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Does Britain have too many railways?

iGreens have long believed that Britain has too many roads.  We argue that governments drive through compulsory purchase orders to clear the routes, build them with taxpayers’ money and then allow everyone to drive on them free.  Politicians then complain about the car-dependent culture they’ve caused. 

An article in this week’s Economist suggests that we also have too many railways.  We certainly have more miles of track than similar larger countries, and it carries less traffic (table).   It sounds like the writer might have a point. What’s going on?

As usual the problem started with a perverse incentive from unwise regulation.  In the late 19^th century the government limited railway companies profits to a fixed rate of return on investment.   This meant that companies could not increase profits by the usual method of increasing efficiency or providing a better service.  The only way was to expand the asset base.  So they built marginally economic lines out into the distant corners of the British Isles.  

Many of these branch lines still exist and the companies working them consume a disproportionate amount of rail subsidy.  Scot Rail for example received a subsidy of £230million or 20p per passenger mile last year, and local companies in Wales and the North West got even more.  In the meantime the overcrowded and fantastically popular and efficient Great North Eastern railway got nothing, and some of the London companies such as Gatwick Express and Thameslink actually paid a negative subsidy.  They paid money back to the government.  

This is madness.  The taxpayer is paying for empty trains to drive around the Scottish countryside while failing to support railways in the southeast where traffic congestion and car pollution might actually provide a reason for some government cash. 

We should cut subsidies to rural branch lines and let them close.  Even if this put a few extra cars onto the Scottish roads it would also discourage the rich from moving into the country to live in expensive rural splendour while the townies subsidise their railways, not to mention their expensive postal services.  Ideally the money saved should be returned to the taxpayers to spend as they see fit, perhaps on some genuinely profitable railways.  As a second best it should go to support more efficient intercity routes, which would take traffic off the roads, and reduce the pressure to build so many new roads.  Either way the environment would benefit.  Come back Dr Beeching.

 19 Jan 2002

May 2006 - Mr Higson writes:

I fail to see how you can describe yourself as Green when you propose such short sighted right wing policies. I live in the north west of England.  The through route to Skipton was closed a number of years ago.  Granted all those years ago there wasn't the amount of traffic on the roads.  The present route has suffered from a long term lack of investment.  Your proposal to do away with yet more branch lines fails completely  to realise that branch lines act as feeders to the system as a whole.  All that would happen if this line was closed would be to increase the amount of traffic on yet more congested roads. Please give me a straight answer and tell me if you think the Colne to Preston line should have its rail service withdrawn.

iGreens reply

We agree that branch lines, which are uneconomic in themselves, may be worth saving for their role as feeders to the main system.  However, this is not an argument against privatisation.  If they are owned by the same company the company has an incentive to keep the branch open.   If different companies own them the branch line company will simply negotiate a connection fee to the main line.  A similar system subsidizes private airlines to land at particular airports because of the passengers they bring.   The problem with nationalised railways is that no-one has the incentives to make these sorts of calculations.  So some totally uneconomic branch lines stay open, while useful feeder lines close. 

If you really want a larger railway network, you should support privatisation.  After all the entire (albeit possibly too extensive) original British system was built by private companies, and the vast majority of line closures occurred during the era of nationalisation, by Dr Beeching.

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Last modified: July 29, 2006