> Roads are cheaper and easier to maintain than railways, starting with > the fact that the minimum standard for a road is a dirt track, the > minimum standard for a railway is damn near the maximum > standard for a > railway.
A dirt track is a dirt track, not a road. > The people who use the roads usually own their own > means of > transport. > Unless a large corporation owns the trains then the > government owns the trains. In Britain large corporations own the trains and the tracks, and have done for most of the history of the railways. They were nationalised for about 45 years after WW2 but were consistently starved of funds as a matter of policy by transport ministers who answered only to the road lobby. The fact that they survived at all is little short of a miracle. > Anything the government owns is an > operating expense, anything the individuals own is a source > or revenue, > (it can be taxed and the government doesn't have to pay for it's > maintenance). In Britain the government owns the roads and pays for their maintenance. The government also subsidises the road haulage industry by not making them pay taxes commensurate with the amount of damage they inflict on the roads and the rest of the environment. > Need we go into the fact that Large > corporations can buy > legislatures to get preferential tax treatment, something much harder > for individuals to do? In Britain that's what the road lobby - the hauliers, petrol companies and road builders - do. That's why the country is covered with tarmac. > You don't need a road lobby, an enlightened > government will pick roads over rails any time they do a reasonable > analysis. In Britain the government has never done a reasonable analysis of anything, least of all transport. The office of the transport minister has a revolving door. Governments are too focused on the short term economic and electoral cycles to want to do anything to sort out transport properly. > Then there's the fact that reasonably well off > people seem to > prefer to travel in their own cars, they like privacy, they like to > control their own schedules, In Britain nobody controls their own transport schedule except pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers least of all. > they don't want to sit next to this guy > > http://www.spock.com/i/H01ljdNSw/The-Scary-Guy.jpg > In Britain we make our own privacy by refusing to acknowledge that other people are on the same train. Bob > Bob W wrote: > >> John, > >> The arguement breaks down on the cost to build rail > service to every > >> small town in order to feed the big towns. > >> Regards, Bob S. > >> > > > > In the mid 60s here there was a wholesale and much-lamented > closure of > > small, unprofitable railway lines that linked tiny > communities. Many of them > > were turned into walking and cycling tracks through > beautiful and fairly > > remote country (but no train to take you there!). My > schoolmates and I > > helped with the building of one in Derbyshire called the > Tissington Trail. > > The railway station in the town where we boarded was pulled down and > > redeveloped as a swimming pool, which was a great > improvement over the awful > > unheated outdoor pool we had previously had to use. > > > > If you read literature of the early 20th century you notice > that these small > > lines were quite embedded into the social fabric of the > day, even if they > > were unprofitable. Some of the stations were built solely > to serve the local > > big house, and in PG Wodehouse's books you see Wooster and > Jeeves and the > > like making extensive use of them for weekend country house parties. > > > > It's considered to be an inevitable tragedy that so many > were closed, > > because of the impact on rural communities, and it's quite > possible that > > many of them could have been made payable, or subsidised to > keep them open > > for social reasons. The distribution of support for > different transport > > schemes has been unfairly loaded in favour of roads for decades. > > > > Most of the lines were probably never profitable even when > they were built. > > The early railway boom in this country turned into a bubble > rather like the > > dot.com boom. The railway lines were built as vanity or > speculative projects > > off the back of inflated share prices. When the bubble > burst a lot of people > > lost a lot of money and we were left with a wonderful > infrastructure that > > could rarely pay for itself and which was dealt the death > blow after WW1 > > when road transport came into its own. > > > > I'm still convinced that if the government spent as much > money on the > > railways and had the level of commitment to them that they > have now to the > > road lobby we would all be a lot better off, and so would > the environment. > > > > Bob > > > > > > > >> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 2:08 PM, John Sessoms > >> <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >>> From: Bob Sullivan > >>> > >>>> It's the distance between cities that kills rail here. > >>>> Except on the east coast, travel times between big cities > >>>> > >> require an > >> > >>>> overnight ride. > >>>> Planes are so much faster for anything over 200 miles. > >>>> Been that way since 1947... > >>>> Regards, Bob S. > >>>> > >>> There are a couple of flaws I find with that argument ... > >>> > >>> Who says service has to be only between big cities? Seems > >>> > >> to me local > >> > >>> services are what makes rail transportation viable. Feed > >>> > >> from the small > >> > >>> towns into the big cities and back again; and take the high > >>> > >> speed expresses > >> > >>> between big cities. > >>> > > > > > > -- > > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > [email protected] > > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link > directly above and follow the directions. > > > > > > > > > -- > -- > > The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either > eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he > does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a > damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more > than a dog. > > --G. K. Chesterton > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly > above and follow the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
