The Railways . Why ?

[squizzler]

That's the problem with any specialist forum - people on here like trains, people on here use trains more often than average, some people on here forget that they aren't representative of "typical" people and that the railway which we base our lives around is an irrelevance for tens of millions of people - we've seen it with Corbynites and Remainers - people who spend a lot of time hearing only what they want to hear and therefore painfully surprised when they realise that they are in a minority - I'm sure that there are people who follow other "minority" things who assume that everyone in the country is keeping up with K-Pop or Golf or Veganism just because they spend their time online discussing this topic and forget that other most people really don't care.

That's obviously not to say that railways are A Bad Thing or that we should close all of them or that there's any problem with the people who do rely on trains, but I think some people on this thread need a bit more perspective about the railway's place in national priorities. It's obviously increasingly easy these days to fall down a rabbit hole (now we can select new feeds that agree with what we want to hear) where you only read about things that you are interested in and only focus on stories that confirm your existing bias, but it's good to remember occasionally that these can be minority pursuits

I agree that the forum is not a representative sample of the population of a whole - but in the opposite way you mean - that the general public are more receptive to rail travel than we on here think. Whereas this rail forum wants to talk about what lines and services should be discontinued, wider public discourse is in the opposite direction. All the mainstream political parties want a growing railway to underpin mass transit - they only differ over details like HSR - which debunks your assertion that rail transport is only supported by rail enthusiasts. All our geopolitical rivals - the EU, China, and even belatedly the USA - are busy updating and expanding their rail networks. We have no choice but to maintain a rail system if we want to remain a modern country with a dynamic economy, whilst paying at least some lip service to carbon targets.

Rail is a national infrastructure. We might as well sit around debating the point of mains electricity, running water, piped gas, internet, sewerage treatment and the rest. It is perfectly possible to live without these things, in fact most cities only got these things after railways became commonplace. We still retain roads and canals after railways were invented, and nobody questions the right to exist of these earlier technologies. And don't forget, that the railways were Britain's gift to the world, and what does it say about our self esteem as a nation that we would rather treat our own contribution to civilisation as something best forgotten?

This might reflect a forum full of grumpy old men who mistrust so-called "social media" (no doubt that is where the next generation of rail fans reside) and is therefore not even representative of rail enthusiasts, let alone the wider public. I am confident that, in the real world, anyone calling for the obliteration of railways would be dismissed as a crank. This makes me feel justified in giving the same shrift to "provocative" threads suggesting for the same. THE railways and its supporters don't have to justify their existence in isolation. Rather I feel it is up for those promoting alternatives to demonstrate the innate superiority of what they propose in its place - and no outline of an alternative to all rail travel is put before us here.

Perhaps those suggesting rail is not pulling its weight have a sketch of how jetpacks and hoverboards can replace urban railways? Maybe they foresee Hyperloop replacing intercity rail? And perhaps goods could all be lofted where they need to be by Zepplin?

 

[Ianno87]

On Facebook, I follow the A428 Black Cat Upgrade page (which used to be the A14 upgrade page). I find it fascinating that the comment thread is full of comments like "much needed, can't wait for this to be finished!" Etc etc

But yet, look at the comments on any page the very second anybody mentions HS2...

Most people struggle to see why rail is relevant to them, basically because they drive everywhere.

 

[Kingston Dan]

Not really. Roads are more than paid for by direct taxes on users - if you don't own a car then you don't contribute to their upkeep. Railways are not fully paid for by their users, they need to be subsidised by general taxation.

I'm not saying this isn't entirely reasonable, just that any comparison between the financial costs of road and rail isn't likely to look great for rail! The environmental costs are very different of course.

Roads are funded through general taxation and local council tax. As a non car owning local taxpayer I am paying for the upkeep of local roads.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2021 ==

On multiple threads on here it has been asked about motorways - Road tax and taxes on fuel more than pay for the cost of roads, and so they are profitable. It might not be a statistic that is popular on this forum, but that doesn't make it untrue.

The externalities that new roads and the demand they induce are not calculated - the carbon cost, the cost in early deaths through the pollution they emit (1 in 19 of all deaths are now linked to air pollution: https://airqualitynews.com/2020/01/27/air-pollution-linked-to-one-in-19-uk-deaths/), the deaths and injuries caused by bad driving and the giving of 90% of public space in cities to cars. These are massive costs and need to be addressed - so no roads aren't profitable.

 

[D365]

On Facebook, I follow the A428 Black Cat Upgrade page (which used to be the A14 upgrade page). I find it fascinating that the comment thread is full of comments like "much needed, can't wait for this to be finished!" Etc etc

But yet, look at the comments on any page the very second anybody mentions HS2...

Most people struggle to see why rail is relevant to them, basically because they drive everywhere.

Partially it's the hyperbole about electric cars, but in large swathes of the country, communities continue to demonstrate a significant anti-rail attitude. East West Rail is a perfect demonstration of South Cambridgeshire's attitude towards non-tarmac infrastructure.

 

[RT4038]

I agree that the forum is not a representative sample of the population of a whole - but in the opposite way you mean - that the general public are more receptive to rail travel than we on here think. Whereas this rail forum wants to talk about what lines and services should be discontinued, wider public discourse is in the opposite direction. All the mainstream political parties want a growing railway to underpin mass transit - they only differ over details like HSR - which debunks your assertion that rail transport is only supported by rail enthusiasts. All our geopolitical rivals - the EU, China, and even belatedly the USA - are busy updating and expanding their rail networks. We have no choice but to maintain a rail system if we want to remain a modern country with a dynamic economy, whilst paying at least some lip service to carbon targets.

Rail is a national infrastructure. We might as well sit around debating the point of mains electricity, running water, piped gas, internet, sewerage treatment and the rest. It is perfectly possible to live without these things, in fact most cities only got these things after railways became commonplace. We still retain roads and canals after railways were invented, and nobody questions the right to exist of these earlier technologies. And don't forget, that the railways were Britain's gift to the world, and what does it say about our self esteem as a nation that we would rather treat our own contribution to civilisation as something best forgotten?

I don't think railways are quite like mains electricity, running water, piped gas, internet, sewerage treatment etc. Most people do not have a viable alternative to these services. The same is not true for railways, where road transport is often a viable alternative [and in many cases better] for most people/traffics.

There are a number of countries in the world that have abandoned once prolific passenger railways, outside of metro/suburban systems and sometimes a few major inter city links (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand as examples). The extent of the abandonment depends on the conditions in individual countries. Lots of countries , including our own, have re-assessed (often several times) the size of both their passenger and freight railway and resized accordingly. This process is not confined to transport - the size of the public telephone box network, once considered an essential public service, has been reassessed in most countries once viable alternatives were in the hands of most people.

This question, and the debate that surrounds it, should not be exclusively considered as negative. Some countries have built high speed rail networks, or new and improved suburban services, on the back of their conclusions, but that has not precluded the self same countries reducing the size and reach of some of their traditional network that has ceased to have relevance.

 

[Factotum]

Most people struggle to see why rail is relevant to them, basically because they drive everywhere.

Which sums it up nicely
But those people will say that they want a good train or bus service for other people to use.
We all know the answer when Beeching asked how people got to the discussion meeting