Date 09/12/2003
Ref. eye02
Private Eye unpublished
Sir

Railway madness

Following Dr Ching’s Railway piece in No 1094 we comment that even if the government's targets for increasing rail use were achievable the effect on car travel would be imperceptible - perhaps reducing the miles driven by car from 120% of the base value to 118%. Separately from that element of madness in the 10 year “plan”, here are some examples of the waste which railway “investment” is.

The Channel Tunnel cost some £25 billion including the rail links each side of the Tunnel yet the share price values the system at only about £1 billion. The implication is that they may as well have burnt £25 billion sufficient to build the residential accommodation for a city of one quarter of a million people.

Then we have Modernisation at possibly £100 billion including operating subsidy. When that is finished the system will be worthless in the market place implying the waste of 100,000 working men’s lives.

Meanwhile, scarcely anyone uses rail outside London and all London commuters would all have seats at a fraction the cost of rail if they removed the tracks and replaced with a road surface managed to avoid congestion. Replacement express coaches would require a quarter the space of the trains so that the lorries which pour out onto unsuitable streets past the houses of the poor could at last use the rights of way hitherto sterilised by railway tracks.

Is it not time Dr Ching got wise to these facts?

Show All Articles for: Letters