Measuring railway success or failure

[MisterSheeps]

The purpose of this thread is not to garner a long list of this line or that line, but to imagine how railways could holistically be judged as a success or failure. The Hinckley - Stoke Golding line was obviously a failure in that profit would have been zero but construction costs maximal. John (Paddy) Waddel's line across the Cleveland moors from Brotton to Glsisdale could be judged less of a failure as the line was never finished. Fawkham Jn - Southfleet Jn is now unused but was once, so would have paid something back. Railways under most narrow accounting definitions don't cover costs, but any big city would swiftly be paralysed if it's railways stopped, to say nothing of the railway's ability to bring in aggregates, e.g. Merehead to London. Cost is obviously not simply railway operating company revenue vs expenditure. One might argue that the Workington - Penrith line was a failure (in that it was shut) but without the line, Keswick would not have grown, tourism developed, and the rural economy would have stagnated.

Has anyone ever tried to measure the total cost (promotion, construction, operation, upgrades) against total benefits (journeys ... is a business commuter's journey more 'valuable' than a parent taking their child for a day out?, freight tonne kilometres, environment, social benefits, measures of connectedness, tourism revenue, etc)? Transport modelling regularly gets it wrong, as witness e.g. the success of reopenings such as the Edinburgh - Tweedbank, and Nottingham - Worksop lines. BR regularly concocted excuses to close lines, such as spurious upkeep immediately prior to closure, whilst what got closed seemed to relate more to what interest group shouted loudest, or a vulnerable MP.

If, as I suspect, it is simply too complex to cost everything, isn't what gets built, closed, or reopened, simply politics cloaked in pseudoeconomics? And how could that be improved so that a country (this isn't NR specific) gets the network it needs to help it thrive?

 

[HSTEd]

This sort of analysis is always going to be extremely fraught because you are effectively trying to measure against a counterfactual where the given railway does not exist.

The problem with that counterfactual is that it could become a strongly divergent world.
For example, to take your aggregate example:

You could argue that the aggregate would be moved from Merehead to London by road, but it is possible an alternative transport system could be devised, like one of those very long ropeways historically seen in Scandinavia, or even something conceptually similar to the Woodsmith Mine tunnel (essentially conveyer belts).

It gets even worse than that though, because would the Merehead quarry even be there without an extremely inexpensvie rail based route to market?
The Mendip hills are far from the only limestone outcropping in the UK, and there are even some outcroppings that are directly on coastal sites. You could imagine that instead of the current cluster of Mendip quarries, you had a superquarry reminiscent of Glensanda that produces limestone which is loaded directly onto ships for movement to the Thames Estuary. Or even aggregate shipment from abroad, significant tonnages are already imported from Norway. There was even a plan for deep mining of limestone aggregates in Kent to offset shipment costs and carbon emissions at comparatively low marginal cost

As this one example, hopefully shows, you could rapidly end up trying to simulate massively divergent effects that could interact in ways that are not immediately apparent.

 

[mike57]

The problem with that counterfactual is that it could become a strongly divergent world.

Its an interesting thought, if you go back to the start of railways then one of the main reasons for building them was to move goods quicker and cheaper than other methods available at time. As such if the railway network had not developed then you could argue that industrialisation during the Victorian period would not have happened as quickly, and probably to a lower level.

Bring that forwards to the present day, and people have an expectation that they can move around the country for either pleasure or business with relative ease. If you didnt have railways then people would be far more dependent on private transport. Buses/coaches are often suggested as an alternative, but really wouldnt fill the gap, they will always be slower than the equivalent car journey, capacity is limited, and comfort is lower. The comfort issue could be addessed but the other two issues are pretty insurmountable. The only way forward would be to develop guided busways, but then you are heading back towards railways with concrete tracks and rubber tyres, and remember that steel wheel on steel rail is still one of the most energy efficent forms of moving objects (people/freight) over distance at speed.

So this ends up full circle, how do you cost the benefit of a particular railway. It may lose money on a strict reciepts v cost test but if you dont have it then there are a lot of knock on effects which are very hard to cost. This is why you have subsidies, because it is realised that there hard to cost knock on effects if you close it.

And how could that be improved so that a country (this isn't NR specific) gets the network it needs to help it thrive?

The simple answer is I think its about perception, public and official, you know there will impacts from a particular course of action, but its very hard to quantify. When public and official perceptions align everything is fine, when they diverge you have problems. That is why the public are still very wary of any closure, the Beeching cuts closed lines which should have stayed open as well basket cases that had outlived their purpose. This was made worse when at a change of government the closures continued in spite of promises made before the election contrary to that. So we have almost ended up with a system frozen in time because we got to a point where any closure was seen as unacceptable because of preceding events.

So in a sense the first requirement is that the public need to have trust in the politicians and officials who are delivering the service on their behalf, and that is bigger than just the railways, and off topic. The second requirement is that they are seen to operate efficiently, and be resilient to minor disruption, the current operating model has failed to deliver on this.

So my model would be to start with a BR type not for profit organisation which is given an agreed subsidy and a minimum service level, but is arms length. Any surplus to be shared between staff, network investment and the exchequer. It would need oversight, to approve or refuse proposals for service changes and investments, and ask 'awkward questions', and that oversight would probably be regional, and ideally outside party politics, but that may be easier said than done. There also needs to be more emphasis on money saving options for lightly used lines, tram/train type operation, with limited signalling and infrastructure beyond the tracks.

Hopefully the oversight mentioned above would rule out 'improvements' such as a new platform at Barrow Haven for £1.3m when it is used by 44 passengers a week (this was aired in another thread).

Major infrastructure projects such as Crossrail or HS2 would be built by the DfT and then handed over once complete, funding for these should come from a different pot.

Hopefully then the network could evolve over time, extending to fill gaps, and contracting where the reason for existance has gone. I think if the public saw a mix of openings and improvements as well as the odd closure then the sceptre of Beeching could be laid to rest, maybe a route milage target?.

 

[MisterSheeps]

a minimum service level

I like your ideas, sad you are not a politician minimum service level is interesting because do you do that on an area basis? or by population? Lines such as Fort William - Mallaig, or North of Inverness, would have died long ago, but, arguably are now a major draw to tourists spreading wealth, thus helping the locals to have an emergency use system, who, largely, use their car to go to Fort William or Inverness to shop.
In fairness I think by area provision (which explains lines such as Exeter - Barnstaple, or Uckfield).
The next 20 years will be 'interesting'; if there is a transition to electric vehicles then long distance rail becomes more attractive.

would the Merehead quarry even be there

yes, the low value heavy commodity only becomes attractive given low cost bulk transport ... most of the limestone quarries in the Peak District developed along the railways e.g. Peak Forest area, first from the canal, later from the MR Ambergate - Chinley line, leading to the massive expansion of the Northwich area chemical industries. The railway is an enabler of development, another aspect rarely quantified in reopening plans ... granted less freight now moves by rail, but an inward investor would consider transport links.

 

[tbtc]

Transport modelling regularly gets it wrong, as witness e.g. the success of reopenings such as the Edinburgh - Tweedbank, and Nottingham - Worksop lines

In fairness, transport modelling regularly gets it right too, it’s just that the underperforming stations/ lines don’t get talked about so much (lots of attention for Tweedbank but not so much for Aylesbury Parkway)

The graph on page twenty of this >> https://assets.publishing.service.g..._data/file/3932/demand-forecasting-report.pdf gives a good example of some successes/ failures (albeit the document itself is a few years old now)

But if you’re using unquantifiable things like “social benefits” and “measures of connectedness” then I suspect you’ll always get a positive answer

 

[MisterSheeps]

The graph on page twenty of this

interesting, thanks, though having read some of it, it reinforces my view that a lot of it is simplistic ... it talks of demand abstraction from existing stations, but many people if they get their car out for a journey will not primarily then switch to rail unless there are significant disincentives (distance, congestion, parking charges, etc), a mistake made by BR closing local stations & branches, and hopefully assuming they would drive to some nearby city, town or parkway (yes, some do, others go the whole way by car). It also ignores fundamentals such as local bus links ... if the bus goes past the new station to the town destination, how many get off? Of course the fragmentation of bus & rail doesn't help, but e.g. if I can buy a 3 mode ticket from the post office of a tiny village in the Swiss Alps to Geneva Airport, why can't I do that in Britain?!
The SRA refusal to consider regeneration, believing the steelworks would continue, and believing trains would go to Newport, not Cardiff for the reopeningnof Ebbw Vale is also not exactly a shining endorsement of transport modelling methodology ... 450% greater demand than forecast