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Rail subsidies are highly regressive. The rail network primarily connects cities to cities via relatively affluent suburbs. If you live on a council estate and

Rail subsidies are highly regressive. The rail network primarily connects cities to cities via relatively affluent suburbs. If you live on a council estate and work in a factory, it's highly unlikely that you have the option of commuting by rail. Very few workers with below-average incomes have the need to travel from Manchester to London for a meeting. Rail travel is inherently more expensive than other modes and always will be, due to the massive infrastructure cost. It's not even lower-carbon than bus travel in the vast majority of cases. Why should taxpayers subsidise a mode of travel that is inherently used primarily by the wealthy?

ip26 8y ago
Rail might not be the mode of choice for day laborers. But on a trip around Europe, via probably twenty different trains, I didn't see a single monacle, glass of fine alcohol, or even a suit. Trains were full of very ordinary people, including children and students... The clientele felt very similar to cattle-class air travel.
- GordonS 8y ago
  > I didn't see a single monacle Thanks, I just spat coffee up a wall!
7952 8y ago
At least in London rail let's people avoid higher house prices by having a longer commute. But that expands the commuter belt, and raises prices for everyone else. It would be better if people could live closer to work. I think they should use subsidy to make shorter local journeys free or very cheap. Include bus travel also. Ramp up the prices on longer journeys. They could also help out regional airlines to take strain of the rail network.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Generally we all agree that flying when you could use the train is a very bad thing.
  - 7952 8y ago
    A new generation of electric planes could change that. And a lot of the cross country fleet is diesel anyway and produces CO2 and other emissions.
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Sure, let me know how that works out.
pas 8y ago
> Why should taxpayers subsidise a mode of travel that is inherently used primarily by the wealthy? Well, the same goes for roads. Some people don't even have a car, and wealthy people move around a lot more in cars. But it turns out wealthy people do a lot more of a lot of things, especially move around, because they have money to do so. And were travel cheaper probably more people would do so. So, taxpayers basically pay for the ability to have a network that allows them to travel a bit. In some countries low income folks get cheaper tickets. Also high income folk pay a lot more taxes. All in all, it'd be great to merge the high speed rail and ordinary road bus networks, and just maintain and subsidize that one, and have more socially fair pricing.
- vixen99 8y ago
  The same doesn't go for roads. I might not have a car but my life would be severely impacted if local providers of goods and services including public ones, can't use roads.
  - mcv 8y ago
    Roads that would be clogged with more passenger traffic if there was no mass transit available. Better train infrastructure isn't just good for people who take the train, it's also good for road traffic.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Many of those affluent suburbs became wealthy because of the station and rail link to London. The less-affluent suburbs are often those Mr Beeching ripped connection from, by removing most of the branch line network. In the rest of the country, I've never felt surrounded by wealth on trains. Mostly it just seemed like the same mix of regular people you'd see anywhere.
atoav 8y ago
In Austria many people commute to Vienna via train, which as a nice side effect reduces the number of cars in the city. As an Austrian in Germany who used trains regularily to go back and forth I can assure you that it is not rare to see workers in full clothes with toolboxes and stuff in trains. Most regular people look like office workers, families and you will always spot a few upper class managment people. The mixture depends entirely on your timing. If you use the train only during the holidays or weekends, you might get a very distorted image of who uses these trains on a day to day basis. But trains as a mode of transportation for the wealthy? Might be that way in the UK (I wasn’there a lot), but certainly not in the other parts of Europe. In Germany and Austria you will see a mix of people that sort of represents the society as a whole (in terms of wealth.
adrianN 8y ago
Because the alternative to rail is cars. Cars don't scale to the level needed in cities. They also pollute a lot and kill a lot of people in accidents. Everybody benefits from fewer cars on the road.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  >Because the alternative to rail is cars. // Going by air is an alternative to rail for some journeys [eg within UK] too. Edinburgh-London for example.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Airports in city centers are pretty problematic and I don't think that they can handle the number of commuters that a railway can.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      I wasn't contemplating it as an en masse replacement: from a traveller's perspective I consider flying for journeys where rail is an option (because cars are cheaper usually for short-medium, and walking/buses for short journeys). You're right re city centers, perhaps I gave a bad example - in UK for longer journeys I like the train but flying is superior (for my use-case) usually - cheaper, faster.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    There are about 2600 seats on 29 planes from Edinburgh to London's 3 airports on Monday -- average of say 100 seats a plane. There's about 12,600 train seats How do you propose to fit in another 145 flights a day between the two cities?
pjc50 8y ago
Rail is high-volume, far more so than achievable by bus, and the modal users are the middle class and commuters. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/491531/rail-users-factsheet-2015.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Really this is a "yes and" situation. We should also have decent low-cost buses, which in the UK are only available in London, Edinburgh and a few other places.
isostatic 8y ago
> Very few workers with below-average incomes have the need to travel from Manchester to London for a meeting Manchester to London doesn't receive subsidies, it makes a lot of money which is plumbed back into (for example) the south wales valleys lines South West Rail for all those affulent bankers going into London also makes a profit that's reinvested in say services in Cornwall > Rail travel is inherently more expensive than other modes and always will be, due to the massive infrastructure cost. That's not nescersarilly true, I suspect you aren't accounting for externalities like polution, the military cost of oil, etc.

ip26 8y ago

Rail might not be the mode of choice for day laborers. But on a trip around Europe, via probably twenty different trains, I didn't see a single monacle, glass of fine alcohol, or even a suit. Trains were full of very ordinary people, including children and students... The clientele felt very similar to cattle-class air travel.

GordonS 8y ago
> I didn't see a single monacle Thanks, I just spat coffee up a wall!

7952 8y ago

At least in London rail let's people avoid higher house prices by having a longer commute. But that expands the commuter belt, and raises prices for everyone else. It would be better if people could live closer to work. I think they should use subsidy to make shorter local journeys free or very cheap. Include bus travel also. Ramp up the prices on longer journeys. They could also help out regional airlines to take strain of the rail network.

isostatic 8y ago
Generally we all agree that flying when you could use the train is a very bad thing.
- 7952 8y ago
  A new generation of electric planes could change that. And a lot of the cross country fleet is diesel anyway and produces CO2 and other emissions.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Sure, let me know how that works out.

pas 8y ago

> Why should taxpayers subsidise a mode of travel that is inherently used primarily by the wealthy? Well, the same goes for roads. Some people don't even have a car, and wealthy people move around a lot more in cars. But it turns out wealthy people do a lot more of a lot of things, especially move around, because they have money to do so. And were travel cheaper probably more people would do so. So, taxpayers basically pay for the ability to have a network that allows them to travel a bit. In some countries low income folks get cheaper tickets. Also high income folk pay a lot more taxes. All in all, it'd be great to merge the high speed rail and ordinary road bus networks, and just maintain and subsidize that one, and have more socially fair pricing.

vixen99 8y ago
The same doesn't go for roads. I might not have a car but my life would be severely impacted if local providers of goods and services including public ones, can't use roads.
- mcv 8y ago
  Roads that would be clogged with more passenger traffic if there was no mass transit available. Better train infrastructure isn't just good for people who take the train, it's also good for road traffic.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Many of those affluent suburbs became wealthy because of the station and rail link to London. The less-affluent suburbs are often those Mr Beeching ripped connection from, by removing most of the branch line network. In the rest of the country, I've never felt surrounded by wealth on trains. Mostly it just seemed like the same mix of regular people you'd see anywhere.

atoav 8y ago

In Austria many people commute to Vienna via train, which as a nice side effect reduces the number of cars in the city. As an Austrian in Germany who used trains regularily to go back and forth I can assure you that it is not rare to see workers in full clothes with toolboxes and stuff in trains. Most regular people look like office workers, families and you will always spot a few upper class managment people. The mixture depends entirely on your timing. If you use the train only during the holidays or weekends, you might get a very distorted image of who uses these trains on a day to day basis. But trains as a mode of transportation for the wealthy? Might be that way in the UK (I wasn’there a lot), but certainly not in the other parts of Europe. In Germany and Austria you will see a mix of people that sort of represents the society as a whole (in terms of wealth.

adrianN 8y ago

Because the alternative to rail is cars. Cars don't scale to the level needed in cities. They also pollute a lot and kill a lot of people in accidents. Everybody benefits from fewer cars on the road.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>Because the alternative to rail is cars. // Going by air is an alternative to rail for some journeys [eg within UK] too. Edinburgh-London for example.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Airports in city centers are pretty problematic and I don't think that they can handle the number of commuters that a railway can.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    I wasn't contemplating it as an en masse replacement: from a traveller's perspective I consider flying for journeys where rail is an option (because cars are cheaper usually for short-medium, and walking/buses for short journeys). You're right re city centers, perhaps I gave a bad example - in UK for longer journeys I like the train but flying is superior (for my use-case) usually - cheaper, faster.
- isostatic 8y ago
  There are about 2600 seats on 29 planes from Edinburgh to London's 3 airports on Monday -- average of say 100 seats a plane. There's about 12,600 train seats How do you propose to fit in another 145 flights a day between the two cities?

pjc50 8y ago

Rail is high-volume, far more so than achievable by bus, and the modal users are the middle class and commuters. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/491531/rail-users-factsheet-2015.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Really this is a "yes and" situation. We should also have decent low-cost buses, which in the UK are only available in London, Edinburgh and a few other places.

isostatic 8y ago

> Very few workers with below-average incomes have the need to travel from Manchester to London for a meeting Manchester to London doesn't receive subsidies, it makes a lot of money which is plumbed back into (for example) the south wales valleys lines South West Rail for all those affulent bankers going into London also makes a profit that's reinvested in say services in Cornwall > Rail travel is inherently more expensive than other modes and always will be, due to the massive infrastructure cost. That's not nescersarilly true, I suspect you aren't accounting for externalities like polution, the military cost of oil, etc.