DHELM: Why are UK railways so bad?

[Nicholas Lewis]

Both of which are fairly self-contained and have enough rolling stock.

GA has also got much quicker stock but the timetable hasn't been tightened, its noticeable on the WCML that there isn't much slack at most station stops so when a train gets delayed it often struggles to make up time.

One is DOO one isn't

The public would rather a 33 min service which is always on time or early than a 30 min service which is often a minute or two late.

Yes but too much slack is as bad as too little as trains arrive at jcns too early and get held and then waste a load of energy reaccelerating. Passengers also wonder why their train is sitting at a station thinking something is wrong. BR used to promote there was a direct link to increasing revenue from faster journey times - is that link no longer as relevant?

 

[mike57]

@mike57 , a good long list but none of them are what I would describe as ‘simple’ or ‘baby steps’!

Maybe not be simple given where we are, but some of them are about how things are organised and wouldn't cost a lot to put right. I deliberately tried to exclude major infrastructure projects as in the current climate they are not going to happen. Take rolling stock for example, if procurement was to be centralised with standard types, Intercity, regional and commuter for example then microfleets and the issues they cause would gradually become history as they are replaced. Its about making the best use of the resources and infrastructure we have, and to me we are failing miserably.

 

[The exile]

One is DOO one isn't

Yes but too much slack is as bad as too little as trains arrive at jcns too early and get held and then waste a load of energy reaccelerating. Passengers also wonder why their train is sitting at a station thinking something is wrong. BR used to promote there was a direct link to increasing revenue from faster journey times - is that link no longer as relevant?

No doubt that link is relevant to a certain extent but it’s not all about x minutes shaved off the running time. As a passenger, my journey is not station to station but involves bits at either end. You can shave 5 minutes off my train journey - but if all that means is that I have to stand in the cold and wet at the bus stop for an extra five minutes, my journey time has not improved and my journey quality has arguably got worse. Speed is only one factor. Frequency and reliability are arguably just as, if not more, important - particularly over shorter distances.

 

[Meerkat]

The biggest improvement would be:

1. to stop striving for profitability - certainly try and minimize subsidy. Treat the railways as a service for your citizens and improve quality of life with fewer vehicles on the road.
2. Have a "guiding mind" and less DfT, RDG, HMT interference
3. Have a long term plan that goes across all governments.

Its not very democratic to demand more taxpayer money whilst demanding that their elected representatives have less control of how it is spent.
Wont a guiding mind be staffed by the same people that work for, or contract for, the DfT?

 

[yorksrob]

Its not very democratic to demand more taxpayer money whilst demanding that their elected representatives have less control of how it is spent.
Wont a guiding mind be staffed by the same people that work for, or contract for, the DfT?

This is a non argument. The NHS requires considerable taxpayers funding, but you wouldn't expect the Department of Health to be dictating how many bed-pans or defibrillators Puddleworth General Hospital should have.

 

[Jim the Jim]

People have odd ideas about railways abroad. I read a tweet this morning about how much less expensive, less crowded and more reliable trains in the Netherlands were. When I lived there not all that long ago I found them more-or-less the same as the UK on all three points!

(There are things the Dutch railway does better than the British; there are also things they do worse. The different sizes of the countries and the way the populations are distributed makes comparison tricky in a lot of areas anyway.)

 

[Speed43125]

People have odd ideas about railways abroad. I read a tweet this morning about how much less expensive, less crowded and more reliable trains in the Netherlands were. When I lived there not all that long ago I found them more-or-less the same as the UK on all three points!

(There are things the Dutch railway does better than the British; there are also things they do worse. The different sizes of the countries and the way the populations are distributed makes comparison tricky in a lot of areas anyway.)

I agree I do find it rather odd when people still laud German railways as if they were some pinnacle of reliability and efficiency. I find myself at times taking an (often unjustifiably) positive view of British railways merely as a point of balance.

 

[The exile]

I agree I do find it rather odd when people still laud German railways as if they were some pinnacle of reliability and efficiency. I find myself at times taking an (often unjustifiably) positive view of British railways merely as a point of balance.

Absolutely - the only point I’d dispute is the “still” - outside the main conurbations, where integration gives the Germans the edge, I’d say that even 20-odd years ago we could have given them a run for their money. Different strengths and weaknesses- which the holidaymaker ( even an experienced basher) wouldn’t necessarily notice.

 

[MisterSheeps]

I think the point of comparing with Switzerland is that the Swiss consider the journey, whilst Britain almost totally ignores the journey and treats each mode in isolation (yes, SailRail, and the flawed Plusbus - which assumes journeys start and end in towns - are exceptions). BR got into the fatal mindset of thinking everyone would drive to a railhead, and were surprised when people drove the distance, connecting buses which did not connect rapidly ended. No recent initiatives have reversed this Forget "restoring your railway" and think of multi mode travel. When we have integrated ticketing, frequent first/last leg connections, and a seamless journey we may actually surprise ourselves.

 

[Meerkat]

This is a non argument. The NHS requires considerable taxpayers funding, but you wouldn't expect the Department of Health to be dictating how many bed-pans or defibrillators Puddleworth General Hospital should have.

Sure, but some people seem to think the railway should just be given an ever bigger pot of money and left to get on with it.
The elected people have to be involved in basic service specs and define what they want to buy for the money.

 

[yorksrob]

Sure, but some people seem to think the railway should just be given an ever bigger pot of money and left to get on with it.
The elected people have to be involved in basic service specs and define what they want to buy for the money.

To an extent it should be.

Elected people have a responsibility to set policy, but government (in reality the treasury) shouldn't be involved in the day to day management. It doesn't have the expertise.

Some time ago Mark Harper agreed with the industry that revenues shouldn't just go straight back to the treasury, but that the industry should be allowed to use some of it to grow the business. Mysteriously this hasn't been implemented.

(There's actually no mystery, the Treasury will have said no).

 

[railfan99]

But if you measured it by delay to passenger journeys, Swiss railways winds hands-down. Furthermore, in Switzerland there are numerous journey opportunities that simply wouldn't exist in the UK as we don't believe in an overall system of planning for, and maintaining, connections in the way the Swiss do.

England (mostly) does a much better job at connections than the French. Travelling to Grenoble I had a lengthy wait at a junction station: this is not uncommon on secondary lines.

 

[Irascible]

The civil service runs the country, more or less - we don't elect them. We don't actually elect people to run departments either, we just vote for a party with the hope they put the right people in place.

Rather than have unqualified unelected civil servants sticking their noses in day to day, it'd be far better to have a qualified unelected board running matters & the national audit office ( deliberately not the Treasury ) keeping an eye on wasteage & having some method of kicking them in the rear if they don't keep it in check.

 

[HSTEd]

The civil service runs the country, more or less - we don't elect them. We don't actually elect people to run departments either, we just vote for a party with the hope they put the right people in place.

Rather than have unqualified unelected civil servants sticking their noses in day to day, it'd be far better to have a qualified unelected board running matters & the national audit office ( deliberately not the Treasury ) keeping an eye on wasteage & having some method of kicking them in the rear if they don't keep it in check.

But how would you define wastage?

Ultimately you have to have some method to determine what is "good", and that probably has to be democratically decided upon.
If you have a railway run by a board of "experts" (ie. people who are trained by the organisation) then it rapidly suffers capture and simply does whatever the people running the railway want, because they also provide the pool of people for the board.

 

[Irascible]

But how would you define wastage?

How do you define wasteage or poor value for money in any arena? at some point you have to trust someone who should be an expert, not someone who sounds good to an equally uneducated ( in the area ) electorate. The BRB didn't just do what it wanted, did it? they still had to get government clearance for big capex projects & govt could still instruct them, but it could be left alone to run a service.

I have a similar problem with electing police commissioners - politics should be kept well away from policing.

 

[yorksrob]

England (mostly) does a much better job at connections than the French. Travelling to Grenoble I had a lengthy wait at a junction station: this is not uncommon on secondary lines.

France isn't really an example we should be following. The UK, England particularly is a lot more densely populated than France, therefore the sort of frequencies seen on French secondary routes wouldn't be suitable for here.

 

[Gigabit]

I commuted into Waterloo every day for a year and in the morning, the train was on time once. I know "on time" means within 5 minutes but for normal people late is late. And they were late every day, sometimes by 10-20 minutes. The average was probably around 10.

If I was 10 minutes late for work every day I would be fired.

The reason given: congestion outside Waterloo. Every single time. So why can't this be resolved, they must know what the demand is.