CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Resurgent railways
BILL KIRKMAN
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The increased demand for rail networks in the UK is an opportunity to plan for the future…
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Greater use of public transport might reduce congestion in towns (and reduce the carbon footprint of commuters)
. Photo: The Hindu Photo library
Explore options: Provide appropriate services
Will the UK’s rail network be increased? If a report just produced by the Association of Train Operating Companies bears fruit, the answer is yes. The report, “Connecting Communities: Expanding Access to the Rail Network”, unveils p
lans to build 14 new lines and 40 new stations. Some of this would involve reopening some old sections of track which were closed 40 years ago, in the wake of a report by Dr. Richard Beeching, that quickly became notorious. The Connecting Communities report has been welcomed by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). That body published its own report, “2026: A Vision for the Countryside”, which called for a “revitalisation of rural railways”.
There are plenty of arguments in favour of extending the railway network beyond the main lines. They include the fact that there has been a huge increase in the number of passengers (a 45 per cent increase in the decade to 2007-08) and the fact that roads are increasingly congested, and that car travel is far less “green” than rail travel.
The Beeching Report (“The Reshaping of British Railways”) quickly came to be seen in a purely negative light, with emphasis on his proposals for the closure of what were seen as unprofitable lines, and little attention paid to some plans for modernisation. This reaction was inevitable because of the politicisation of the whole issue of railways. For Conservative governments, nationalised industries were “a bad thing”, and the fact that the railways were losing money pointed to the solution of privatisation.
Badly executed
The — quite genuine — problem was exacerbated by the way the privatisation was carried out. During the Prime Ministership of John Major, Margaret Thatcher’s successor, the final stages of privatisation were completed in 1993 in a way that owed far more to doctrinaire obsession — “we will end British Rail’s monopoly” — than to practical reality. What resulted was a complex mess, aspects of which are still being sorted out.
It is not, I think, too cynical to claim that the UK has never had what could properly be called a transport policy. Rather, successive governments of all complexions have reacted to changing needs, tactically rather than strategically. More people owned cars, and so we needed motorways. Some quickly became congested, so we built more. Greater use of public transport might reduce congestion in towns (and reduce the carbon footprint of commuters) but with bus services, like train services, privatised it was difficult to ensure that appropriate services were provided. The question: Will they pay? has always loomed larger than: What is the real cost (such as pollution, congestion, time wasted frustratingly in travel) of not having them?
In fairness, it must be conceded that no one could have predicted with total accuracy the extent of increased demand. No one could have predicted 30 or 40 years ago how many more people would travel daily greater distances to work, how many more would travel greater distances and more frequently for leisure. These things, however, have happened, and it will surely be sensible for decisions about the extension of the rail network to be made in a truly strategic way, for example by including measures to provide for shuttle services to connect small communities with new lines and stations.
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This weekend I had a pleasant reminder that it is not always necessary to travel great distances, by whatever means, in pursuit of leisure. My wife and I went to a concert — Music for a Summer’s Evening — given by a highly talented Cambridge-based group (the Fairhaven singers). The choice of programme was excellent. We enjoyed strawberries and sparkling wine in the interval. The summer evening really was summery — by no means guaranteed in the British climate — and the setting, the chapel of a beautiful mid-14th century college, could not be bettered.
One of the many attractive characteristics of Cambridge is the rich variety of its musical life. Musical treats of this kind are easy to find in, and around, the city. Only two weeks previously, for example, we went to hear another very good choir giving a concert in the beautiful 13th-century church of a village near ours.
Perhaps the strategic approach to planning the country’s transport system for the next half century ought to include looking at ways of encouraging people to look for the leisure opportunities on their own doorstep. Certainly, more people will, quite reasonably, need to travel, but that need makes even more attractive the chance sometimes to stay where you are.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, UK. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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