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those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high speed rail link

those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high speed rail link. If that's not subsidizing, what is?

Shivetya 13y ago
usually these projects are pandering to donors and expected donors. There have been numerous reports that many high speed rail lines only serve to allow the very well off to live where they want with access to other places they need. The build out costs are not the same as funding day to day operations. Usually subsidizing implies the fare is lowered because of government spending.
- joosters 13y ago
  Like any big project, I'm sure some of the money is going to well-connected people, and the route is partially influenced by politics. That's not the subsidy bit. The real subsidy is that once the line is complete, the rail franchise will be sold off, allowing a company to run a rail service on the line. This is in effect a subsidy, since it's letting a company run a rail service without having to foot the bill for the construction. Sure, it's a form of rent, but the risks associated with the line construction have been swallowed by government money. Plus, the UK government(s) have an absymal record for selling franchises below their 'true cost' (see the original rail privitisations, where franchises were bought and then sold-on shortly later at vastly inflated prices). Only an eternal optimist could happily assume they'll get it right this time! Finally, consider that these big rail projects are never initiated by private business. Few enterprises willingly stump up the cash to construct a big railway line just so it can run trains on it later. They only do so when government invests the cash. This surely implies that the government-backed schemes must be of benefit to the railway companies => there's the subsidy.
  - tonyedgecombe 13y ago
    Actually I think all the major lines were initiated by private businesses, during the steam era.
    - lmm 13y ago
      Most of them were, but HS1 is major (and it's a new line, not a conversion of an existing one) and government-initiated.
lmm 13y ago
Sure, but the best-guess calculation is that it's going to be worth that £50 billion in terms of economic return for the country (even if not all of that is realized as revenue for the government/train operator). But night trains can't be justified even with that kind of logic, only on some kind of social "it's good for people to be able to travel even if it's not economically reasonable" grounds.
- joosters 13y ago
  Are night trains relevant? No-one builds a railway to run night trains, but once you have the route built for the daytime services, running an extra train at night on an otherwise-empty track must be very low cost business. Some UK train franchises even lay on so-called 'ghost trains' [1], services that are on useless routes and useless timetables, simply so that they can make up the numbers to hit their service agreements (and so not lose their franchises). This strongly implies that the cost of rolling an extra train along the tracks is relatively small. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-hunt-for-britains-ghost-trains-6279103.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-hunt-f...
  - linker3000 13y ago
    The Newhaven Marine ghost service in East Sussex is a fascinating example too: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/other-sites/70397-newhaven-marine-ferry-terminal-station-east-sussex-april-2012-a.html http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/other-sites/70397-newhav...
    - Gravityloss 13y ago
      That is mind boggling.
  - saalweachter 13y ago
    Does the UK have dedicated passenger train tracks? In the US, most train tracks (in my experience, at least) are used for both freight and passengers (and frequently owned by the freight companies, who shaft the passenger trains to keep the freight running on schedule, but that's another rant). The freight trains could easily be crowding out the night passenger trains.
mseebach 13y ago
Yes, I think this is closer to the real problem here: Politicians just loves these big, glamorous infrastructure projects, and anything "train" also tastes green, so that's double the glamour for the same money, and any unintended consequences are, well, unintended, so who can possibly blame them for it? HS2 has already been heavily criticized for overly optimistically assuming away all problems with the line, and it would not surprise me one bit if one of the assumptions in the cost/benefit analysis is that all existing passengers will use the new line at double (or whatever) the cost, and that the older slower line can close.
- d4rti 13y ago
  I believe that the plan is to run both as the current line is over capacity. As an avid UK train user, but not frequently on that route I support high speed rail plans in general. I'd like them to build the phases in the opposite order - first the links in the North, then down to London. A sad fact of the rail privatization, and the rail in general is that governments seem to prefer the large infrastructure projects rather than ongoing subsidy. From an environmental standpoint commuting by train should be much cheaper than by car, but for many places in the UK it is far more expensive.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    What I can't figure out is: If rail is so efficient and road travel so inefficient, why is it that rail travel costs more than road travel, even when the government subsidises rail companies and heavily taxes fuel and parking?
    - mseebach 13y ago
      Rail is environmentally efficient over low occupancy car travel. It's not very economically efficient, in part because the infrastructure is bigger, more expensive and more complicated, in part because politicians force train operators to operate a comprehensive schedule, not just when it's economically viable.
      - 13y ago
growse 13y ago
Worth pointing out that £14.4b of that is earmarked as contingency. Actual 'budget' is more like £35b. And I believe (but would have to check) that includes spending money on new trains, which we're going to do anyway.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  But all of these figures are funny money, and usually subject to variation by at least a factor of 2 if you ask the critics, at least some of whom have valid points to make. The reality is that we don't know what a project like this is really going to cost, economically or otherwise, until we're at least a significant part of the way through implementing it. Whether that actually matters is a different question, because the realistic alternative isn't that nothing will happen instead and taxpayers will suddenly get a £1,000+ windfall, it's that a broadly similar amount of government funding will be used for other purposes. Many of the interesting questions in this debate are qualitative ones about which general areas should be funding priorities and what the overall national infrastructure strategy should be. And many of the interesting questions that are quantitative are about opportunity costs as much as what will/would be spent on one massive project.

those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high speed rail link. If that's not subsidizing, what is?

Shivetya 13y ago

usually these projects are pandering to donors and expected donors. There have been numerous reports that many high speed rail lines only serve to allow the very well off to live where they want with access to other places they need. The build out costs are not the same as funding day to day operations. Usually subsidizing implies the fare is lowered because of government spending.

joosters 13y ago
Like any big project, I'm sure some of the money is going to well-connected people, and the route is partially influenced by politics. That's not the subsidy bit. The real subsidy is that once the line is complete, the rail franchise will be sold off, allowing a company to run a rail service on the line. This is in effect a subsidy, since it's letting a company run a rail service without having to foot the bill for the construction. Sure, it's a form of rent, but the risks associated with the line construction have been swallowed by government money. Plus, the UK government(s) have an absymal record for selling franchises below their 'true cost' (see the original rail privitisations, where franchises were bought and then sold-on shortly later at vastly inflated prices). Only an eternal optimist could happily assume they'll get it right this time! Finally, consider that these big rail projects are never initiated by private business. Few enterprises willingly stump up the cash to construct a big railway line just so it can run trains on it later. They only do so when government invests the cash. This surely implies that the government-backed schemes must be of benefit to the railway companies => there's the subsidy.
- tonyedgecombe 13y ago
  Actually I think all the major lines were initiated by private businesses, during the steam era.
  - lmm 13y ago
    Most of them were, but HS1 is major (and it's a new line, not a conversion of an existing one) and government-initiated.

lmm 13y ago

Sure, but the best-guess calculation is that it's going to be worth that £50 billion in terms of economic return for the country (even if not all of that is realized as revenue for the government/train operator). But night trains can't be justified even with that kind of logic, only on some kind of social "it's good for people to be able to travel even if it's not economically reasonable" grounds.

joosters 13y ago
Are night trains relevant? No-one builds a railway to run night trains, but once you have the route built for the daytime services, running an extra train at night on an otherwise-empty track must be very low cost business. Some UK train franchises even lay on so-called 'ghost trains' [1], services that are on useless routes and useless timetables, simply so that they can make up the numbers to hit their service agreements (and so not lose their franchises). This strongly implies that the cost of rolling an extra train along the tracks is relatively small. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-hunt-for-britains-ghost-trains-6279103.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-hunt-f...
- linker3000 13y ago
  The Newhaven Marine ghost service in East Sussex is a fascinating example too: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/other-sites/70397-newhaven-marine-ferry-terminal-station-east-sussex-april-2012-a.html http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/other-sites/70397-newhav...
  - Gravityloss 13y ago
    That is mind boggling.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  Does the UK have dedicated passenger train tracks? In the US, most train tracks (in my experience, at least) are used for both freight and passengers (and frequently owned by the freight companies, who shaft the passenger trains to keep the freight running on schedule, but that's another rant). The freight trains could easily be crowding out the night passenger trains.

mseebach 13y ago

Yes, I think this is closer to the real problem here: Politicians just loves these big, glamorous infrastructure projects, and anything "train" also tastes green, so that's double the glamour for the same money, and any unintended consequences are, well, unintended, so who can possibly blame them for it? HS2 has already been heavily criticized for overly optimistically assuming away all problems with the line, and it would not surprise me one bit if one of the assumptions in the cost/benefit analysis is that all existing passengers will use the new line at double (or whatever) the cost, and that the older slower line can close.

d4rti 13y ago
I believe that the plan is to run both as the current line is over capacity. As an avid UK train user, but not frequently on that route I support high speed rail plans in general. I'd like them to build the phases in the opposite order - first the links in the North, then down to London. A sad fact of the rail privatization, and the rail in general is that governments seem to prefer the large infrastructure projects rather than ongoing subsidy. From an environmental standpoint commuting by train should be much cheaper than by car, but for many places in the UK it is far more expensive.
- michaelt 13y ago
  What I can't figure out is: If rail is so efficient and road travel so inefficient, why is it that rail travel costs more than road travel, even when the government subsidises rail companies and heavily taxes fuel and parking?
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Rail is environmentally efficient over low occupancy car travel. It's not very economically efficient, in part because the infrastructure is bigger, more expensive and more complicated, in part because politicians force train operators to operate a comprehensive schedule, not just when it's economically viable.
    - 13y ago

growse 13y ago

Worth pointing out that £14.4b of that is earmarked as contingency. Actual 'budget' is more like £35b. And I believe (but would have to check) that includes spending money on new trains, which we're going to do anyway.

Silhouette 13y ago
But all of these figures are funny money, and usually subject to variation by at least a factor of 2 if you ask the critics, at least some of whom have valid points to make. The reality is that we don't know what a project like this is really going to cost, economically or otherwise, until we're at least a significant part of the way through implementing it. Whether that actually matters is a different question, because the realistic alternative isn't that nothing will happen instead and taxpayers will suddenly get a £1,000+ windfall, it's that a broadly similar amount of government funding will be used for other purposes. Many of the interesting questions in this debate are qualitative ones about which general areas should be funding priorities and what the overall national infrastructure strategy should be. And many of the interesting questions that are quantitative are about opportunity costs as much as what will/would be spent on one massive project.