Transport delusions
Ian Waller
The image of British Rail that emerges from the Government's consultative paper on the future of public transport is distinctly unflattering: a tiresome and costly burden on the state, badly managed and grossly overmanned, with unproductive workers, providing passenger services largely patronised by the wealthy and unable to rival the efficiency and economy of the road haulier —none of which wl11 come as a surprise to anyone who knows the power of the road lobby in the higher reaches of the Department of the Environment—a lobby now bolstered inside the TUC by Jack Jones's determination to allow nothing to prejudice the interests of his T&GW lorry drivers.
Indeed, so far as BR is concerned, the paper's sole redeeming feature is that the ambition of the DoE's civil servants to slash the network with another Beeching-type axe has been thwarted. Instead, they have opted for a lingering death by denying BR the capital investment vital to attract traffic and improve productivity.
The course for that is spelt out in immaculate detail: an end to further electrification, less comfortable and slower services, delay in the introduction of the High-Speed Train and the Advanced Passenger Train, capital spending restricted to 'essential renewals to track and signalling' and finally, to what they call 'a selective approach to product improvement'. In other words, no more modernisation.
It marks, in fact, a complete reversal of the 1973 policy of expansion which John Peyton persuaded the Heath Government to accept (for all his instinctive prejudices against a nationalised industry, but on a balanced and rational appraisal of the nation's long-term transport needs) and in face of the evidence that faster, more frequent services generate traffic—as witness the dramatic increase in passengers on the London-Liverpool-Manchester route since it was electrified, and now the most profitable part of the Inter-City network.
It is, of course, freight traffic that is at the heart of the road-rail argument both for BR's viability and on social, economic and environmental grounds. And here the paper's authors are guilty of what can only be called a wilfully misleading use of statistics to bolster their case. 'Alas, a pipedream,' is how they dismiss the argument for shifting freight from road to rail, arguing that even if all freight movements over 100 miles were transferred to rail, total road traffic would be reduced by only 2-4 per cent, with little benefit either to the economy or to the _ environment.
But what is 'total road traffic' ? It is the estimate of everything that moves on the roads, from the milkman's van to the juggernaut, some 2,000 million tons a year, of which 1,200 million travels less than twenty-five miles and to which—with one or two exceptions, such as transporting coal from pit to a nearby power station— there is no sensible alternative to road transport. It is, in fact, a totally meaningless figure of comparison.
The critical area is at the other end of the scale, the 200 million tons of long-distance freight and a shift here of even 25 per cent would dramatically change rail finances and the social and environmental damage done by the heavy lorry. It is the area rail is particularly suited to, and has made considerable advances in recently, with bulk loads of oil, cement, cars, containers etc. Little serious attention is given to how this can be encouraged—stricter licensing controls as on the continent, more intensive development of the freightliner container trains, a determined drive to encourage firms to install private sidings (a paltry £35 million is allocated for this over the next few years), pricing to ensure that heavy lorries meet their proper share of road costs. True, the paper does suggest the latter but in general simply glosses over the fundamental questions.
The case for ending passenger subsidies is based on the notion that doubtless appealed to Anthony Crosland's inverted egalitarianism. That it is the wealthy who use trains most and therefore subsidising is socially regressive. It scarcely needs pages of social survey findings to light on the obvious truth that the poorer travel less (eat, drink, motor or anything else) and because they tend to live near their work use (rapidly disappearing) buses more than trains. But a mere glance at any second-class carriage demonstrates the palpable absurdity of the theory and, in fact, 50 per cent of all rail travel is at concessionary rates, i.e. day or weekend tickets, excursions, OAP and student half fares. The one possible exception is the long-distance commuter who needs to be wealthy to do it but is clearly in for a clobbering by easy stages to 1981 so they can, as the paper graciously aHows, 'make adjustments to their way of life with the minimum of inconvenience' ! How ? Move? Give up work or food ?
Now to the vexed question of productivity and over-manning. No one doubts this exists, although I suspect it is exaggerated and certainly not so simple to solve as the theorists suggest—there is for example a strong case on safety grounds for double manning locomotives on long-distance trains. But are Britain's railwaymen really lowest in the international productivity stakes? On the freight side German railwaymen are appai-ently 34 per cent more industrious—yet with a network 50 per cent larger than BR DB (Deutsche Bundesbahn) employ double the staff and, incidentally, lost a staggering £2,000 million last year.
The real key to productivity lies in the use that is made of staff and equipment—a driver of a thousand ton train is twice as
productive if he is driving a thousand ton rather than a 500 ton freight train. The distinctive characteristic of almost everY industrialised country is that it is govern. ment policy to encourage the maximum use of rail by legal restraints on road use; pricing policy, subsidisation and capita' investment. The very reverse of success British governments and which the attitude of mind reflected in the paper will math compound. The question that needs to be answered is just why BR carries less fre,ight and fewer passengers than any other Euro: pean railway including even Belgium. It! not simply a matter of comparative Cl' ciency. At its best BR offers a service on the inter-city network that far surpasses, f°,r speed, comfort, and frequency, its coon' nental rivals. And the railway uninrls deserve more credit than they often get fo.r co-operating in the massive run-down In staff and in the introduction of nevi technology such as computerised signalling' problems that the newspaper industry are only just beginning to grapple with. The real danger in the philosophy under; lying the paper, apart from the pro-roau bias, is that in order to meet a short-terrn financial crisis, the soaring losses of the Past, two years which are largely the product ca industrial recession and inflation, tile Government will take policy decisions Wit': long-term and disastrous consequences tlla` will run the system down and make ever larger losses certain. The Americans hav,e begun to learn the folly of trying to ce, without railways. It is ironic that we shoal° be about to follow their course.
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