Re: Railway Vision for the 21st Century

An excellent vision. I hope a political party with this manifesto
emerges in my lifetime, but I'm far from hopeful.

On Jan 10, 6:46 pm, Jeremy Double <jmd.nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading the various recent threads on this website, and considering the
facts of global warming, the following things appear to me to be clear:

2. All British railways with a frequent service need to be electrified,
so that the trains can use any source of primary energy (e.g. renewables
and nuclear, as well as fossil fuels).

Indeed - carrying engines and fuel around is highly inefficient. There
are capacity benefits in terms of acceleration and no need to run
light/empty to fuelling points too. Roger Kemp's IET talk yesterday
also raised the important issue that electric traction has benefits
for non-users too, with reduced noise and vibration as key advantages.

3. There is a shortage of capacity on most of the main lines, and also
the various commuter networks around the country.  In some cases this
cannot simply be tackled using longer trains, because the trains are at
their limit.

Yes, but there are plenty of capacity-wasting 2-car DMUs trundling
around the provinces and sub 8/12-car formations in the south-east.

4. There is a need for high speed services, to attract people from their
cars and from internal air travel.

Yes, and there is a need to (a) internalise the external costs of
aviation as a priority and (b) abandon the 'predict and provide'
policy for air travel that could see aviation account for 50% of the
UK's carbon budget by 2050.

5. The rail network is fragile because there is currently not sufficient
redundancy of infrastructure and rolling stock, and this needs to be
rectified.

As an example, the peak service on the suburban lines between VIC and
ECR has 2 min headways, yet the signalling is designed for 3 min
spacing. The result is an unworkable timetable...

6. There is a need to integrate rail services with local transport such
as buses and trams.  This includes complete integration of timetables
and ticketing.

Absolutely. Buses leaving 30s before the train arrives is simply
unheard of in Switzerland.

Part of the reason that the Bahn 2000 project was a success was that the
public had to vote on the proposal in a referendum, so they had to be
convinced that the large expenditures involved were worthwhile. I think it's now time to have a similar long-term project to improve
public transport in the UK.

There are cultural differences to be considered - the average Joe here
doesn't like paying taxes but demands better public services. As for
behavioural change in travel, the 'love affair with the car' will be
difficult to end. I have car-dependent friends in Bern, which
illustrates nicely that sticks are needed in addition to the carrot of
the Swiss public transport system. Remember the car has zero waiting
time, no annoying fellow pax and is perceived (at the moment) to have
zero/negligible marginal usage costs.

b. To increase train capacities, double-deck trains will be needed on
some lines, but this can't be done without large civil engineering
expenditure.  So what is needed is a priority list of lines where this
will be needed very soon, so that a pro-active programme of bridge
rebuilding can be started.

Yes, it is ridiculous that road widening and bridge strengthening are
OK, whilst rail infrastructure put in the too difficult/expensive
pile.

d. A new "taktfahrplan" is needed, i.e. an integrated regular interval
timetable, covering local transport connections as well as the rail
network.  To do this PTEs (and equivalent bodies for the shire counties)
need powers to impose conditions on bus companies about timetables that
connect with the rail network and inter-availability of tickets.  The
public transport network needs to be seen as infrastructure in the same
way that the road network is, so the costs of late-night and Sunday
services and similar are covered from central funding.

In addition, I think the SWT approach of increasing recovery time
THROUGHOUT the journey (Swiss style) is the right one, but others say
it demonstrates a lack of ambition.

Maintenance would be cheaper if it could be carried out during
daylight hours on weekdays, because you wouldn't need to pay for
unsocial working hours and floodlighting.

But 'white periods' would disrupt your Taktfahrplan, so I am not in
favour of that. What I find so sad here is that even where we have bi-
directional signalling it is seldom used for planned engineering
works. This coming weekend on the Brighton main line is a case in
point, and announced at only 2 weeks notice!

f. As the public transport infrastructure is improved, incentives could
be applied to try and move people away from cars and planes.  This might
include personal carbon budgets, stricter controls on unroadworthy
vehicles, tougher penalties for irresponsible driving etc.

Road pricing is a must to change the perception that marginal costs
are zero - ringfenced revenues can be used to invest in public
transport, as laid out in the Transport Act of 2000. Ultimately the
use of the car in urban areas has to be physically restricted, as
drivers' willingness to pay increases.

This would clearly need to be a long-term programme of projects, and
would need the commitment of the whole UK political establishment, so
that we don't get frequent changes of direction with changes of
government.  But IMO Switzerland has shown the way.

You need either consensus politics or individuals with balls, such as
Ken and ex-Mayor Penalosa of Bogota. Britain doesn't do the former,
and look what happened to politicians such as Prescott and Meacher.

In the long term, this sort of project would pay for itself in the
increased efficiency of "UK plc", by breaking the log-jam that exists in
all modes of transport currently.

We all have to realise that behavioural change in the form of
travelling less, as well as mode-switching, is required. I would add
the following priorities:
1. Decentralisation of employment in London, Leeds and Manchester to
reduce the peakiness of rail demand.
2. Intelligently designed eco-towns that minimise the need to travel,
especially by car, with rail-based PT if large enough.
3. Soft measures such as home-working. Most of us now sit in front of
desks - why not do that at home once a week? Coordinate it and you
have reduced demand by 20% at a stroke!
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Rail Expansion in the North West - Transport 2000 Agenda
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