A Railway Renaissance?

A New Deal for Transport?: The UK's Struggle with the Sustainable Transport Agenda

Volumn , Issue , 2008, Pages 108-134

  Shaw, Jon ^a,b   Farrington, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

^b Royal Town Planning Institute   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Great britain; Industrial privatization; Passenger service; Railway renaissance; Road transport

Indexed keywords

EID: 84889411289     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9780470773734.ch5     Document Type: Chapter

References (68)

1. Dyos, H and Aldcroft, D (1971) British transport: an economic survey from the seventeenth century to the twentieth. Leicester University Press, Leicester.
2. Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001) Transport statistics, transport trends-indices data tables. www.transtat.dtlr.gov.uk/tables/2001/tt/contents/index/tttables.htm#s2 (accessed 29 May 2002); Railtrack (1996) Network Management Statement 1996/97: investing in Britain's railway. Railtrack, London.
3. See Potter, S and Enoch, M (1997) Regulating transport's environmental impacts in a deregulating world. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and the Environment, 2, 271-82.
4. Tolley, R and Turton, B (1995) Transport systems, policy and planning: a geographical approach. Longman, Harlow.
5. OXERA (2000) The wider impacts of rail and road investment. The Railway Society, London.
6. Department for Transport (2002) Transport statistics Great Britain: 2002 edition. DfT, London. http://www.transtat.dft.gov.uk/tables/tsgb02/text/tsgb.htm (accessed 25 November, 2002);
7. Steer Davies Gleave (2002) The case for Rail. Transport 2000, Association of Train Operating Companies, English, Welsh and Scottish Railway, Railway Industry Association, The Railway Forum, Rail Passengers' Council, Passenger Transport Executive Group;
8. Glaister, S (2001) UK Transport Policy 1997-2001. Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Glasgow, 4 September;
9. Shaw, J, Walton, W and Farrington, J (2003) Assessing the potential for a 'railway renaissance' in Great Britain. Geoforum, 34, 141-56.
10. Commission for Integrated Transport (2001) European best practice in delivering integrated transport: key findings. http://www.cfit.gov.uk/research/ebp/key/index.htm (accessed 29 October 2002).
11. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1998) A new deal for transport: better for everyone. Cmnd 3950, The Stationery Office, London.
12. Quoted in Modern Railways (1999) Direction-the political imperative. 56, 37-9.
13. The Department for Regional Development, Northern Ireland, has produced its own documentation in which it outlines its vision for the Province's railway. See Department for Regional Development (2002) Regional transportation strategy for Northern Ireland 2002-2012. DRD, Belfast.
14. Department of Transport (1992) New Opportunities for the railways. The privatisation of British Rail. Cmnd 2012. DoT, London, 1.
15. The Conservative Chairman of the House of Commons' Transport Select Committee remarked in some desperation: 'The Secretary of State, Minister of State and Department [of Transport] officials have appeared before this Committee and. .. it seems to me that none of them, quite frankly, have a clue about how all this is going to be worked out'. See House of Commons (1992) Session 1992-1993, HC 2461ii, 4 November, 39-65;
16. Department of Transport (1994) Britain's railway: a new era. Department of Transport, London;
17. Freeman, R and Shaw, J (2000) (eds) All change: British railway privatization. McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead.
18. The Times (1995) 5 October.
19. The Guardian (1994) 17 October.
20. Labour Party (1996) Consensus for change: Labour's transport strategy for the 21st century. Labour Party, London, 20.
21. Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails: how privatization wrecked Britain's railways. Aurum Press, London.
22. Labour Party (1997) New Labour: because Britain deserves better. http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/lab97.htm (accessed 31 July, 2002).
23. Modern Railways (1999) Direction-the political imperative.
24. Transport Act (2000) Public general Acts-Elizabeth II. Chapter 38. The Stationery Office, London.
25. Quoted in Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails, 111.
26. Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails, 111.
27. Clarke, J (2000) Selling the freight railway. In Freeman, R and Shaw, J (2000) All change;
28. Woodburn, A (2001) The changing nature of rail freight in Great Britain: the start of a renaissance? Transport Reviews. 21, 1-13.
29. For a discussion about the costs of rail privatization, see: Wolmar (2001) Broken rails and White, P (1998) Rail privatization in Britain. Transport Reviews, 15, 109-30.
30. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (2000) Transport 2010: the 10-year plan. DETR, London.
31. Subsidy for the ScotRail franchise is provided by the Scottish Executive but the SRA retains responsibility for funding the Wales and Borders TOC. The Welsh Assembly Government can, however, allocate additional rail subsidy should it so wish. The element of subsidy provided to TOCs which ends up being paid to the network operator as track access charges could be spent anywhere in Great Britain.
32. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (2000) Transport 2010.
33. HM Government (2002) The government's response to the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Select Committee report, Passenger rail franchising and the future of railway infrastructure. Cmnd 5472, The Stationery Office, London, 1.
34. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (2000) Transport 2010, 6.7 and 6.8.
35. These measures do not have to involve new technology. For example, the reopening of certain mothballed signal boxes would increase the number of signalling blocks and, hence, enhance capacity.
36. There is clearly a trade-off here as many local stopping services are important in terms of social inclusion.
37. Richard Beeching was installed as the chairman of the British Railways Board in the early 1960s and charged with making the network profitable. He proposed large-scale route closures-many of which occurred-but was unable to prevent BR from returning losses; see British Railways Board (1963) Reshaping Britain's railways. Part one-report and appendices; part two maps. HMSO, London.
38. Although reinstating lines such as Oxford-Cambridge or the Waverley line from Edinburgh to Carlisle via Galashiels could bring major capacity benefits, particularly for freight operators.
39. Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails.
40. Godward, E (1999) Research and findings on the performance and delivery of a modern rail infrastructure by Railtrack. Advanced Railway Research Centre, Sheffield.
41. Uff, J and Lord Cullen (2001) The joint enquiry into train protection systems. HSE Books, London;
42. Uff, J (2000) The Southall rail accident report. HSE Books, London; Health and Safety Commission (2001) The Ladbroke Grove rail inquiry, parts 1 and 2 report. HSE Books, London; Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails.
43. The Daily Telegraph (2001) 15 October.
44. Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001) Concentrate on early gains for passengers: Byers spells out new franchising policy. News Release 325, 16 July, 1.
45. Bradshaw, W (1991) A review of policies for the future of Britain's railways. Address to the Railway Study Association, 13 November, London.
46. Strategic Rail Authority (2001) Freight strategy. SRA, London.
47. Strategic Rail Authority (2002) Strategic plan. SRA, London.
48. Rail (2002) When is a government guarantee not a guarantee? When it's SRA support! 432, 4-5;
49. Rail (2002) Network Rail's wait finally over as Railtrack deal is signed. 439, 4-5.
50. The Public Sector Borrowing Requirement is the net difference between the government's income and its expenditure.
51. Quoted in Rail (2002) Better passenger care and fewer trains may be helpful. 434, 3.
52. TAS Publications and Events Ltd (2001) Railway finance monitor. TAS Publications, Skipton; Financial Times (2002) 3 December.
53. The Financial Times alleges that a lot of public subsidy will be used to buy improvements through the private sector and therefore has been counted twice. A £50 million station upgrade, for example, may well have been factored in to the subsidy profile claimed by the winning TOC, so it gets counted as part of the government's £30.5 billion investment. Yet because it is the TOC who actually pays the contractor to effect the improvement, it counts as part of the private sector's anticipated £34 billion investment as well.
54. TAS Publications and Events Ltd (2002) Rail industry monitor. TAS Publications, Skipton.
55. The Observer (2002) 15 December. www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,860336,00.html (accessed 15 December 2002).
56. House of Commons (2002) Session 2001-2002, HC 5581, 22 March, 455.
57. TAS Publications and Events Ltd (2002) Rail industry monitor.
58. Commission for Integrated Transport (2001) A comparative study of the environmental effects of rail and short-haul air travel. http://www.cfit.gov.uk/reports/racomp/exec/index.htm (accessed 25 November 2002).
59. House of Commons (2002) Session 2001-2002, HC 5581, 22 March, 437. Traffic is projected to increase by 17 per cent if motoring costs fall by a fifth, but by 13 per cent if they remain constant.
60. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997) New roads as a last resort-Strang. Press Release 216.
61. House of Commons (2002) Session 2001-2002, HC 5581ii, 22 March, 120.
62. Department of Transport (1992) New Opportunities for the railways.
63. The Economist (1996) A great train cash. January 21, 20.
64. Friedman, M (1984) Tyranny of the status quo. Secker & Warburg, London.
65. Wolmar, C (2001) Broken rails.
66. Ford, R (2003) SRA exposes massive exploision in costs. Modern Railways, March 21-2.
67. Glaister, S (2001) UK Transport Policy 1997-2001;
68. Affuso, L, Masson, J and Newbery, D (2000) Comparing investments on new transport infrastructure: roads vs. railways? DAE Working Paper 0021, Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge. See also Financial Times (2002) 26 July; House of Commons Papers (2002) Session 2001-2002, HC 558-I, 27 May.