Regular, long term readers (if there are any....) will know already that I do enjoy a train ride. That doesn't mean I'm like the sad bastards in anoraks you see sitting at the end of the longest platform on busy stations like Waterloo or Clapham Junction, munching cheese sandwiches and Digestives and swilling tea out of a thermos flask whilst scribbling train identification numbers down in little notebooks. Nor does it mean I go all misty eyed at the very mention of the Great Days of Steam Locomotives (although my dear departed uncle was a bit like that - he had a huge train set in the basement of his house and a collection of LPs [remember them? Black, plastic, 12" across with a hole in the middle? OK, perhaps not.] featuring various locomotive sounds and whistles). That said, like many people of my generation I remember fondly the big black smoky beasts that used to criss-cross the countryside in a manner that seems to my memory far more exhilarating and efficient than anything that's come since. And, yes, I do still enjoy a Thomas the Tank Engine story, even though my kids have all outgrown them now.
I'm also not thinking about commuting during the rush hour, which is something I've done all my life to a greater or lesser degree, in a number of countries, and it's hell on earth wherever you do it. The nearest I've ever come to an enjoyable commute was in Switzerland, where I've done it for several months on and off, in both the Zurich and Geneva areas. At least Swiss Railways are clean and (generally) run on time, and don't suffer as often from the overcrowding so common elsewhere - but they can be crowded too, with standing room only. Just not every day.
No, when I say I enjoy a good train ride I'm thinking about the longer distance, non peak hour trips that I've taken before and would like to take again. I've blogged on the subject before, a couple of years ago (see Let the Train take the Strain), so this is really a return to familiar territory. Being able to relax in a comfortable seat, in a warm compartment, gazing out of the window at a new and expanding landscape, is one of the more pleasurable experiences I can think of. And in many countries it doesn't cost the Earth. I think I have the American travel writer Paul Theroux to thank for that: he's written a number of excellent books about his railway travels around the world, and his descriptions of smoky old boat trains, spittoons in overcrowded and claustrophobic compartments on trains in China and India, and luxurious sleeping compartments on the Trans-Siberian Express captured my imagination and made me want to experience stuff like that as well. So whenever I get the chance I buy a ticket and off I go.
I just don't do it enough. Of course, this is partly due to sheer economics - right now my budget hardly stretches to a ten zloty all-day Metro ticket here, never mind an away-day to Krakow or somewhere. But it's also been (in the recent past) due to the projects I was assigned to. Typically, my hotel - or if I was lucky, apartment - has been within walking distance of the client office, so there has been no possibility or for that matter requirement to hop on a train. There was the odd exception - Geneva and Zurich being the main ones (written about in more detail in the post I mentioned earlier), a couple of weeks in the States where I did a reverse commute from Grand Central Station in New York to the university town of New Brunswick, across the river in New Jersey, and a week in Germany where I couldn't get accommodation in Frankfurt because my trip clashed with the Book Fair (great planning that, by the client) so had to stay in Mainz and spend two and half hours each day commuting on the Bundesbahn - and very nice it was too. In my work travelling days about the only long distance train ride of note was from London to Warsaw via Brussels and Berlin when that Icelandic volcano caused travel chaos in May 2010 - again, see Let the Train take the Strain.
When I first moved here, about the only train journey possible that passed outside the country's borders was one to (predictably enough) Moscow. On one of my early projects in Warsaw we had a group of Russian techies who used to catch the service every third week to go home for a long weekend, half of which was actually spent on the train (armed of course with cases of fortifying vodka) - but it was half the cost of a flight (of which there was only one a day anyway) so for them it was fine and good value. Now the choice is much wider. I passed through the main station here a week or so ago, and in one hour at lunch time there were services to Vienna via Prague and Bratislava, Berlin, Amsterdam (via Berlin) and Moscow. At other times there are services to Brussels, Paris, Zurich, and Budapest, amongst other destinations. They don't run every day, of course, but still - there are some rides I'd love to take there. They may take a day or more to complete, but I would enjoy them thoroughly I know.
There are other trips I would like to take as well, given the opportunity. I saw an article in the Independent newspaper website last week describing one that runs from Seattle across the Canadian border and through Vancouver to Whistler in the Canadian Rockies, that for the first half (to Vancouver) runs along the Pacific shore with the mountains to the right, then from Vancouver climbs through the mountains themselves. The carriages are all specially designed observation cars with glass roofs, and the thing only travels at about 40mph so there's ample time to enjoy what must be some of the most beautiful and spectacular views to be found anywhere. That one tickles my fancy. Then there's an Australian service that crosses the entire continent from Sydney to Perth, and includes the longest straight stretch of track on Earth, over 200 miles through the desert wastes of the Nullabor Plain. Oh yes. I wouldn't mind the London to Fort William and Penzance services back home, and there are decent runs through France (from Paris to Marseilles) and Spain (Madrid to Malaga) that look quite scenic, on the latest high speed trains. Two problems with all of them - one, money (or the lack of it), and two, I don't think Ania and kids would join me. I'd still love to do them though - so if anyone wants to sponsor me and commission a book or something about the trips then by all means get in touch (and I'm serious about that.......).
But this article is supposed to be about the future of rail travel (I'll get to the roads in a mo, I haven't forgotten). Let's split it a little - and say the future of rail travel inside the UK and without - because I'm sure they are two very different animals.
Inside the UK, there has been some progress, some modernization, in the years I've been away (that's 11 years and counting). But the progress seems to be glacial in its pace. When I left, there was a mish-mash of different franchises providing services across the country, some good, some not so good, but all ludicrously expensive and all seemingly losing money. Commuter routes in and out of London (and I'll focus a bit on them since I have the most experience in them) were more overcrowded than ever before and criminally expensive. There were passenger protest groups all over the place, lobbying Parliament for service improvements and cost cutting and getting precisely nowhere (like many of the trains, in fact). There were plans under discussion to improve and electrify both the West and East Coast main lines to improve and speed up the services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond. There was discussion going on about a service that would cross London from West to East to improve trans-City commutes, and link west London quickly and easily with high speed trains to the Kent and Essex ports and the Channel Tunnel. All lines and signals were in any case to be modernized and improved, and rolling stock updated with new safer trains. The high speed line to the Channel Tunnel terminus near Folkestone was still under construction, and a lively debate was going on about whether the London terminus for it should be at Waterloo (which made sense, since it was already there and south of the Thames - as is Folkestone and the English Channel) or at a newly rebuilt St.Pancras in north London. The costs involved were astronomical and featured many zeros - which is why all this discussion and argument was going on: the Labour government wanted to be prudent in its spending and save as much as possible, whilst the Tory opposition roundly condemned them for not going ahead with the plans and creating jobs and tax revenues and so on and so forth - the usual bollocks.
Fast forward to 2013.
Now, there is a mish-mash of train operators, some good, some not so good, and most of them losing money. I caught a train from Luton Airport into St.Pancras, and there were I think 4 different franchises operating that route alone - madness! It didn't make purchasing my ticket in advance on-line very easy - in fact, I couldn't find one that combined all of the possible operators plus London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway in a single fare, so in the end I gave up and shelled out thirty four quid for a full price One Day Travelcard when I landed. I can remember paying a similar price 20 years ago for a one week season ticket from Kent to London, also covering the Tube and DLR.....prices have clearly rocketed in my absence. I'm still trying to justify how London Underground have a cheapest single fare of four and a half quid, and that covering only one Zone - in other words if you went from say Notting Hill Gate to Whitechapel (at opposite ends of the Central Line in Zone 1, the fare would be the same as if you traveled from St.Paul's to Bank, on the same line and perhaps 300 yards apart. Makes no sense to me. In contrast, the Warsaw Metro offers a one day travel card costing about 15 zlotys - that's about three quid - for which you get unlimited journeys on the entire metro, tram and bus network (which is huge) within a 24 hour period. Which is better value?
So it seems to me that in the future, the railways in the UK have somehow got to find a way of reducing fares and offering much better value for money to attract more customers (I'm talking off-peak here, since rush hour volumes are still astronomical). The rail operators, I'm sure, will say this needs more government subsidy, and the government will I'm equally sure say you can't have it - so you have an impasse that I can't see being broken in my lifetime. Incidentally, the Warsaw transport system is not supported by central government but by the city administration, similar to the US model and elsewhere. Is that not one area where the London administration under good ole Boris might be able to help (yes, I know they already do, but given the amount of money London takes in direct and indirect taxation from its residents and visitors, I would suggest more could be done....)?
Beyond the ludicrous number of operators out there, and scandalous fares, the trains I caught at least ran more or less on time, and were newer and a bit more comfortable than those I remember. they still pale in comparison with those operated in places like Switzerland, Spain, even the USA and here in Poland, but clearly there has been an improvement. There are more high speed services, and the rail link for the Channel Tunnel is finally open so that trains don't get held up behind slow local services. The terminal was indeed moved to St.Pancras, and very nice it is too - although the security screening (identical to airport security) seem to me decidedly over the top. St.Pancras also operates high speed services through Stratford and under the Thames to the North Kent coast and Dover, which came as a pleasant surprise, with a journey time to Ebbsfleet (close to where my kids live) of only a quarter of an hour: (the usual suburban routes still take 50 minutes or more) and for a reasonable price too.
The East and West Coast mainlines are still being worked on, and the West Coast line (nicknamed HS2) seems particularly contentious as costs have escalated and people are now questioning the business rationale for it - so expect the government to develop a severe case of Cold Feet and cancel the project some time soon. The arguments seems to be getting more heated and muddied and hardly a day goes by without another article in the Guardian or the Independent newspapers on the subject (though without adding anything to or taking anything away from the argument).
And this is typical of the British way. I remember clearly back in the 80s and early 90s when the Channel Tunnel was being built. Before the thing opened, the French had decided on the route for and built the high speed rail-link to and from Paris. I assume there were protests from French towns and villages that were likely to be affected by it, but I don't remember too many press reports on that - mainly because of the rage and fury that the people of Kent were pouring on successive governments over our side of the route. There were protest marches in my home town, Edenbridge, which is a good 30 miles from any proposed route (my mum was a regular attendee). The route was chopped and changed with depressing regularity as civil servants and ministers tried to keep everyone happy, while scratching their heads about why places like New Barn and Istead Rise were screaming blue murder without appearing in any plans. The answer to that one is a classic, told to me in a meeting with my MP at the House of Commons: it seems the original planning had been done by some civil servants at Transport getting a map and drawing a line on it from Folkestone to London, avoiding major towns like Maidstone, Tonbridge and so on. Unfortunately the map used was over 20 years old, so their proposal carved right through the middle of New Barn and Istead Rise, villages that hadn't even existed when the map was drawn. So the route had to be changed yet again.....and so it went on. So when the Tunnel finally opened (late and over budget, of course), the brand spanking new trains were able to thrash along at 300kph in France, then come out of the Tunnel in Kent - and join the queue of slow moving commuter trains lumbering slowly through the countryside. It took years before the British side was done.
So the future of rail travel in the UK is not very bright I'm afraid - expect more delays and crumbling infrastructure and mega price rises and overcrowding, until the whole British mentality changes and starts embracing the change that is clearly required, and an acceptance that money will need to spent to realise it.
Meanwhile, the French will continue to expand their high speed network - it's now possible to have breakfast in Paris, hop on a TGV to Marseille for a freshly caught fish lunch on the Mediterranean coast, and be back in Paris, again via TGV, in time for dinner. And at a reasonable price. The Spanish too have an impressive high speed network linking the Madrid heartland to the likes of Barcelona, and Valencia and Malaga, far to the south, in comfort without spending hours queueing at airports. Italian services are improving, the Swiss and Germans continue to set the benchmark for comfort and efficiency, with the Dutch not too far behind. And of course, all of them are interconnected, and route through to the rest of Europe where the services may not be as fast but at least you can catch a train in Amsterdam and wend your merry way through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Denmark, to end up in Poland or Russia or the Czech Republic, amongst other places. Polish railways are improving - I mentioned earlier the increased variety of destinations on offer earlier in this piece - with investment in new rolling stock (for both local and intercity services) and signalling and track infrastructure. The work is still going on, so journey times can still be quite long, but at least the new trains are airy and comfortable, and on the intercity services (at least on the longer routes) offer dining cars, bike racks, and even carriages dedicated to families with children that offer play areas and tables. Certainly within Europe, it seems to me, these interlinked railways provide a decent alternative for those of the travelling public who are happy to spend a little more time getting to their destination and are sick and tired of the increasingly intrusive security screening process and overcrowded airports with their expensive bars and restaurants and persistent flight delays. In my last post, about the future of air travel, I suggested this situation was likely to continue for the foreseeable future: that said, we can expect continued growth and improvement to railway travel, provided there is sufficient investment made by countries in the upkeep and improvement of the necessary infrastructure. This is likely across mainland Europe, where the railways still seem to be recognised as an integral part of any sensible transport solution - but less so in the UK.
Further afield, the Chinese are making massive investment in rail travel (as they are with road building, air travel and all kinds of other infrastructure projects) as a result of their drive for economic supremacy. Thousands of miles of new track have been laid and opened over the last few years, and thousands more are planned. New technology is also being developed and trialed, including high speed trains that are faster than anything currently operating, as well as mag-lev technology: I commend you once again to the excellent BBC Future section on the News website for more detail and information. Indeed, the Far East continues to invest in new technology (as they have done in the IT and telecommunications sectors where their products have far outstripped the leading western alternatives - think of Samsung mobile phones and a whole slew of laptops and tablets that are as good as - and crucially cheaper than - anything HP or IBM or Apple are producing). The Bullet trains have been running trouble free for years in Japan. The Indian network is expanding as does its economy, much needed as people migrate from the vast countryside to its major cities of Delhi and Chennai and Pune and the rest. As more people in the region want to travel, and more tourists are prepared to make the long haul flights to sample the new holiday destinations being opened up (a trend likely to continues, as these vacations offer great value for money against the dollar and euro and sterling) this rail expansion seems set to continue. Clearly, it's a good time to be a railway buff.
So what of road travel?
Again, there seems to be a situation where the UK lags behind the rest of Europe certainly, and arguably the rest of the world - and for exactly the same reasons. When the Conservative government in the 1980s started making announcements about new motorways and rail routes, across the country protest groups sprang up to oppose them, purely on the basis that, no matter how important the developments were no-body wanted them near to their homes. A whole new sub-class of citizens was created to rival the Yuppies - the Nimbys: it's an acronym of Not In My Back Yard. To this day, nimbys survive and flourish, even though yuppies and yippies and so on have been consigned as footnotes to history. The nimby delayed the Channel Tunnel rail link and the CrossRail project (because not only do they not want the new railway to run within about 20 miles of their front doors, they most certainly don't want to pay for it). The nimby has now turned his ire on the HS2 project I mentioned above, and seems to be having a similar level of success. Airport expansion delays? Nimby driven. Against wind farms (noisy and unsightly and inefficient, despite evidence to the contrary)? Nimby driven. Against fracking (the current environmental campaign in the UK, aimed at preventing exploratory wells being drilled to get at previously unreachable oil reserves)? Nimby driven (with the ecologist lobby). It seems to me that until the nimby culture is broken or expires of old age (and a good dose of common sense) there is little chance of much in the way of new road building anywhere in the UK - and judging by the horrendous traffic volumes on the roads that exist now something needs to be done. The obvious answer is to try and move as much freight and human traffic onto the railways......oh, sorry forgot: can't do that, the nimbys won't like and besides it's all way too expensive. So be prepared to spend more and more time stuck in interminable traffic jams.
Again, my best contrast is what I see every day in Warsaw and Poland, where a massive amount of road building is going on. There is a clear co-ordinated transport policy here, and as well as the rail improvements I mentioned above, the road improvements complement it. Highways are springing up all over the country, most of them toll roads - but I'm happy to pay PLN15 (say three pounds) to lop a good 2 hours off the drive to the coast, and travel on a new and uncrowded motorway. Around Warsaw, there is a new network of ring roads under construction to link these new highways, so that the TIR freight trucks carrying goods to and from Western Europe to Russia and Ukraine and elsewhere no longer have to pass through (and block up totally) the city centre. Perhaps in 10 years time this network will be as crowded and unpleasant as the M25 is today - but I hope not.
India and China, in particular, are improving and expanding their road networks to handle greater freight requirements, and again there seems to be some integration with rail improvements. The same is true elsewhere, as African countries drag themselves, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the modern world. South America too.
All of this is good and necessary. But probably more important are improvements and developments to the vehicles themselves. Some of this is environmental, as the oil runs out and we become more aware of the effects of fossil fuels on the environment and climate forces manufacturers to develop alternative power sources for cars and other vehicles. Hybrids (half petrol and half electric) have been around for a while led by the Toyota Prius, and there are now some half decent all-electric vehicles around, again led by Japanese manufacturers. Expect this to continue over the next few years, as more and more charging points spring up and battery ranges (and sizes and weights) improve to make them a more cost effective alternative.
Other developments are safety driven. Many top end cars now come with a variety of sensors that automatically brake if you're too close to the car in front, or straying into the wrong lane or too close to the side of the road. Most cars have sat-nav fitted as standard (or as a low cost option). All have air bags and seat belts and strengthened bodywork and crumple zones to protect driver and passenger. There are reasonably priced cars (again mostly from Asian manufacturers) that have hands-free parking - can't wait to get one of those, parallel parking has never been my strong point! There are even a few experimental cars that do the lot: you get in, start the engine, give your destination and let the car take over: it can plan the best route using sat-nav (and take into account road work delays and so on), then drive you there with the speed controlled to give optimum fuel consumption and all the safety sensors making sure you get there in one piece. Even 10 years ago, this was the stuff of science fiction. In 10 years time it will be the norm in cars, and in 15 likewise in bigger vehicles like buses and trucks. Travelling may start to become fun again then - provided the road development keeps pace with the vehicle development.
So there you go. That's how I see things changing (or not as the case may be) over the next few years. I'll put my crystal ball away now, and wait to see how much (or how little) actually comes to pass.
Happy travelling.
I'm also not thinking about commuting during the rush hour, which is something I've done all my life to a greater or lesser degree, in a number of countries, and it's hell on earth wherever you do it. The nearest I've ever come to an enjoyable commute was in Switzerland, where I've done it for several months on and off, in both the Zurich and Geneva areas. At least Swiss Railways are clean and (generally) run on time, and don't suffer as often from the overcrowding so common elsewhere - but they can be crowded too, with standing room only. Just not every day.
No, when I say I enjoy a good train ride I'm thinking about the longer distance, non peak hour trips that I've taken before and would like to take again. I've blogged on the subject before, a couple of years ago (see Let the Train take the Strain), so this is really a return to familiar territory. Being able to relax in a comfortable seat, in a warm compartment, gazing out of the window at a new and expanding landscape, is one of the more pleasurable experiences I can think of. And in many countries it doesn't cost the Earth. I think I have the American travel writer Paul Theroux to thank for that: he's written a number of excellent books about his railway travels around the world, and his descriptions of smoky old boat trains, spittoons in overcrowded and claustrophobic compartments on trains in China and India, and luxurious sleeping compartments on the Trans-Siberian Express captured my imagination and made me want to experience stuff like that as well. So whenever I get the chance I buy a ticket and off I go.
I just don't do it enough. Of course, this is partly due to sheer economics - right now my budget hardly stretches to a ten zloty all-day Metro ticket here, never mind an away-day to Krakow or somewhere. But it's also been (in the recent past) due to the projects I was assigned to. Typically, my hotel - or if I was lucky, apartment - has been within walking distance of the client office, so there has been no possibility or for that matter requirement to hop on a train. There was the odd exception - Geneva and Zurich being the main ones (written about in more detail in the post I mentioned earlier), a couple of weeks in the States where I did a reverse commute from Grand Central Station in New York to the university town of New Brunswick, across the river in New Jersey, and a week in Germany where I couldn't get accommodation in Frankfurt because my trip clashed with the Book Fair (great planning that, by the client) so had to stay in Mainz and spend two and half hours each day commuting on the Bundesbahn - and very nice it was too. In my work travelling days about the only long distance train ride of note was from London to Warsaw via Brussels and Berlin when that Icelandic volcano caused travel chaos in May 2010 - again, see Let the Train take the Strain.
When I first moved here, about the only train journey possible that passed outside the country's borders was one to (predictably enough) Moscow. On one of my early projects in Warsaw we had a group of Russian techies who used to catch the service every third week to go home for a long weekend, half of which was actually spent on the train (armed of course with cases of fortifying vodka) - but it was half the cost of a flight (of which there was only one a day anyway) so for them it was fine and good value. Now the choice is much wider. I passed through the main station here a week or so ago, and in one hour at lunch time there were services to Vienna via Prague and Bratislava, Berlin, Amsterdam (via Berlin) and Moscow. At other times there are services to Brussels, Paris, Zurich, and Budapest, amongst other destinations. They don't run every day, of course, but still - there are some rides I'd love to take there. They may take a day or more to complete, but I would enjoy them thoroughly I know.
There are other trips I would like to take as well, given the opportunity. I saw an article in the Independent newspaper website last week describing one that runs from Seattle across the Canadian border and through Vancouver to Whistler in the Canadian Rockies, that for the first half (to Vancouver) runs along the Pacific shore with the mountains to the right, then from Vancouver climbs through the mountains themselves. The carriages are all specially designed observation cars with glass roofs, and the thing only travels at about 40mph so there's ample time to enjoy what must be some of the most beautiful and spectacular views to be found anywhere. That one tickles my fancy. Then there's an Australian service that crosses the entire continent from Sydney to Perth, and includes the longest straight stretch of track on Earth, over 200 miles through the desert wastes of the Nullabor Plain. Oh yes. I wouldn't mind the London to Fort William and Penzance services back home, and there are decent runs through France (from Paris to Marseilles) and Spain (Madrid to Malaga) that look quite scenic, on the latest high speed trains. Two problems with all of them - one, money (or the lack of it), and two, I don't think Ania and kids would join me. I'd still love to do them though - so if anyone wants to sponsor me and commission a book or something about the trips then by all means get in touch (and I'm serious about that.......).
But this article is supposed to be about the future of rail travel (I'll get to the roads in a mo, I haven't forgotten). Let's split it a little - and say the future of rail travel inside the UK and without - because I'm sure they are two very different animals.
Inside the UK, there has been some progress, some modernization, in the years I've been away (that's 11 years and counting). But the progress seems to be glacial in its pace. When I left, there was a mish-mash of different franchises providing services across the country, some good, some not so good, but all ludicrously expensive and all seemingly losing money. Commuter routes in and out of London (and I'll focus a bit on them since I have the most experience in them) were more overcrowded than ever before and criminally expensive. There were passenger protest groups all over the place, lobbying Parliament for service improvements and cost cutting and getting precisely nowhere (like many of the trains, in fact). There were plans under discussion to improve and electrify both the West and East Coast main lines to improve and speed up the services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond. There was discussion going on about a service that would cross London from West to East to improve trans-City commutes, and link west London quickly and easily with high speed trains to the Kent and Essex ports and the Channel Tunnel. All lines and signals were in any case to be modernized and improved, and rolling stock updated with new safer trains. The high speed line to the Channel Tunnel terminus near Folkestone was still under construction, and a lively debate was going on about whether the London terminus for it should be at Waterloo (which made sense, since it was already there and south of the Thames - as is Folkestone and the English Channel) or at a newly rebuilt St.Pancras in north London. The costs involved were astronomical and featured many zeros - which is why all this discussion and argument was going on: the Labour government wanted to be prudent in its spending and save as much as possible, whilst the Tory opposition roundly condemned them for not going ahead with the plans and creating jobs and tax revenues and so on and so forth - the usual bollocks.
Fast forward to 2013.
Now, there is a mish-mash of train operators, some good, some not so good, and most of them losing money. I caught a train from Luton Airport into St.Pancras, and there were I think 4 different franchises operating that route alone - madness! It didn't make purchasing my ticket in advance on-line very easy - in fact, I couldn't find one that combined all of the possible operators plus London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway in a single fare, so in the end I gave up and shelled out thirty four quid for a full price One Day Travelcard when I landed. I can remember paying a similar price 20 years ago for a one week season ticket from Kent to London, also covering the Tube and DLR.....prices have clearly rocketed in my absence. I'm still trying to justify how London Underground have a cheapest single fare of four and a half quid, and that covering only one Zone - in other words if you went from say Notting Hill Gate to Whitechapel (at opposite ends of the Central Line in Zone 1, the fare would be the same as if you traveled from St.Paul's to Bank, on the same line and perhaps 300 yards apart. Makes no sense to me. In contrast, the Warsaw Metro offers a one day travel card costing about 15 zlotys - that's about three quid - for which you get unlimited journeys on the entire metro, tram and bus network (which is huge) within a 24 hour period. Which is better value?
So it seems to me that in the future, the railways in the UK have somehow got to find a way of reducing fares and offering much better value for money to attract more customers (I'm talking off-peak here, since rush hour volumes are still astronomical). The rail operators, I'm sure, will say this needs more government subsidy, and the government will I'm equally sure say you can't have it - so you have an impasse that I can't see being broken in my lifetime. Incidentally, the Warsaw transport system is not supported by central government but by the city administration, similar to the US model and elsewhere. Is that not one area where the London administration under good ole Boris might be able to help (yes, I know they already do, but given the amount of money London takes in direct and indirect taxation from its residents and visitors, I would suggest more could be done....)?
Beyond the ludicrous number of operators out there, and scandalous fares, the trains I caught at least ran more or less on time, and were newer and a bit more comfortable than those I remember. they still pale in comparison with those operated in places like Switzerland, Spain, even the USA and here in Poland, but clearly there has been an improvement. There are more high speed services, and the rail link for the Channel Tunnel is finally open so that trains don't get held up behind slow local services. The terminal was indeed moved to St.Pancras, and very nice it is too - although the security screening (identical to airport security) seem to me decidedly over the top. St.Pancras also operates high speed services through Stratford and under the Thames to the North Kent coast and Dover, which came as a pleasant surprise, with a journey time to Ebbsfleet (close to where my kids live) of only a quarter of an hour: (the usual suburban routes still take 50 minutes or more) and for a reasonable price too.
The East and West Coast mainlines are still being worked on, and the West Coast line (nicknamed HS2) seems particularly contentious as costs have escalated and people are now questioning the business rationale for it - so expect the government to develop a severe case of Cold Feet and cancel the project some time soon. The arguments seems to be getting more heated and muddied and hardly a day goes by without another article in the Guardian or the Independent newspapers on the subject (though without adding anything to or taking anything away from the argument).
And this is typical of the British way. I remember clearly back in the 80s and early 90s when the Channel Tunnel was being built. Before the thing opened, the French had decided on the route for and built the high speed rail-link to and from Paris. I assume there were protests from French towns and villages that were likely to be affected by it, but I don't remember too many press reports on that - mainly because of the rage and fury that the people of Kent were pouring on successive governments over our side of the route. There were protest marches in my home town, Edenbridge, which is a good 30 miles from any proposed route (my mum was a regular attendee). The route was chopped and changed with depressing regularity as civil servants and ministers tried to keep everyone happy, while scratching their heads about why places like New Barn and Istead Rise were screaming blue murder without appearing in any plans. The answer to that one is a classic, told to me in a meeting with my MP at the House of Commons: it seems the original planning had been done by some civil servants at Transport getting a map and drawing a line on it from Folkestone to London, avoiding major towns like Maidstone, Tonbridge and so on. Unfortunately the map used was over 20 years old, so their proposal carved right through the middle of New Barn and Istead Rise, villages that hadn't even existed when the map was drawn. So the route had to be changed yet again.....and so it went on. So when the Tunnel finally opened (late and over budget, of course), the brand spanking new trains were able to thrash along at 300kph in France, then come out of the Tunnel in Kent - and join the queue of slow moving commuter trains lumbering slowly through the countryside. It took years before the British side was done.
So the future of rail travel in the UK is not very bright I'm afraid - expect more delays and crumbling infrastructure and mega price rises and overcrowding, until the whole British mentality changes and starts embracing the change that is clearly required, and an acceptance that money will need to spent to realise it.
Meanwhile, the French will continue to expand their high speed network - it's now possible to have breakfast in Paris, hop on a TGV to Marseille for a freshly caught fish lunch on the Mediterranean coast, and be back in Paris, again via TGV, in time for dinner. And at a reasonable price. The Spanish too have an impressive high speed network linking the Madrid heartland to the likes of Barcelona, and Valencia and Malaga, far to the south, in comfort without spending hours queueing at airports. Italian services are improving, the Swiss and Germans continue to set the benchmark for comfort and efficiency, with the Dutch not too far behind. And of course, all of them are interconnected, and route through to the rest of Europe where the services may not be as fast but at least you can catch a train in Amsterdam and wend your merry way through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Denmark, to end up in Poland or Russia or the Czech Republic, amongst other places. Polish railways are improving - I mentioned earlier the increased variety of destinations on offer earlier in this piece - with investment in new rolling stock (for both local and intercity services) and signalling and track infrastructure. The work is still going on, so journey times can still be quite long, but at least the new trains are airy and comfortable, and on the intercity services (at least on the longer routes) offer dining cars, bike racks, and even carriages dedicated to families with children that offer play areas and tables. Certainly within Europe, it seems to me, these interlinked railways provide a decent alternative for those of the travelling public who are happy to spend a little more time getting to their destination and are sick and tired of the increasingly intrusive security screening process and overcrowded airports with their expensive bars and restaurants and persistent flight delays. In my last post, about the future of air travel, I suggested this situation was likely to continue for the foreseeable future: that said, we can expect continued growth and improvement to railway travel, provided there is sufficient investment made by countries in the upkeep and improvement of the necessary infrastructure. This is likely across mainland Europe, where the railways still seem to be recognised as an integral part of any sensible transport solution - but less so in the UK.
Further afield, the Chinese are making massive investment in rail travel (as they are with road building, air travel and all kinds of other infrastructure projects) as a result of their drive for economic supremacy. Thousands of miles of new track have been laid and opened over the last few years, and thousands more are planned. New technology is also being developed and trialed, including high speed trains that are faster than anything currently operating, as well as mag-lev technology: I commend you once again to the excellent BBC Future section on the News website for more detail and information. Indeed, the Far East continues to invest in new technology (as they have done in the IT and telecommunications sectors where their products have far outstripped the leading western alternatives - think of Samsung mobile phones and a whole slew of laptops and tablets that are as good as - and crucially cheaper than - anything HP or IBM or Apple are producing). The Bullet trains have been running trouble free for years in Japan. The Indian network is expanding as does its economy, much needed as people migrate from the vast countryside to its major cities of Delhi and Chennai and Pune and the rest. As more people in the region want to travel, and more tourists are prepared to make the long haul flights to sample the new holiday destinations being opened up (a trend likely to continues, as these vacations offer great value for money against the dollar and euro and sterling) this rail expansion seems set to continue. Clearly, it's a good time to be a railway buff.
So what of road travel?
Again, there seems to be a situation where the UK lags behind the rest of Europe certainly, and arguably the rest of the world - and for exactly the same reasons. When the Conservative government in the 1980s started making announcements about new motorways and rail routes, across the country protest groups sprang up to oppose them, purely on the basis that, no matter how important the developments were no-body wanted them near to their homes. A whole new sub-class of citizens was created to rival the Yuppies - the Nimbys: it's an acronym of Not In My Back Yard. To this day, nimbys survive and flourish, even though yuppies and yippies and so on have been consigned as footnotes to history. The nimby delayed the Channel Tunnel rail link and the CrossRail project (because not only do they not want the new railway to run within about 20 miles of their front doors, they most certainly don't want to pay for it). The nimby has now turned his ire on the HS2 project I mentioned above, and seems to be having a similar level of success. Airport expansion delays? Nimby driven. Against wind farms (noisy and unsightly and inefficient, despite evidence to the contrary)? Nimby driven. Against fracking (the current environmental campaign in the UK, aimed at preventing exploratory wells being drilled to get at previously unreachable oil reserves)? Nimby driven (with the ecologist lobby). It seems to me that until the nimby culture is broken or expires of old age (and a good dose of common sense) there is little chance of much in the way of new road building anywhere in the UK - and judging by the horrendous traffic volumes on the roads that exist now something needs to be done. The obvious answer is to try and move as much freight and human traffic onto the railways......oh, sorry forgot: can't do that, the nimbys won't like and besides it's all way too expensive. So be prepared to spend more and more time stuck in interminable traffic jams.
Again, my best contrast is what I see every day in Warsaw and Poland, where a massive amount of road building is going on. There is a clear co-ordinated transport policy here, and as well as the rail improvements I mentioned above, the road improvements complement it. Highways are springing up all over the country, most of them toll roads - but I'm happy to pay PLN15 (say three pounds) to lop a good 2 hours off the drive to the coast, and travel on a new and uncrowded motorway. Around Warsaw, there is a new network of ring roads under construction to link these new highways, so that the TIR freight trucks carrying goods to and from Western Europe to Russia and Ukraine and elsewhere no longer have to pass through (and block up totally) the city centre. Perhaps in 10 years time this network will be as crowded and unpleasant as the M25 is today - but I hope not.
India and China, in particular, are improving and expanding their road networks to handle greater freight requirements, and again there seems to be some integration with rail improvements. The same is true elsewhere, as African countries drag themselves, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the modern world. South America too.
All of this is good and necessary. But probably more important are improvements and developments to the vehicles themselves. Some of this is environmental, as the oil runs out and we become more aware of the effects of fossil fuels on the environment and climate forces manufacturers to develop alternative power sources for cars and other vehicles. Hybrids (half petrol and half electric) have been around for a while led by the Toyota Prius, and there are now some half decent all-electric vehicles around, again led by Japanese manufacturers. Expect this to continue over the next few years, as more and more charging points spring up and battery ranges (and sizes and weights) improve to make them a more cost effective alternative.
Other developments are safety driven. Many top end cars now come with a variety of sensors that automatically brake if you're too close to the car in front, or straying into the wrong lane or too close to the side of the road. Most cars have sat-nav fitted as standard (or as a low cost option). All have air bags and seat belts and strengthened bodywork and crumple zones to protect driver and passenger. There are reasonably priced cars (again mostly from Asian manufacturers) that have hands-free parking - can't wait to get one of those, parallel parking has never been my strong point! There are even a few experimental cars that do the lot: you get in, start the engine, give your destination and let the car take over: it can plan the best route using sat-nav (and take into account road work delays and so on), then drive you there with the speed controlled to give optimum fuel consumption and all the safety sensors making sure you get there in one piece. Even 10 years ago, this was the stuff of science fiction. In 10 years time it will be the norm in cars, and in 15 likewise in bigger vehicles like buses and trucks. Travelling may start to become fun again then - provided the road development keeps pace with the vehicle development.
So there you go. That's how I see things changing (or not as the case may be) over the next few years. I'll put my crystal ball away now, and wait to see how much (or how little) actually comes to pass.
Happy travelling.
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