in order to tax profit.

 

[deltic]

Its nice to see some realism in many of the posts on here.

One of the issues that keeps coming up is the need for better integration between bus/coach and rail services. A number of TOCs have tried to do this eg Stagecoach when they ran south west trains and Chiltern. I see Chiltern monthly season tickets are valid on some local bus services in Aylesbury and High Wycombe. Anyone know how successful these have been in generating additional rail trips?