How does it fare against other EU countries? What is so different abount Japan trains, that they are just 0.7 minutes late on average?
[1] https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1630/passenger-performan...
The common theory for why is because of the mess made of privatising British Rail in the 1990s. The government did it in a way which managed to create monopolies while at the same time splitting out responsibility between different companies in such a way that millions are drained away on legal costs while the companies argue with each other about who is responsible for each problem.
There are many articles analysing the problems you can find online, here's one that turned up at the top of search: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/07/railways-pri... Edit: Better article: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/09/why-britains-...
Had they just gone back to the big 4 of 1921-1947, or created a "medium 8" with extra rights to run charters on the tracks we might have rail that works by now.
Then there's the 50+ year story of line and infrastructure upgrades... Each time we update, we seem to update to the previous generation's capability.
The "negotiations" between train operators wanting better rolling stock, railtrack (government), station upgrades and the inconvenient length of franchises made the whole process suitable for a Laurel and Hardy or Buster Keaton movie.
Little wonder they're most improved, they gave themselves so much scope...
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/health-and-safety/r...
The European Union Agency for Railways (ERAIL) collects statistics for EU countries:
I think this is largely only an effect of a lot of rails being third rail and as a result there are fewer crossings.
We have been phasing out level crossings wherever possible though.
Germany for example has multiple cities with over 1 in million population that are attractive for business and distribute resources and infrastructure. England has London with around ~7 million in population then Birmingham at 0.9.
Improved in what way? Punctuality? Frequency of services? Affordability of tickets? Refurbishment of stations? New rolling stock? It's a claim that doesn't match the experiences of many passengers. What is the source?
"It has some of the lowest fares if you book far in advance"
Even if this is true, it's little consolation for the vast majority of passengers who need to commute daily. The reality is that, for most passengers, rail in the UK is expensive.
Here is a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017: UK vs Continental Europe:
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292
- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85
- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75
Source: https://www.tuc.org.uk/industrial-issues/transport-policy/uk...
Dublin/Pleasanton to San Francisco - Embarcadero (35 miles): $6.80 each way, which works out to ~£204 per month for 40 trips.
This was something of an issue in the recent UK election. Obviously, EU membership was a major issue, and one of the main parties also wanted to renationize the railways... which is technically allowed by EU rules, it's just that there's very little point since we wouldn't be able to undo the weird structuring created by privatization.
With the number of failed and failing franchises, there's a lot to be said for a new approach, perhaps via a period nationalised to draw a line and start again. It seems patently clear that the post-Beeching nationalised years, decades as under-funded political football, and UK's privatisation were all absolute disasters for passengers... Seems like the EU should look, shake their head, and mutter "definitely not".
If it were me, I'd go back to the pre-war big 4 era, where there were a dozen or two smaller companies running parallel competition on some routes, or running goods and charters on big 4 lines. I probably wouldn't reinvent the pre-1921 situation that gave Manchester four stations all essentially overlapping - Central, Victoria, Oxford Road and Exchange. Pre-big 4 company history detangles that! Manchester Piccadilly was lucky in having less parallel competition.
What we've lost, and totally forgotten, is just how much those pre-war railway companies did to feed the railways. Hotel stations that were not the manky unloved budget rooms of the seventies through today, but often a premium offering. The railways bought into early bus, ferry and tram services to develop those, and ensure services fed the stations. Integrated transport and travel! Compatible timetabling! Now I have to go to the Netherlands to experience that.
It's been ongoing for twenty-five years at this point. The initial goal was to improve access especially, and entered into force in 1992. Essentially, to prevent the historic case of (e.g.) a nationalised railway forbidding anyone else operating on their infrastructure (so if you want to run a freight service and the nationalised company don't care? trucks it is!). This also vastly simplified cross-border services as it's then possible to apply for track-access on a non-discriminatory basis, which completely changed the face of the European rail freight market.
Note that as of 1 Jan 2019, international and domestic freight and passenger markets are, at a national level, all competitive. The world hasn't fallen apart in most of the EU. I think it's clear plenty did look at the British example and clearly decided to avoid following the British example in many ways.
Also I think it's worthwhile pointing out the UK's privatisation has been in some ways a success: subsidy now is much lower per-passenger (and lowering this has been a constant goal across all governments since privatisation), and the financial risk of the success is not borne by the government (and as the NAO concluded, no franchises making loses and/or failing would imply everyone is underbidding and the government is losing money as a result)
To me, it's not clear that a return to a nationalised operator would help things in GB; many of the problems come from political imperatives (c.f. "decades as under-funded political football"), and the railway is far more micromanaged by the government today than it ever was under British Rail. By and large the franchising bodies (mostly the DfT) are simply getting the services they ask their contractor for, and passenger should be more directing their annoyance at them; we also have a network that has seen massive growth in passenger numbers and number of services and comparatively little money spent on capacity enhancements to avoid a network run at capacity where a single short-term failure can propagate through large parts of the system. The change that needs to happen is political, and whether ultimate delivery is contracted out is mostly irrelevant.
> To me, it's not clear that a return to a nationalised operator would help things in GB; ... the railway is far more micromanaged by the government today than it ever was under British Rail
True, whilst I understand the reasoning of Labour's suggestion to re-nationalise, at best we would get a less effective repeat of 1947. 1947-1960 (before Beeching) worked OK in good part because BR still had the shape of the big 4 years. Even if Labour planned, executed and funded perfectly we would, at some point, get a Tory government, who would be inclined to under-fund it. Off we go again, still with infrastructure 50 years behind.
I mention nationalisation more as a reason to bring it all back into one whole first -- to split it up more sensibly at the next attempt. Divvying up various bits of all the various companies differently seems challenging. :)
The central micromanagement speaks to other UK post-war problems, which also affect rail. We've become one of the most centralised countries there is, whilst talking of smaller government and deregulation. Local funding has been steadily gutted since the end of the general rates. Local authorities used to be able to make far wider reaching decisions, and fund them. They could start, fund or develop local services, such as bus, power or train, and often create a municipal corporation to run it -- hands off.
That's the other appeal of returning to the pre-war organisation, it would distance the government from the day to day, and local choices, especially in Scotland, the North etc, might be possible once again. We could add capacity, and undo some of the worst of Beeching.
Now if only we could only undo some of the UK's excess centralisation as well...
Regional bodies having more power and influence (and money, probably with tax raising powers to actually control their supply!) would be a fantastic thing, but I think would be needed before nationalisation would significantly change the British rail scene at this point.
You might be right about regionalism being needed first, I'm not sure. Seems like we should try and regain both, and need both, so Liverpool and Manchester can work together and get a new railway, or compete and brief against each other and end up with the Manchester Ship Canal. Whitehall's only involvement in those essentially limited to saying "OK". The Whitehall conceived, planned and delayed "northern powerhouse", that has both Liverpool and Manchester mayors tearing their hair out at how little input their cities get just marks it as the usual, never fully delivered, centralised horseshit for the regions...
They’re not perfect but I am rarely delayed by more than a minute or two. Agree that a massive issue is the price, my train is close to £30 a day for a 50 minute ride into the city and it goes up by 3-5% every year.
The only proper delays I see are caused by unusual weather, as it’s the UK - flooding or snow.
Northern Rail, Transpennine, West Coast, ScotRail, East Coast (there already) etc that have or are about to be given to "operator of last resort", i.e. renationalised -- under a Tory government --for having failed badly.
It has follow on effects far down some lines as well, as problems at London Bridge would often cause delays far south of Croydon and up again towards Victoria (because Croydon becomes a chokepoint) for example.
But as elsewhere in the UK, expensive .
Over the summer there were at least 4 occasions where the whole line was suspended. They did get unlucky with some power failures if I remember. But twice the line was suspended through London due to heat effecting overhead wires.
Once could be just about forgiven (it gets hot in summer who knew that), but to have it happen again a few weeks later cannot. Sort the issue that suspends your whole network after the first occurrence! If it can't be fixed with a reasonable amount of time to schedule emergency works the system is not fit for purpose.
Well, the thing is: we weren't able to change the laws of physics in those few weeks. Metal still expands, so the wires still droop in the heat. The system is designed for normal conditions; sometimes it doesn't work in abnormal conditions. They could probably do better, but it takes time, effort, and money which are all in limited supply.
Earlier this year I had to take public transport for a few weeks whilst getting my power steering repaired and on one occasion my first train was delayed for reasons that were never explained. When I got to my interchange the next train was delayed due to signal failure. And when I finally got my train the driver announced that due to the delay they were passing straight through two stations, one of which was mine, so I had to get off earlier and wait for yet another train.
In the end it took me about 3hrs to complete a journey I can do in 30 mins by car.
Your comment made me very happy, I laughed and snorted, and I'm glad I wasn't drinking my coffee at the time I read it. Thank you for writing it, you are awesome.
Now I'm thinking of a Cult of Cthulhu who design railway depots as an homage to their unknowably evil master, with junctions and lines as a representation of its tentacles and body.
Think about how rare power outages are nowadays. When infrastructure becomes important enough it becomes run pretty smoothly.
So if you got lateness stats on trains, it would likely take all the JR stuff and mix stuff up
I agree with your sentiment, my comment is more about my theory that stats would not make the distinction (though it would likely exclude things like Tokyo Metro or the monorails).
You get up to about ~82% within 3 minutes and ~88% within 5 minutes. Beyond that you see little gains.