Patrick Crozier

I love this sort of thing: maps where area is proportionate to something other than territory.  Hey, I even designed one of my own way back.  This is the one for rail travel.

I think this is for passenger rail travel or else the US would be a lot bigger.  Look at China and India.  What does this say I wonder?

Patrick Crozier

New N700 Series

I admire the Japanese Bullet Trains (aka Shinkansens) very much - not least because I am not paying for them - but I had to laugh when I read this particular quote, marking the launch of the N700.  Is there a better way of saying: “Gather round everybody, look at us, we’re not very good.”?

If even the Japanese are struggling to say good things about trains, it all rather confirms my belief that as a form of transport they’re doomed.

In that vein I’ve been toying with the idea of compiling a list of insuperable train-travel bugs.  I mean problems that either cannot or probably never will be solved.  If I did I think I’d have to include this one, along with:

The ugliness of the view
The ugliness of the structures
The complexity of the fares
The inflexibility eg you can’t use trains for your trips to the DIY store
The actions of other people

Incidentally, I have yet to find out what the “N” stands for in N700.  Not-half-as-ugly-as-a 700, perhaps?

Patrick Crozier

The future of rail

As promised...

The British rail network peaked in 1912.  After that, vehicles based on the internal combustion engine, such as cars and lorries, started to eat into rail’s market. They did so because for all sorts of tasks they were better.  They were more convenient, more flexible and, in many cases, both cheaper and faster. they also gave the traveller with private space when travelling - the freedom to listen to his own taste in music and pick his nose.

From 1950 or thereabouts the British railway started to lose money.  In the 1960s the network was cut back dramatically.  Since then it has stabilised.  It needs about £1bn a year in subsidy but due to the crazy way it is structured receives far more.

Frankly, if railways were forced to stand on their own two feet - freed of both subsidy and regulation, there would be little left other than the main lines and the London commuter network - something that the Serpell Report concluded way back in 1982.

But it gets worse than that.  If Britain’s ridiculous planning laws were abolished, there would be a vast expansion of the city into what is currently the countryside.  This would be very bad news for the railway.  Railways need density.  They thrive on moving large numbers of people or large quantities of goods from point A to point B. Take the density away as urban expansion (not, not, not sprawl) would do and railways would find it ever harder, if not impossible, to exist.

Against this background, the one hope for the railways is climate change.  Or rather the hope that it is happening, that it is caused by CO₂, that it is a bad thing and that the proper response is to cut down on CO₂.  Because, in most cases, though by no means all, for the same length of journey, railways produce less pollution.

But rail is not the only alternative.  Staying at home is another - something that the internet has made massively easier.  I have even heard it said that when cities are allowed to develop naturally ie without the dubious benefit of state intervention, less, not more CO₂ pollution is the result.  Possibly because drivers spend less time in jams.  Possibly because people live nearer their places of work.  Who knows.

Worse still, worries about climate change are cyclical.  People can forget about it pretty quickly when they are wondering how to pay the mortgage.  When lots of people are worried about paying the mortgage…

The more I think about it the more I think the “hope” of climate change is a forlorn one.

Railways appeal to people in all sorts of ways.  To some it’s nostalgia.  To some it’s the system.  To some it’s the promise of planetary salvation.  To some it’s the promise of not having to drive.  Unfortunately for the railways, none of these desires are strong enough when competing against the “hard needs” of flexibility and convenience that only the internal combusion engine can satisfy.  Railways, have changed the world in all sorts of wonderful ways, but their days are numbered.

Patrick Crozier

Space!

I like the current crop of animated Lloyds Bank ads.  The first stars a train that is sleek and comfortable.  The second, one that splits, with each carriage stopping at the front door of the occupants.

Together they perfectly encapsulate what I call the Ideal of Train Travel.  The first being the current ideal - the idea of clean, comfortable, punctual, stress-free travel - using existing technology and layouts and the second being the future ideal when all practical obstacles are removed.

But it’s a chimera.  Probably.  Especially, the future ideal.  I don’t know about the economics but I’d guess the chances that you could run track to everyone’s front door are probably rather low.  There’s the expense, the inconvenience, the difficulty in getting carriages to marry up with one another.  My guess is that if someone hasn’t already come up with it there are probably good reasons why they haven’t. 

Split!

The nearest I have heard of was the “slip” carriages that Great Western introduced in the 1930s.  These were carriages that would be detached from the train while it was still in motion and be slowed down to a stop by the brakeman.  Lord knows what happened if he stopped long or short of the station.  Maybe in those days things like that didn’t happen.

I am not even particularly optimistic about the current ideal.  To create that much on-board space would require either much higher fares or much higher taxes.  And all the business to do with punctuality and cleanliness requires culture - something that you (especially if that “you” happens to be the government) can’t create over night.  And that’s not to mention crime, vandalism and graffiti which are to a large extent outside the railway’s control.

Frankly, when all things are considered, the family car is a damn sight closer to the ideal than trains are or are ever likely to be.

Next post: Why railways are doomed.

Brian Micklethwait

Iain Dale doesn’t specialise in transport issues, but there have been a couple of postings there recently on transport themes.  On Monday there was a big chunk of Simon Hoggart, writing about the interruptions that train passengers (sorry: “customers” (I hate that)) are subjected to.

I settle in the quiet coach. Except it isn’t.

And, today, there is this coach, of the road sort, which says this on its side:

I don’t know why it says this.  Judging by the EUro stars to the right of that, it’s either a very pro EU message or very anti.  I imagine it’s the usual thing of Germans sounding scarier than they really are.  Usually.

There are times when it is easy to forget that in addition to the approximately £5bn that the UK rail industry receives in subsidy each year there is also the £20bn guarantee that Network Rail is rapidly snaffling up. So, it's a good thing - if not a pleasant thing - to be reminded now and then.

In the 1980s, the subsidy was about £1bn.

Patrick Crozier

Notwithstanding the hornets’ nest that this week’s global warming documentary has stirred up, it occurs to me that if you follow the party line on all things global warmy then don’t you also have to look forward to the closure of loss-making railway lines?

Let me explain.  The basis on which we get warm, fuzzy feelings about railways is that they’re supposed to produce much less CO2 for each passenger moved.

True.  But only if there are lots of passengers on the train.  If you have a train with only a few passengers - and therefore the sort of service that is going to be making a loss - then efficiency goes right down.  Probably - I am far from sure of the numbers here - to way below the level you’d get from just a normal, family car.

Nice league table (complete with stats and pretty pictures) of the world's underground systems from, of all people, Virgin Vacations (hat-tip: Live from the Third Rail). Though what possessed them to put London at the top and Tokyo - which in my humble opinion is far superior - fifth, heaven only knows.

This seems rather sarcastic, doesn’t it?

Apparently it’s part of a genuine campaign.  But, in Melbourne, Australia.  So that’s okay then.  Quite what the idea is I didn’t discover.

Patrick Crozier

Tim Hall (see comment) is all depressed about how long it takes to get anything done in this country.  He is talking about the gap between the closure of part of the North London Line and the opening of its replacement.  I’d like to say it’s all to do with the state.  And, of course, it is.  It’s just not quite as simple as all that.  As Michael Jennings is fond of pointing out, they have none of this difficulty in Hong Kong or Singapore.  This is a peculiarly British phenomenon.

I once spoke to a bloke who was involved in some London project, it may even have been this one.  His point was that there were so many agencies involved: national government, local government, Network Rail, the TOCs etc that it was almost impossible to get them all to agree.  And so you got nowhere.

Now, part of the reason is the vertical fragmentation of the railway, another reason to oppose it, but it is only part of the reason.  The other part - the plethora of agencies - puts me in mind of the work of American economist, Mancur Olson.  His theory - although you’d be pushed to deduce this from his Wikipedia entry - is that over time all states acquire ever more rules and regulations (and presumably agencies to enforce them) until it become more or less impossible to do anything and they collapse.

We’re doomed.

London's transport is broken, says One Man and His Blog.

Quote:

My goodness, what an eye-opener it was. After nine years of train commuting, I'd got used to it. After a short break, I saw it with new eyes. I saw the utter filth of London Bridge station. I saw the people crushed into cattle trucks. I smelt the fast food and the perfume and the body odor all mingling in an unpleasant aroma cocktail. I saw people struggling to get though a tiny platform exit on Lewisham station.

London has been described as the heart of the country's economy, pumping its fiscal blood around the nation. If that's the case, then the country has heart disease. Its arteries are clogged, unable to cope with the demands placed on them.

Methinks this man, and his blog, are tired of London.