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Ok, I understandOne of the great things about Brexit is that the UK will be free to change anything within the remit of the UK government — but without the drag induced by the overly-bureaucratic EU governmental architecture slowing things down to such an extent that by the time anything gets approved it’s no longer relevant.
And judging by actual need, doing a full reset on Britain’s passenger rail network must rank as one of the top items requiring attention by HM government in the first quarter of 2020.
It’s not only the inconvenience of slow, outdated trains that fail to depart on schedule or show up at all, or the insecurity of Britons left standing on lonely platforms waiting in the darkness for a late train, it’s the lost productivity of late or no-show workers who take the train to work that acts as a drag on UK GDP. Any of those concerns alone represent a serious issue with the British rail system, but in totality suggest that Britain’s rail system is in crisis. Which means that minor adjustments won’t suffice.
And the only important metric in any passenger rail system is customer satisfaction — otherwise, no one will bother riding trains any more.
People will only ride trains if they meet expectations IMHO, and at present, less than 50% of Britain’s train routes meet the following simple but important criteria; Cost, appropriate scheduling and destinations, comfort, and such modern-day necessities as high speed WiFi, snackbar, clean washrooms, and a high degree of personal security while aboard the train and in train stations, and on platforms and other common areas, rank highly with riders.
It’s simply a case of turning the rail system into something that meshes with the needs of riders instead of one designed to meet the profits of rail operators.
In that way, ridership will increase and rail operators will be funded by a combination of riders and government subsidy. No financial losses for rail operators! Lower spending by the government on roads and automobile-related CO2 reduction programmes! All good.
And this plan results in a virtuous cycle. As everyone leaves their cars at home, it will mean less automobile congestion in UK cities, lower CO2 levels in cities, better productivity for employers whose employees take the train to work, less curtailment of wind turbines, job creation to produce reverse-osmosis hydrogen facilities relatively near each rail terminus, job creation to manufacture hydrogen locomotives under license from the German patent-holder, zero rail disruptions due to electrical grid power failures, no more unsightly and tangled mess of wires above UK rail routes and job creation for the (as suggested in this blog post) a UK ‘Army Corps of Engineers’ so that young people can try military life at low risk and still receive a tuition-free college degree after 4-years of service.
One last point: No one would have created the UK rail system as it exists today — it evolved into what it is over many decades. Imagine that there were no railways in the UK until this very day and that tomorrow a brilliant team would assemble to begin planning the new rail system. In no way would that ‘designed from scratch’ rail system look anything like the system that exists today. At all! Not even close.
And let that be our guide! For we now have the opportunity to begin anew following Brexit, to recreate Britain’s rail network so that it works for the people, for UK cities, for UK businesses, for the UK military, and for the government. That’s a rail network everyone can buy into. Toot-toot!
Mark III ALRT trains built by Bombardier Transportation in Montreal, Canada.
In Vancouver, Canada, (if you have plenty of time on your hands) you can ride every Skytrain route and every Seabus route and every bus route for only $10.50 per day using a DayPass.
“A DayPass provides unlimited transit use on all buses, SkyTrain and SeaBus for one day from the start of the first transit service to the end of the service day. You can use it for travel through all zones, and save money over buying single fares when you take multiple trips in the same day.” — Vancouver TRANSLINK
In Britain, those Bombardier ALRT cars would require a streamlined hydrogen powered locomotive to pull them along at up to 150 miles per hour in the wide-open spaces between UK cities — instead of being powered by the Bombardier linear induction motors energized by an electrical current bar/pickup on the trackbed.
Written by John Brian Shannon
John Brian Shannon serves on the Editorial Board at kleef&co. John has contributed to the United Nations Development Program and to corporate blogs. Presently writing about Brexit at: LetterToBritain.com
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