Feb 25 2007
How do we get more train capacity?
Like many of you I would like the train to take more of the strain. Today only 6% of all passenegrs and 6% of all freight goes by rail.
We make life especially difficult for the railway in the UK by trying combine an express railway, a freight railway, a commuter railway and a cross country railway in the same tracks. These types of train have very different timetabling requirements. The very fast trains and the very heavy freight trains greatly increase the strains on the tracks, requiring much more maintenance with the associated downtime. It is very difficult to run high speed trains in the UK because there are many curves and gradients on the UK railway. It is difficult to sustain high speed with gradients and curves, given the lack of grip of steel on steel technology, and given the danger of derailment as the amount of wheel on a steel track when going round a curve is very small, increasing the likelihood of serious damage to the track.
There is a way of increasing the capacity of the commuter railway which could make a great difference. There are many more people who would like to use a good service into the main cities in the mornings, and out in the evenings, if the capacity was available. The present railway is trying to expand capacity modestly by a combination of lengthening platforms to lengthen trains, and improving signals to cut the gaps between the trains on the tracks (reducing the safety margin). At the moment typically only 24 trains an hour can use a given piece of track. These measures will increase that marginally, and will increase the number of passengers on a busy train by the number of extra carriages they can add.
The Paris Metro has grip problems on lines with gradients. They have placed some rubber wheeels
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
If long distance freight were forced onto rail a lot of bumper to bumper lorry driving would disappear. Large left hand drive lorries with massive blind spots down the right hand side wouldn’t be pulling out into the path of traffic.
Does the Road Haulage Associations still have a massive input into Tory roads policy?
To get more passengers the service must improve.
I understand that in the SE you have very ittle choice ut to commute by train; the companies have a captive audience.
Elsewhere, tickets are too expensive to persuade me to use the train as I used to. Reasonable fare prices can only be obtained by booking on line weeks in advance, if the software is working. Buying a ticket and reserving a seat has long since stopped bein a certain way of ensuring a place on a train. Why is first class so well provided with seats but is mostly empty? I have often taken advantage of the small upgrade fee, on train, or defiantly occupied an empty, unreserved first class seat when my reserved seat was ‘unavailable’. Policing of trains is minimal and pretty girls in red coats aren’t effective against belligerent drunks.
If I have a long journey to make nowadays I drive through the night using the motorways for both comfort and safety.
People might interested in this website:
http://www.transport-watch.co.uk/
My personal belief is that trains are well past their sell by date. We are lucky the Victorians didn’t try to maintain the canal network with subsidies as we doing with the train network.
Kit Says:
February 26th, 2007 at 8:34 am
People might interested in this website:
http://www.transport-watch.co.uk/
Very interesting and independent I note. The overall anti train tone of the site leads me to think that they are not as independent as they claim. That aside, I like to see figures for freight movement rather than passenger.
It would probably require improved breaking or crumple zones but if distance between trains could be substantially cut & the while system automated it would be possible to go from 1 long train in half an hour with one driver to a automated se;f powered carriage every 5 minutes. I too do not believe that trains should need drivers - if we can experiment with automated cars, an enormously more complicated proble, we could have a fully automated rail system working 24/7.
Such a system would have substantially increased capacity together with lower costs (driver’s salaries are a major portion of cost) & would be more convenient. I can also see freight handlers sending out containers on a fire & forget basis across the country. Ot could be the start of a transport system that could really compete with road.