Category Railways
CORNWALL AND PLYMOUTH DESERVE TWO MAIN LINES TO THE REST OF BRITAIN
The latest interruption to rail services through Dawlish reminds us how absurd it is that only one railway links Cornwall and Plymouth with the rest of Britain, and how over-confident the South Devon Railway was to build its line along a storm-prone beach. After the 2014 storm, Network Rail heroically rebuilt Dawlish’s seawall and track […]
IAIN MARTIN: SMEARING BRITISH RAIL FOR A TORY BREXIT
For decades there have been concerns that BBC news and current affairs programmes are politically biased. In the 1980s Conservatives accused the BBC of opposing Thatcher, while trade unions accused it of pro-management bias in the 1984–85 miners’ strike and 1986 News International dispute. The BBC contented itself with the blandishment that “if we are […]
CROSSCOUNTRY TRAINS: SUPPRESSING DEMAND
Overcrowding has been endemic on Britain’s railways since time out of mind. And this is not due to who owns our railways. Britain’s railways have never provided enough coaches with enough seats on all routes to meet demand. This is true of not only the two decades since privatisation in 1995 but also the five […]
THE EAST MIDLANDS NEED ANOTHER MAIN LINE, BUT NOT HS2
On 2 August several square metres of brickwork fell off one side of a road bridge over the Midland Main Line at Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire. Tons of rubble landed on the railway and all trains were stopped. There are no trains between Leicester and Loughborough, and hence no trains from Sheffield, Derby or Nottingham to St Pancras. On 2 […]
TO CUT TRAIN FARES, MAKE HOMES AFFORDABLE
Some types of rail fare are far higher in Britain than anywhere else in Europe. It is hard for comparisons to be exact, as UK rail fares are not determined by a rigid formula of so many pence per mile. But season tickets, and ordinary single or return tickets bought for travel the same day, are about 70% […]
