United kingdom passenger service

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of the financial condition of British passenger service???? I know that their system is nationalized,but is it strapped as bad as Amtrac. I believe more people travel by rail in the U.K & europe because of the cost of fuel,but is their system profitable???? Thank you. Easter

[Anonymous]

I don't think British passenger railway service is profitable. Almost no transport of humans by train is, and only rarely in the past has been, profitable. Nations simply must have the will to provide good rail service. The alternative is stagnation on highways and in airports, and building more miles of, and adding more lanes to, the former just begets more auto use. Attendant to that are greater pollution, dependence on OPEC, and drilling in pristine wilderness areas.

[cnw4001]

I''ll defer to our UK members for more detailed information but from what I've read the government assures a certain level of profitibility to each private operator. Thus the private operators can make money running trains but they are also assured subsidy if the loose. Additionally the government maintains the tracks, signals, rights of way.

Lots of words to say no.

[Anonymous]

Craigorganist ist right, I must say. Passenger rail systems simply canot be profitabe. But dismissing them alltogether meant permanent stand-still on highways.

But European rail passenger networks cannot simply be compared with the U.S.
In Germany, for instance, DB operates a sophisticated system of InterCityExpress lines(up to 190 mph) which is added by slightly slower normal InterCity trains(125 mph) providing hourly connections between the bigger and many not so big towns. Not to be forgotten the commuter trains and slower long-distance trains, including international night trains. (And we didn´t talk about freight trains yet).

On shorter distances, roughly between 100 and even 500 miles taking the train instead of a plane is more economical, the slower train making time by avoiding time needed boarding a plane and the way to and from the airport, stations mostly being in the heart of a town and easily to be reached.
A big German station like, say, Frankfurt am Main in central Germany, deals with more than 1100 trains a day, including ICE and commuter trains as well...Munich is fairly the same, as well as Cologne, which is the hotspot of our German rail system in many respects.

[daveklepper]

Great Britain has a semi-private government funded organization providing the tracks and roadbed and other facilities, sort of like a tole highway and requiring some level of subsidization, and then private operators bid to run both freight and passenger services on them paying the infrastructure organization fees. There is also overall government control to insure public interest is not sacrificed and also to subsidize social services like commuter operations, some of the latter handled by regional authorities.

As an example of the complexity, the overnight London - Gloucester and London - Edenburg (and points north) sleeper services are subsidized by an act of the Scottish Parliament and the subsidy comes from the Scottish budget. But the services themselves are operated by the private companies on the government-owned rights-of-way.

[Anonymous]

You might want to take a look at the "British Railway Operations" thread over on the Trains magazine forum - there's been some discussion of the profitability of the system.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to all for the input. It is true that you don't make money transporting people. The airlines can't do that either.I quess is someone can figure out how to get people from point A to B in the fastest way with the least conjestion they will become multi millionaires. Hey! beam me up Scotty. Thanks, Easter

[nickinwestwales]

Hi Easter,-no short answer to this one I`m afraid-traditional wisdom is that only the former Southern Railway ever made any serious money out of passenger traffic as a large part of the network served densely populated London commuter territory and went over to 3rd rail electric operation fairly early on.
However,since the de-regulation and franchising shambles of the `90`s it`s anybodys guess.
On paper, the Eurostar service should make money but I suspect that the cost of the chunnel will swallow that up until we are all pushing up the daisies.
Further than this,I would second Matt`s advice r.e. the trains forum.
Hope this helps,nick
P.S-I suspect DAVEKLEPPER may be confusing Gloucester with Glasgow [swg]

[daveklepper]

Pardon my dislexia

[More to restore]

Bigboy is right,
European rail companies are not fully profitable, but the consequence of stopping national subsidies to them would be major traffic jams. Honestly, I do not care that a small portion of my tax is used for keeping the national rail system. I feel that it is a good cause, compared to some of the governments other expenses.
I live in a very small country with a very dense railway-system and the most intense rail traffic. It suits me to use the train to go to the city centre and not having to pay major parking fees, or to use the intercity and arrive in a city 100-200 km away at 8:30 am without the traffic jams. Most of the rails are electrified and 80% of the services are passenger trains, the rest is freight (predominantly containers, hoppers and tank cars).
Personally, I think North-American trains are more attractive to look at. What can compare to a F3 diesel with a colourful paint scheme? Certainly not the yellow-blue passenger trains over here.
I have limited rail experience in the UK; a dozen times or so. Half the cases the trip was excellent timed and pleasant. But I also remember having to wait for 2 hours on a second train at the small town of Nuneaton in the falling rain, under a leaking roof. Nowadays, they have British Rail and some private companies, like Virgin. A friend of mine regularly used Virgin from Chester to London (I believe) and he told me that it was bloody expensive. But our British contributors can probably tell much more about that.