I heard on the radio yesterday that the number of people travelling in and out of the main railway station in Mumbai every day is greater than the numbers using the entire UK rail network. Staggering, and shows how successive governments, beginning with the Beeching cuts, have completely screwed our transport policy.
I agree; we could get more people on trains in the UK if we followed the Indian example. I spend six months in India and travelled on trains not much more empty than this. please log in to view this image International comparisons aren't always sensible. Vin
You're talking about trains and their lack of use in the UK compared to Bombay (unless I'm mistaken). What's that picture got to do with anything? I mean - look at this: Jesus, who'd want that? Can we get back to your original point which raised the issue of usage of trains in Bombay vs England? 21M people live in the Bombay area, there's nowhere like it. Trains are literally the only way you can get around more than a mile or two. So they HAVE to be used, and they are full to a degree that would be impossible in the UK. They aren't a safe form of transport. The roads in India have literally to be seen to be believed, so there is NO alternative. 15,000 people die every year on Indian railways, about 350 in the UK, 300 or so of which are suicides. Our railways are astoundingly safe. We increased the distance between trains after the Paddington crash. So we simply can't fit more trains onto the tracks. What's the solution? Vin
The picture illustrates where our transport priorities have led us since the early 60's. Of course I accept what you say about Mumbai and that we couldn't fit more people on the existing rail network. My point is that we shouldn't have shut down all the branch lines and small stations and concentrated investment almost entirely on the trunk routes, while simultaneously spending trillions on roads, which, as the picture illustrates, will never be enough without a rail alternative. HS2 might help, but it will be too little too late. As an example, the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, running between Bath and Bournemouth, closed in 1966 post-Beeching but thousands of people commuting into Bath from the South bitterly regret its demise on a daily basis. The road network is clogged, but there is NO alternative. As for a solution, in an ideal world the government would continue the reversal of the Beeching closures as has happened in the Scottish Borders, but I'm not holding my breath.
I was watching the very wonderful John Betjeman [again] on a BBC4 archive collection doing a programme about the decline Evercreech Junction, the Clapham Junction of the West. At the end he makes a plea to the British public to rail against [sorry] any possible Beeching's cut to their part of the system. He knew [and said in the programme] back then that, in the long term, rail will come back as a necessary major part of the Transport system. Yes, the programme was quaint, dated, yet poetic and actually still valid in parts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03495yn/lets-imagine-a-branch-line-railway-with-john-betjeman It's also here in 3 parts on Youtube: Your part of the UK, Chilco. No doubt you've seen it.
Horrendous accident just now in the Spa GP2 race. Commentators saying he's okay, but I really don't know how. Unconfirmed too.
Lovely, thanks TSS, I'll watch that in full later on. In one respect Betjeman is slightly incorrect, in that he refers to the line to Highbridge as the main line, whereas I believe it was always known as the Burnham Spur, implying that the main route was up to Bath and down to Bournemouth (see my post above). The revered Pines Express used to travel that way, chugging double-headed up to Combe Down from Green Park Station in Bath. Anyway, the Burnham branch, as well as picking up coal from South Wales, used to carry a lot of holiday traffic as well. In the glory days of steam tourists would get a paddle-steamer from Cardiff to Burnham-on-Sea, get on the S&D to Bournemouth, spend the day on the beach and do the return trip before nightfall. Imagine trying to do that by road nowadays! Even stranger, the Burnham line went straight across Worthy Farm at Pilton, nowadays the site of Glastonbury Festival. That would be handy nowadays!
Yeah, watch the programme. He mentions all of that. The year is 1963 is you were wondering. I would be 4 or 5 depending on the time of year.
