Are the railways fixable?

 If in the future, cars are able to drive themselves, at least on motorways and a-roads, then that selling point disappears.

If self-driving cars have the same per mile cost as at present, then the motorways will be absolutely rammed at all times. There will be an explosion of car usage as people can have longer commutes and take long journeys more frequently – you can just sleep through it and wake up at your destination. A weekend in Fort Bill every weekend…if you can get through the traffic jams…

I use avanti superfares where poss, half price but avanti nominate the train within your chosen time window, the day before. I reckon in 20 years of train travel i have been refunded 50% of journeys.

The trains in UK seem a bit of a lottery. Talking to my mum she has had refunds for her last 2 trips Edinburgh to London to seem my sister due to delays and the cost of tickets does seem high. The ticket system seems pants too with so many providers.

here in Ireland I have to say the trains, Irish Rail, seem pretty good. I used to commute 30km each way, train was every 30mins and reliable. I had a season ticket via work so got the tax back and it cost about €60 a month after tax relief. Station car park is only €30 a month too or €3 a day. My kids get a young persons fare (19-25] and each return trip is about €5. There seems to be decent investment in the train infrastructure going on with new platforms in Cork etc.

I commute into Manchester, £11 return for 2 x 20 minute trips. When the trains are on time and with seating available then you will get no complaints from me however this ideal is very rare. Mornings isn’t too bad as I live less than a 10 minute walk from the station so can check the times before I leave although this isn’t foolproof.

Evenings is another matter. Walking into Victoria and the number of trains late or cancelled far outweighs those on time. Actually getting on a train that leaves on time is a very, very rare event. Cancellations and delays are for the most ridiculous reasons. “A member of train crew not being available”, “more trains than expected needing repair”, “a passenger has fallen ill”. The train companies are being either by rank amateurs or crooks – change my mind.

Are the railways fixable? In my opinion, yes but it will need a strategic plan. Is there the will to do it? That’s an entirely different question.

Fixable, not sure.  Apparently Great British Railways will go some to address the issues.  Whether it does or not remains to be seen.  I worked as a Project Manager delivering projects between Paddington and Reading for almost 10years.  My biggest issue was track access; you either used mid week/week end blocks (no time tabled trains) which once you took the worksite and isolation would provide you anything from 30min to 3hrs work time; then consider I could be paying a min. of ~£15k for 30min work. Is this value for money?  If you manage to agree an extended block, that provides you for example a 52hr line block, compensation will be paid to the train operating company.  Significant compensation.  Again, value for money?

Following the introduction of the CR service from Pad to Reading, the relief lines (slow lines) became almost a metro service, with the volume of traffic increasing significantly, yet maintenance time reduced.  Hence, I think we are seeing so many faults between Pad and Reading.

If government would settle for long term sustainable investment and a better model for maintenance I believe this would see maintenance and capital investment projects become more economic.   Ticket prices, no idea how to fix this other that government needs to see this as a subsidised system and not a model that can sustain itself.

so what would happen if you reduced the price? They’d still be rammed to the same extent.

Or you could lay on additional services to meet the demand, rather than keep on nudging people towards their cars…

I had the missfortune to need to get to London (from Reading) last week, spent £60 odd of my employer’s money (for an 80 mile round trip) and took one of the extra trains laid on around commuter O’clock, got seat, smooth fast journey both ways, it was absolute hell 😉  I suppose all that demonstrates is that the closer you get to the centre of the universe the more resources go into public transport and the easier it gets to use (pricing is of course a big factor)

as driverless, electric cars become the norm for longer distance travel, long distance train starts to look pretty inefficient, both in terms of space and cost.

On what planet?

Planes are cheap because every seat (of which there are far more per sqft of cabin) is full up – trains are far more spread out and generally half-full (ignoring rush hour) – they’re just not a very attractive proposition to most ordinary people.

“Ordinary people” you reckon? TBH I bloody hate driving long distances these days, I love a good train journey. Get a family railcard, book on one of these apparently empty trains well in advance, take your kids to a place they’ve never been, the journey is part of the trip then, you can be in Edinburgh long before the novelty of UNO wears off… Ordinary people seem to like spending half their bank holidays trapped on the A303…

Or you could lay on additional services to meet the demand, rather than keep on nudging people towards their cars…

The problem is that there’s very little space for more trains – not without hugely significant and disruptive signalling upgrades plus other issues like where to store all these extra trains, the lack of platforms at stations for them and all the staff to run them.

That was one of the arguments used against HS2. “The West Coast Main Line is right there, just put more trains on it!”

Yes, there’s no more space on that line. Next?

It’s what comes of trying to run a 21st century transport system on a 19th century infrastructure system.

(Yes, I know it’s not all Victorian now but there are still any number of hangovers from that time like older (smaller bore) tunnels, tight bends, and old infrastructure like bridges and viaducts that are in regular need of expensive maintenance).

The problem is that there’s very little space for more trains – not without hugely significant and disruptive signalling upgrades plus other issues like where to store all these extra trains, the lack of platforms at stations for them and all the staff to run them.

Hence my anecdotal example from Reading, where a huge chunk of investment has happened over the last decade, it can be done, the problem currently is the London-centric focus.

The alternative everyone seems so happy to accept is increasing car use, more roads and more parking are pretty disruptive too, arguably more so than rail upgrades (discuss).

Self driving cars have been cover recently and will not be solving congestion any time soon, if the Johnny Cabs dream ever comes to pass it just means double the infrastructure requirement (roads and carparking), just like rolling stock cars need somewhere to be at all times whether moving or parked, but you can shift a lot more people in one train carriage than you can in the equivalent footprint four(?) Teslas…

I use central scotland trains a fair bit.  Quicker, cheaper and nicer than driving.  Combined with an ebike very flexible as well.

It’s frustrating.  I was planning a trip to do a one-way walk on the Knoydart peninsula.  Both ends are accessible by train which is great for a one-way trip, problem is the fare is £290.  Three of us can share a car for £40 each.  I would absolutely love the train but it’s not affordable.

I work on the infrastructure side, not with NR but for them.

NR changed the rules around track access recently as to many people were getting killed / close calls and Near misses. Every quarter we get the briefings on trains nearly hitting people. 

Track access is now heavily restricted. Working day shift if I need to access somewhere I frequently take line blocks, I’ve had many times where I’ve got to site and been told by the signaller that it’ll be an hour before I can get a block to get on track to walk to my worksite. Do the job then request another block to get out. While it keeps everyone safe it also massively impacts productivity. What could be a 6 job day turns into a 2 job day, that’s only a 2 person job on one small cog of the bigger picture.

That coupled with maintaining an aging infrastructure where as described by Ernie above jobs can have massively restricted possessions.

We may get possession at 2330, by the time the isolation is on, permits issued, test before touch it can be 0030, then we get on track, walk to site set up, do the job. Pack up at 0330, off track at 0400 to hand back the possession for 0500. So the 9 hour job actually takes 3 shifts. Late running train, picop sending a tamper through your worksite all delay the job and can send you back to the planners to rebook another possession in 13 weeks time.

Safety should be first and foremost but it all has a knock on.

Oh and we all love the Victorian structures,until they need repaired.

as driverless, electric cars become the norm for longer distance travel, long distance train starts to look pretty inefficient, both in terms of space and cost.

Our grandchildren will probably really enjoy it. Meanwhile, in the real world the rest of us actually live in… *rolls eyes*

I use central scotland trains a fair bit.  Quicker, cheaper and nicer than driving.  Combined with an ebike very flexible as well.

So you keep telling us. In the rest of the U.K. that most of us live in, rail and other public transport is hopelessly inadequate. Read again my experience the last time I went up to London with my mate – it shows just how poor the system is when people try to use it an anything other than mid-morning to mid-evening. Outside of that timeframe public transport is taking the piss.