Railway Magazine 1427 - February 2020 Back Issue

The new year has begun much as the old one
ended, with HS2 again hitting the headlines
and becoming a hot topic in the press and on
social media.
A decision on the Oakervee report over the
project’s future is imminent, and debate over
whether HS2 should be built or not has been
re-ignited following Lord Berkeley’s critical report.
The Government is aiming to remove diesel
trains from the network by 2040, but is being
pressed to achieve that transition earlier.
Whether it is road, rail or air, Government
policies on emissions are somewhat disjointed,
particularly in the light of cancelling electrification
schemes, which although costly, would have a far
greater future benefit as well as a long-term impact
on emission reductions.
Neither is the playing field level when it comes to
motoring. Successive Chancellors of the Exchequer
have frozen fuel duty and not passed on inflationary
rises since 2013, yet rail passengers have endured a
fare rise of almost 20% in the same period. Fair?
There are too many domestic flights in the
UK, the majority duplicating rail journeys of fewer
than 300 miles – Leeds, Manchester or Newcastle
to Southampton; Edinburgh to Manchester;
Birmingham to Glasgow and Inverness to
Birmingham are a few examples of where modal shift
can reap benefits.
Neither does it help when the cost of a flight
is often less than half the rail fare. It’s simply not
right and does not encourage travellers to make a
green choice. It just shows how skewed focus on the
environment has become.
In Europe, there are an increasing number of
passengers taking trains between cities rather that
flying, so why can’t that happen here, too?
It can, but it needs to be led from the front by
the Government, with train operators and the public
supporting the switch.