Is Rail Travel in the UK sleepwalking into oblivion?

[RT4038]

The membership of this forum does not reflect the views (or utter indifference) of the public at large. I'd agree that "oblivion" was a bit over the top, but a slowly withering network about which nobody much cares isn't all that different.

Some of the membership of this forum......

 

[12LDA28C]

Does 4.8% of freight carried sound particularly vital to you? Vigorous, expanding, innovative and fully playing to its environmental advantages, with many companies queueing up to invest in infrastructure? Or marginal and in decline?

Trains full and standing in an era of unprecedented cancellations and delays doesn't sound like a reliable measure of success to me, nor does it mean happy passengers, well motivated to return.

The membership of this forum does not reflect the views (or utter indifference) of the public at large. I'd agree that "oblivion" was a bit over the top, but a slowly withering network about which nobody much cares isn't all that different.

Trains were full and standing well before the current round of industrial action. And yes, freight is expanding with more freight now moved by rail than pre-Covid. Not to mention the fact that the Government consistently trumpets its 'carbon neutral' aspirations and of course sending more freight by rail instead of road would be a key part of that.

If you're measuring the importance of rail by the opinions of 'the public at large' rather than the people who actually use it then that certainly doesn't sound like a reliable measure of opinion to me. You might as well ask me how I feel about a bypass being built around a town I've never been to. I couldn't give a toss as the undoubted benefits of the scheme will make no difference to me, unlike the residents of whatever town is involved.

 

[Parjon]

Managed decline by government/DFT incompetence.

Yes. The industrial action is handy to these people.

I think most of us didn't think most of our towns and cities would be back to seeing people on every street corner begging for change, but here we are.

Some powerful people think our money is their money, and they don't like spending it on what they're meant to.

 

[philosopher]

What particularly worries me is that I have seen an increasing number of articles in the press recently floating the idea that now ‘the age of the office commute is over’ (sic), railways are a luxury that we don’t really need. I suspect the public is being prepared, drip drip, for a disastrously reduced train service.

Simon Jenkins’s article yesterday in the Guardian I think epitomises this view

Ministers think trains are just too much bother. That’s why they are so relaxed about the strikes | Simon Jenkins

As fewer and fewer people use them, it seems railways are regarded as no longer essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com

Except for urban commuters, railways are primarily about leisure and off-peak travel, with the latter’s bookings now at 90% of pre-Covid. Minor evidence is that Britain’s 200 “heritage” lines are in rude good health. But geography means that the British economy wants roads and ever more of them. They link ports and warehouses and meet online demand. Their successors will be drones and robots, not inflexible rails.

To me this article is incorrect, for example it totally ignores the railway’s role in carrying freight from ports to inland distribution hubs where online deliveries can then be fulfilled. Plus leisure travel is not a luxury that people can do without. For example without rail based leisure trips, large numbers of people will find it difficult to keep in face to face contact with their family.

However if such views gain traction, this will spell trouble for the railways.

 

[thomalex]

Where? My perception of comments such as these is that they are a big city view of the UK.

If anything, for most of the country the rail strikes, as well as the postal strike and others, are a complete irrelevance. Life is going on as normal.

As we know large numbers of the workforce can now work from home. I don't think that makes the railway irrelevant however because while you can skip travelling in on a strike day, just like I am, you rely on the railway to get in the office, to meetings, for social occasions. This is especially in the crowded South East whose whole development over the past 150 years has been around access to rail. Just look at the level of cancelations in the hospitality industry in London due to the strikes.

And if anything it could make it more vital as some people live further away from the office but rely on the quick links to the city railways provide. You can skip some days, maybe a few weeks, but you couldn't ever go without the railway. And for all the talk of the government not viewing the railway as important anymore this is the same government remember who is ploughing ahead with HS2.

This does however make strikes not particularly effective. The tube strikes for example, they used to be serious news whole fleets of buses brought out and crowds in the streets but you barely even noticed the recent ones.

 

[12LDA28C]

Where? My perception of comments such as these is that they are a big city view of the UK.

If anything, for most of the country the rail strikes, as well as the postal strike and others, are a complete irrelevance. Life is going on as normal.

Would these be the people who are under no threat of redundancy and have not had their industry decimated by Government incompetence I wonder?

Let's see if they are as indifferent when they need an urgent hospital appointment and the nurses are on strike.

Simon Jenkins’s article yesterday in the Guardian I think epitomises this view

Ministers think trains are just too much bother. That’s why they are so relaxed about the strikes | Simon Jenkins

As fewer and fewer people use them, it seems railways are regarded as no longer essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com

To me this article is incorrect, for example it totally ignores the railway’s role in carrying freight from ports to inland distribution hubs where online deliveries can then be fulfilled. Plus leisure travel is not a luxury that people can do without. For example without rail based leisure trips, large numbers of people will find it difficult to keep in face to face contact with their family.

However if such views gain traction, this will spell trouble for the railways.

A long-term anti-rail and anti-HS2 nobody slagging off railways yet again. I wouldn't let that cretin write a wish list to Santa let alone a column in a national newspaper.

 

[Thirteen]

As we know large numbers of the workforce can now work from home. I don't think that makes the railway irrelevant however because while you can skip travelling in on a strike day, just like I am, you rely on the railway to get in the office, to meetings, for social occasions. This is especially in the crowded South East whose whole development over the past 150 years has been around access to rail. Just look at the level of cancelations in the hospitality industry in London due to the strikes.

And if anything it could make it more vital as some people live further away from the office but rely on the quick links to the city railways provide. You can skip some days, maybe a few weeks, but you couldn't ever go without the railway. And for all the talk of the government not viewing the railway as important anymore this is the same government remember who is ploughing ahead with HS2.

This does however make strikes not particularly effective. The tube strikes for example, they used to be serious news whole fleets of buses brought out and crowds in the streets but you barely even noticed the recent ones.

No Government in their right mind would say 'we're going to scrap the railways' it'd be a surefire way to lose a General Election not to mention there would so much opposition to it from everyone and also given transport is devolved to Scotland, Wales and London so it wouldn't happen because those devolved parties would not go ahead with it.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Does 4.8% of freight carried sound particularly vital to you? Vigorous, expanding, innovative and fully playing to its environmental advantages, with many companies queueing up to invest in infrastructure? Or marginal and in decline?

Mr Berkhardt had that same misunderstanding of the meaning of that statistic, too. He though that he could double rail freight traffic by an apparently undemanding increase to (in the case of that figure) 9.6%.

4.8% is the proportion of total freight ton - miles. Rail freight is ideal for bulk movement of freight but unfortunately that is only a small proportion of total freight. Can't say about the present, but in my days the proportion of bulk freight carried by rail was close to 90% of the total available. That, of course, is because not only is a lot of 'freight' not bulk but also unsuitable or impossible for rail; the extreme example in those days (not so true now) was doorstep milk deliveries, nowadays it would be household package/parcels deliveries.

 

[Ken H]

I havent had to use a train for some years now. I work from home 100% so no commute. All the train rides I do are cos I like riding trains.
Many jobs I see on Linked in are hybrid or 100% home working. The employers who want good staff know insisting on 100% office days wont get the best people. And limits the talent pool to commuting distance. WFH is not going away. It was creeping in before COVID. COVID just accelerated the change

Like many outside London we can do quite well without trains or buses. Some would see it as a pity, but few would miss them.

That is the political landscape we are in. London needs trains because of the population density. Few other places really need them. Manchester and Birmingham perhaps, even Leeds.

I dont know if the WFH thing has caught on the same in France/Benelux/Germany the same as UK. Maybe thats why their railways are not in decline s much.

OK the railway will still have a decent amount of commuting, but way down on 2019. How they get the leisure market, which is more fickle, is the problem it has to tackle. But leisure travellers wont tolerate missed connections or cancelled trains. Next time they will do coach tour or drive.

 

[deltic]

It is certainly sleep walking - what into is another matter. Passenger revenue has not recovered due to the decimation of business travel, commuting is now even more of a headache for the railways than before with Monday and Fridays being far less busy than Tuesday to Thursdays. There appears to be no leadership in the industry and no vision of where it is going. The lack of flexibility and slow speed of response to changing travel patterns and often poor customer service mean the railway is rapidly losing goodwill amongst the public. As others have mentioned it feels like BR of the 1970s/80s - a slow rundown of services and assets and stagnant demand.

 

[kermit]

A long-term anti-rail and anti-HS2 nobody slagging off railways yet again. I wouldn't let that cretin write a wish list to Santa let alone a column in a national newspaper.

Are you really talking about Simon Jenkins, author of Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations? Not everyone on this forum lives in a railway bubble, but directing invective and abuse towards someone like Jenkins sounds like a distorted view of the world to me.

 

[deltic]

Some powerful people think our money is their money, and they don't like spending it on what they're meant to.

Some powerful people wanted to give our money back! Government is spending far more than it takes in and has the highest taxes in 70 years - taxes need to go up more, spending needs to fall or we need to radically increase productivity

And yes, freight is expanding with more freight now moved by rail than pre-Covid. Not to mention the fact that the Government consistently trumpets its 'carbon neutral' aspirations and of course sending more freight by rail instead of road would be a key part of that.

Freight is not expanding or carrying more traffic than pre-covid it remains at best stagnant at worst on a slow decline

 

[J3053B]

Big difference with the miners dispute. With the miners, importing from abroad made the jobs unsustainable. However on the railway, this won't be so easy, and unless drivers sell their colleagues down the river (we wont) then the Government just cannot afford to sack all the rail workers.

You say they won’t but the only reason SWR drivers got such a substantial pay rise pre covid (28% there or there abouts) was because they sold their colleagues down the river.

 

[Northumbriana]

Simon Jenkins’s article yesterday in the Guardian I think epitomises this view

Ministers think trains are just too much bother. That’s why they are so relaxed about the strikes | Simon Jenkins

As fewer and fewer people use them, it seems railways are regarded as no longer essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com

To me this article is incorrect, for example it totally ignores the railway’s role in carrying freight from ports to inland distribution hubs where online deliveries can then be fulfilled. Plus leisure travel is not a luxury that people can do without. For example without rail based leisure trips, large numbers of people will find it difficult to keep in face to face contact with their family.

However if such views gain traction, this will spell trouble for the railways.

Would these be the people who are under no threat of redundancy and have not had their industry decimated by Government incompetence I wonder?

Let's see if they are as indifferent when they need an urgent hospital appointment and the nurses are on strike.



A long-term anti-rail and anti-HS2 nobody slagging off railways yet again. I wouldn't let that cretin write a wish list to Santa let alone a column in a national newspaper.

The Guardian has been a bit weird recently. Last week there was an opinion piece insisting that traveling to work (rather than working from home) was now 'trendy' and insisted WFH needed to end.

 

[mike57]

What particularly worries me is that I have seen an increasing number of articles in the press recently floating the idea that now ‘the age of the office commute is over’ (sic), railways are a luxury that we don’t really need. I suspect the public is being prepared, drip drip, for a disastrously reduced train service.

And if it happens I dont think it will be a 'big bang' Beeching/Serpell 2 report, that is too politically sensitive. More likely a cut here and a cut there over a period of time. Starting with with the 'basket cases', which will then affect previously marginal lines, and cuts to secondary routes. No formal plan, just cut cut cut until we are left with main lines and not much else. Each cut then puts another route in danger.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Simon Jenkins’s article yesterday in the Guardian I think epitomises this view

Ministers think trains are just too much bother. That’s why they are so relaxed about the strikes | Simon Jenkins

As fewer and fewer people use them, it seems railways are regarded as no longer essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com

To me this article is incorrect, for example it totally ignores the railway’s role in carrying freight from ports to inland distribution hubs where online deliveries can then be fulfilled. Plus leisure travel is not a luxury that people can do without. For example without rail based leisure trips, large numbers of people will find it difficult to keep in face to face contact with their family.

However if such views gain traction, this will spell trouble for the railways.

Jenkins' views belong in the 1970s, they are basically strongly pro-road and anti-public transport. They aren't even pro-bus as such*. Astonished to see a left-wing paper publishing them, unless it's for them to be slated in the letters page. That article would fit better in the Torygraph or Daily Hate Mail.

Does he have form on this?

* I could see an argument in the Grauniad for cutting rail to fund improvements to local bus given that the latter is used by more poorer people so spending on bus has more social benefits than rail. But that wasn't his argument at all.

 

[Merle Haggard]

You say they won’t but the only reason SWR drivers got such a substantial pay rise pre covid (28% there or there abouts) was because they sold their colleagues down the river.

An interesting 'grouse' from my mate who drives for South-Eastern is that he operates D.O.O. just the same as SWR drivers, but, as well as his lower pay his increase in money for an industry standard percentage will be less than theirs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

An interesting 'grouse' from my mate who drives for South-Eastern is that he operates D.O.O. just the same as SWR drivers, but, as well as his lower pay his increase in money for an industry standard percentage will be less than theirs.

Nothing stopping him applying for a job with SWR...

 

[eldomtom2]

The Guardian has been a bit weird recently. Last week there was an opinion piece insisting that traveling to work (rather than working from home) was now 'trendy' and insisted WFH needed to end.

The Guardian prints a lot of opeds, not all of which represent their "official" line.

 

[deltic]

Jenkins' views belong in the 1970s, they are basically strongly pro-road and anti-public transport. They aren't even pro-bus as such*. Astonished to see a left-wing paper publishing them, unless it's for them to be slated in the letters page. That article would fit better in the Torygraph or Daily Hate Mail.

Does he have form on this?

* I could see an argument in the Grauniad for cutting rail to fund improvements to local bus given that the latter is used by more poorer people so spending on bus has more social benefits than rail. But that wasn't his argument at all.

Simon Jenkins was on the boards of British Rail 1979–1990 and London Transport 1984–1986!

 

[12LDA28C]

Freight is not expanding or carrying more traffic than pre-covid it remains at best stagnant at worst on a slow decline

Sources I can find all agree that railfreight is now above pre-Covid levels, for example freight train kilometres across Great Britain rose by 3.75 million to 33.63 million between April 2021 and March 2022, an increase of 12.5%.

Net-tonne kilometres of freight transported is also above pre-Covid levels.

 

[daodao]

A long-term anti-rail and anti-HS2 nobody slagging off railways yet again. I wouldn't let that cretin write a wish list to Santa let alone a column in a national newspaper.

Jenkins' views belong in the 1970s, they are basically pro-road and anti-public transport. Astonished to see a left-wing paper publishing them, unless it's for them to be slated in the letters page. That article would fit better in the Torygraph or Daily Hate Mail.

Sadly, much as I like railways, I agree with Simon Jenkins, whose article is objective, well written and without hyperbole. My use of passenger railways has dropped from being a frequent user up to 2005, to having made 1 return rail journey on Network Rail in the last 3 years.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Nothing stopping him applying for a job with SWR...

Sadly (in several ways) he lives in east Kent.

 

[12LDA28C]

Are you really talking about Simon Jenkins, author of Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations? Not everyone on this forum lives in a railway bubble, but directing invective and abuse towards someone like Jenkins sounds like a distorted view of the world to me.

Presumably a good portion of those '100 Best Railway Stations' will soon be slated for closure if his latest opinion piece is anything to go by. How strange.

Jenkins also seems to make a habit of writing anti-HS2 articles in the press with plenty of self-important 'opinion' but little basis in fact.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you really talking about Simon Jenkins, author of Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations? Not everyone on this forum lives in a railway bubble, but directing invective and abuse towards someone like Jenkins sounds like a distorted view of the world to me.

Have you read the article in question?

It's straight out of the 70s and basically espouses the views of Ernest Marples and Serpell. Strongly pro-car.

 

[RT4038]

Presumably a good portion of those '100 Best Railway Stations' will soon be slated for closure if his latest opinion piece is anything to go by. How strange.

I don't see any conflict in 'Best Railway Stations' being those used by few passengers..... ('Best' for whom? - the railway finance directors or some aesthetic reasons/most convenient/nicest condition/easiest passenger flow etc)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sadly, much as I like railways, I agree with Simon Jenkins, whose article is objective, well written and without hyperbole. My use of passenger railways has dropped from being a frequent user up to 2005, to having made 1 return rail journey on Network Rail in the last 3 years.

We can debate branch lines until we're blue in the face, but the car is not and cannot be the future of urban areas nor of intercity transport as he seems to be espousing. The article belongs in the bin marked "ideas from the 1970s we have long realised to be false".

He also mentions coaches and cars in the same sentence. Coaches carry a tiny, tiny proportion of traffic. For instance there are well under about 1000 seats from London to Manchester by coach each day - probably nearer about 500. Coaches are a minority pursuit only of interest to people for whom price is the only factor.

 

[A0wen]

I have engaged my neighbours in conversation about their use of trains. Although some have careers that require travel around the country and others travel regularly for various reason, it seems that - with one exception - none of them has ever travelled by train in recent memory or consider it as an option. The exception was one who had once used London Midland (as it was when he travelled) for a long weekend in London, as a car would be impracticable. He and his wife had travelled First Class but the abiding memory seemed to be 'wasn't very special - first class was full of railwaymen in uniform'.

Obviously this is anecdotal but there are larger towns in Northamptonshire with no railway station and, for those towns that do have one, rail only really offers a London service.

The proportion the population who never use trains would be an interesting one. That proportion may possibly regard the present situation as tiresomely irrelevant to their lives.

Just saying - I myself travel by train usually at least once a week, often more (though not at the present, obviously!) - but should be worrying.

Bit in bold - that's not really true. The 4 largest towns in Northants - Northampton, Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby all have railway stations.

The only 2 "large" places not to have a station are Rushden (~30k) and Daventry (~30k). Daventry lost its station long before Beeching and was only ever on a secondary line, Rushden was on a branch. Neither are far from a station though - Daventry's 4.5 miles to Long Buckby, Rushden's about the same to Wellingborough. Just for the record there are areas of Northampton which are that far from Northampton station e.g. Ecton Brook, Overstone, Moulton etc.

The remaining "towns" in Northampton are small towns / large villages - Brackley (which has Kings Sutton nearby) ~15k, Desborough 10k, Towcester 10k, Oundle 6k, Thrapston 6k.

 

[RT4038]

We can debate branch lines until we're blue in the face, but the car is not and cannot be the future of urban areas as he seems to be espousing. The article belongs in the bin marked "ideas from the 1970s we have long realised to be false".

Bit like Argentina, South Africa, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia etc - City suburban lines and precious little else. Perhaps there is a template?

 

[A0wen]

We can debate branch lines until we're blue in the face, but the car is not and cannot be the future of urban areas as he seems to be espousing. The article belongs in the bin marked "ideas from the 1970s we have long realised to be false".

He also mentions coaches and cars in the same sentence. Coaches carry a tiny, tiny proportion of traffic. For instance there are under about 1000 seats from London to Manchester by coach each day.

Bit in bold - the majority of the population seem not to agree with you. So unless you go for penal measures to force people not to have or use cars - which will also not be a vote winner - any government is faced with having to balance these things.

It's becoming increasingly clear that all these housing estates with limited parking isn't working - building loads of flats with no parking isn't working. And people don't want to live in high density cities.