Hi Everybody.
To take the debate one stage further, there will always have to be in any advanced country going forward both rail and road transport. As I have said before on these forums I spent many years of my working life as a heavy goods vehicle driver before going on to become a health and safety officer in the same industry visiting various depots and Regional Distribution Centers all over England.
It was in the latter capacity that I started traveling whenever I could by rail. Now having extensive experience in both forms of travel I have become convinced of two things. Rail transport is the finest form of travel for human beings, whereas road transport is the best form of travel for freight.
Don't get me wrong railways have a growing role in freight transportation. However, it has to be faced that in many capacities it will never replace and cannot replace the hated heavy goods vehicle. As an example at a Regional Distribution Center I recently visited they received each night 18 trunk vehicles (vehicles that run from central warehousing to the Regional Distribution Center). Anyone can easily imagine that if you hitch all these vehicle together and put them on a railway you would have complete train.
Of course unless a railway it was laid directly into the central warehousing complex it would mean transporting the goods in containers to the nearest railhead, offloading, re-loading it onto the train, offloading it at the terminal railhead and transporting the containers to the Regional Distribution Center. The foregoing can be without doubt a time-consuming operation, but it can be done and is slowly being done.
However, the second part of the Regional Distribution Centers operation is to transport the products to large edge of town or town center retail stores. This part of the operation could never be done by rail as I do not think anyone can see a time when railways will run directly to Tesco or Marks & Spencer retail outlets. Therefore roads will always have to be maintained to such a standard that they can handle short journeys for both cars engaged in local journeys to retail outlets and the heavy vehicles that will supply them.
Where railways have an undoubted advantage over road transport is when it comes to moving large numbers of people over long and medium distances. From where I live in Somerset to the nearest big city (Bristol) is approximately 18 miles. Thousands of people throughout Somerset have to make this journey every working day. This creates huge traffic jams on the roads leading into Bristol and great frustration for the commuters stuck in their cars. The situation is the same in and around all big cities throughout Britain, but it can be changed with a reasonable level of investment.
As in Somerset all that is needed is investment in better rolling stock (more carriages on Trains) and more frequent services on lines. Train passengers unlike freight can look after themselves. A short drive to the nearest rail station is no hardship unlike the long car commute that these people often take. It has already been proven time and time again that each time you increase the frequency or coaches on the Trains the passenger numbers increase rapidly take up the new capacity.
Therefore I feel without any doubt, that despite the current financial situation in the country to continue investment in railways and especially the passenger transport aspect would have the benefit of relieving the roads of congestion therefore making it easier and cheaper for freight which has to go by road to become more efficient. This would be to the benefit of us all in cheaper prices and at the same time make a far better and greener life for many hundreds of thousands of people trapped in their cars for hours each week trying to negotiate the drudgery of the daily working commute.
Bill
