CONVERSION OF RAILWAYS INTO ROADS
12 June 2001
Railways came into existence nearly 200 years ago
after poor road surfaces were first improved by laying timber or iron plates,
on which horses could haul greater loads. Since the Second World War, proposals
have been made to reverse the process and convert railways into roads. The most
recent support for this old chestnut appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on 3rd
December 2000. Dominic Lawson wrote of railways as “straight
lines”, a description that is not borne out by an examination of the
infrastructure. It is an historical fact that many landowners compelled railway
companies to follow circuitous routes.
“The Twilight of the Railways”
The
first conversion proposal [1] was advanced by Brigadier T.I. Lloyd in the
1950’s. He envisaged:-
A reserved
toll road on the converted railways, with no dangerous bends, having single
carriageways which were safer than dual carriageways because drivers would have
to remain alert!
That use
would be restricted to vehicles and drivers, both of which would be subject to
stringent tests.
High
professional standards of driving would be instituted, and subject to special
driving licences.
Traffic
would travel at an average of 60 mph, at 100 yard intervals, users achieving
that voluntarily over the entire system, round the clock and over the four
seasons.
If drivers
slowed down excessively at 24 ft bridges and tunnels, the question of widening
should be taken up.
Prompt
sanding and snow clearance, and radar fitted to vehicles to operate safely in
fog.
New
traffic rules: keep strictly in lane, except at clearly marked places of
transfer to adjacent lanes; no overtaking at all on two lane stretches of
roadway; no dawdling; special driving licences would be forfeited for breaking
the rules.
Buses,
with 40 seats, would have one or two trailers, which could be discarded in the
non-rush hours and could also be used as slip coaches. The buses would run when
full, not to a timetable.
There
would be no problem with the rush hour at
Single
track railways would be readily converted into sub-standard two lane roads. The
expense of raising them to full 22 ft standard would no doubt be justified in
some places.
Existing
rail passenger and freight traffic would require only 10,300 vehicles at 60
mph. These would consist of one-third forty-seater buses and two-thirds
twenty-ton lorries. These powered vehicles would be supplemented by an
abundance of trailers.
Debated by
the Institution of Civil Engineers
His
proposal was demolished by road experts who attended the debate [2] in November
1955:-
Dr. Glanville, Director of Road Research, Department
of Scientific & Industrial Research - forerunner of the Transport Research
Laboratory: “Could not see how buses could run, fully loaded for eight
hours a day, six days a week, and if this did not happen, the financial basis
for conversion was affected most seriously. The Minister of Transport had stated
that traffic lanes on motorways would be twelve foot wide, further affecting
the proposals which were based on ten foot lanes”. Dr. Glanville did not accept, that
“higher standards of driving, would be sufficient to overcome the dangers
of high speed traffic on the same carriageway”.
Major Aldington, Technical Adviser, British Road
Federation [3]: “Knew no one who believed that a single 22ft or 24ft
carriageway was adequate for heavy volumes of traffic and said that it was
quite preposterous”. He
“viewed with alarm the prospect of travelling at 60 mph on single
carriageways against opposing traffic, particularly at night with glaring
headlights. Driving from
Mr. Burnell, London Transport Buses: “It was
totally impracticable to ask staff to drive on a road 22-24ft wide at such
speeds. They would rightly refuse”. He postulated a driver handing over
to a relief driver saying: “Engine pulling well, there is ice and snow
and fog, but the radar is all right”.
Mr. Osborne, Resident Engineer, Wilson & Mason:
“Highway width must be 88-93ft with dual 22ft carriageways and 15ft
verges. Double track rail formation is 39ft reduced to 19-22 ft in tunnels and
deep cuttings with retaining walls; quadruple track was only 55ft wide.
Gradients are a serious problem; less than 1 in 200 is inadequate for water
drainage on roads, hence a completely new drainage system would be
necessary”. He contradicted Brigadier Lloyd who had said there were no dangerous bends, pointing out that
“Railways had curves of 660-1,320ft radius, often on viaducts, bridges or
through tunnels, against a motorway standard of 2,865ft and said conversion had
no potential and was economically impossible”. He added that
“railway services would be completely withdrawn long before roads were
laid on which replacement services would operate”.
Other
objections included:
Most
railway junctions are on the flat and would have to be replaced with flyovers
or clover leaf junctions to allow traffic to keep moving.
The
enormous number of bridges and tunnels - 63,000 and 1,050 respectively [4] -
represented major engineering obstacles; 30,000 under bridges would require new
floors because rails were laid on longitudinal girders which could not carry a
roadway,
Much
railway was built on embankments or in cuttings - enormous road works would be
required.
The
incidence of accidents would be bound to increase.
No
vehicular provision would be available for seasonal peaks, nor for sporting
events.
Conversion was supported by Professor Bondi,
Other Weaknesses & Problem Areas
Surprisingly, no attention was focused, in the
debate, on level crossings. Brigadier Lloyd claimed that “junctions and
level crossings were relatively infrequent”. There were 24,000 level
crossings over the 20,000 route miles, plus thousands of junctions. He had not
said how many crossings there were, although the statistic was publicly
available. In addition to 4,670 public level crossings, there were 19,700
unmanned Accommodation and Occupation crossings providing access to
farmer’s fields or residential property, plus 2,500 public footpath
crossings [5]. The attendant dangers and delays from tractors and animals on
crossings would be a serious problem, which he had completely overlooked. The
opportunity for them to cross between vehicles travelling 100 yards apart at 60
mph would be virtually zero. New bridges would be necessary at all such points.
Nor did anyone challenge the prospect of 60 mph buses slipping trailers without
stopping on a single carriageway - with another vehicle 100 yards behind.
The
cost of his “mobile police and efficient breakdown service” was not
brought into the equation. Indeed many costs were not brought
into the equation
On 16th February 1955 the Minister of Transport informed
Parliament [6] that, except in a few instances, it is prohibitive to convert
redundant railways into roads.
A third of route mileage was single track, and a
further 50% was only double track:-
|
No. of tracks |
route miles [7] |
|
Single line |
6,773 |
|
Double line |
10,302 |
|
Triple line |
448 |
|
Four or more lines |
1,503 |
|
Total |
19,026 |
|
Track miles |
35,704 |
|
Average |
1.88 |
An examination of the Department of Transport
publication [8] on railway
construction standards would have shown him that track widths were too narrow
for use as roads. Moreover, many rail routes were below even those prescribed
widths for historical reasons.
The
In 1984, the British Road Federation held a series of
meetings around the
The speaker suggested converting under utilised or
unused railways into roads. His views were in conflict with those expressed by
his predecessor at the
I said
that only sixty out of 7,000 miles of track closed in the past twenty years had
been converted into roads and before they set their sights on lines that they
thought were under utilised, they should convert the 6,940 miles of closed
routes begging to be used.
On
technicalities of conversion others present had no facts. I pointed out that an
independent survey by Coopers & Lybrand Associates [9] showed that only one
of ten lines recently considered for closure had any prospect of conversion.
Even that line (Marylebone-Northolt), had less width than the minimum 7.3
metres required by the Department of Transport for carriageways: being 6.9
metres or less, with 5.9 metres in one place.
I drew
attention to the cover of their publicity booklet depicting a High Speed Train
on a single line passing under a hump backed single arch bridge of low
clearance, pointing out that it exposed the conversion problem very clearly!
The speaker also disregarded the costs of emergency
services [10], the effects of
pollution, structural damage to buildings, pavements and verges and double
glazing all of which fall on others.
Contrary to industrial opinion, road haulage pays much less than it
should for road use. Recent research shows that “LGV’s only pay for
around 59-69% of the costs they impose on society. Per tonne carried, rail produces around
80% less carbon dioxide than road”. [11]
The road lobby argues that road taxes should be spent
on roads. During the 123 years when railways were privately owned, they were
subject to corporate and other taxes, not a penny of which was returned to them
to spend on their “highway”, built entirely at company expense. A
further tax imposed on railways, from 1830 to 1929, but never on trams or
buses, was “Passenger Duty” [12]. During two wars, Government froze
rail prices at pre-war levels, to hold down Government expenditure by over
£1bn, in addition to imposing taxation and Excess Profits Tax, whilst
road transport profits were untouched, and even allowed to escalate [13]. Unlike all other businesses, railways
were not refunded 20% of Excess Profits Tax after the 1939-45 war. British
Railways did not pay taxes because Government interference held fares up to 41
points below the inflation rate for 34 consecutive years, thereby cutting
revenue by some £8billion [14]. The road lobby overlooks that users get a
hidden refund - from savings in running costs gained by using new roads.
The Railway Conversion Campaign
In a 1970 booklet [15], the conversion lobby, list 29
instances of closed railways in
The road lobby places great emphasis on the subsidy
paid to keep open rural branch lines, that British Rail were prevented from
closing by the Government! The fact that 15 years later, only 0.8% of closed
lines which ranged from about 20 to 180 miles in length, had been converted to
roads, serves to show that railway lines are not suitable for conversion. The
road lobby average out total rail traffic over the full route mileage, ignoring
that two thirds of the system carried 99% of rail traffic [16].
In 1989, the Conversion lobby regurgitated Brigadier
Lloyd’s discredited theory, and advertised in the media [17]: “The
railway system is only working at 3% of its potential”, “a Department with such poor
utilisation ought to be sacked” and expressed concern for “our
precious green land”. My
response to the Daily Telegraph pointed out:-
Road
utilisation was worse than rail, having 22 times as much road mileage, some
80-100 times as much acreage, for ten times as much traffic.
If the League
is concerned about “our precious green land”, 60% of roads should
be closed to bring road utilisation up to British Rail’s level.
Under-utilised
lines are mainly in rural areas, and were kept open by Government decision,
without subsidy for the first twenty years of nationalisation. British Rail had
to fund them from interest bearing Treasury loans, which together with fares
held below the R.P.I. had caused the crippling deficit [18].
To
be proved fatally wrong, anyone believing that rail utilisation is 3%, need
only sit on a main line for a few minutes, not 58 minutes in an hour, which is
the 97% that they claim is unused.
6,940
miles of railway closed since the 1960’s was available for conversion but
remained unused .
Roads are
built on the basis of social benefit, an ingenuous formula based on the time
road users may save by using new roads. British Rail in contrast, had to
justify investment in money terms.
The Problem
of Road Utilisation
A principal reason for poor utilisation of roads is
speed variation: 30-100mph on
motorways, 10-70mph on other roads. It is bad management in commuter peaks, to
permit horses, 10 mph tractors and lorries so heavily loaded that they cannot
exceed 20-30 mph on a 60 mph road. Delays at all times of the day, are caused
by very wide loads that make their majestic progress at horse drawn speeds.
Some, unsupervised, technically legal, wide loads are encountered on minor
roads causing delays and potential danger for other road users.
The road lobby ignores the fact that juggernauts have
to leave motorways to deliver in towns and villages, where they negotiate road
junctions by halting traffic movement in all four directions. Some commercial
premises have such restricted access that vehicles shunt to and fro for up to
five minutes to effect entry. The ensuing delays can only be reduced by gutting
commercial premises and reconstructing local roads, with its attendant
compulsory purchase of property. More delays are caused by using roads to
unload car transporters and other vehicles for firms with inadequate access to
premises. Selfish conduct, bad lane discipline, and failures to observe the
Highway Code exacerbate the problem.
Despite the appalling under utilisation of roads,
users create worse problems. Ultra brief media reports inform of mind-boggling
hold-ups due to lorries turning over, jack-knifing, shedding their loads and
losing tyres, and many other vehicles travelling too fast and too close.
Ensuing delays are never translated into time or money loss. No compensation is
paid by offenders - if it were, via a national fund, delays would plummet.
Converting railways serving small towns and villages
into roads would not change this situation. The tracks, being double or single,
would not offer the huge turning areas required for LGV’s.
Hitherto,
it has been claimed that heavier goods vehicles reduce the cost of goods to the
consumer. No account has been taken of the increased costs borne by motorists
who are delayed behind heavy vehicles on “A”, “B” and
other roads. Most of this road mileage is not dual carriageway and is on routes
that are not paralleled by railways, which the conversion lobby argues, could
be converted to roads. Indeed, if 11,000 miles of railway were converted to
roads, it would not benefit one jot, millions of delayed journeys on 220,000
miles of roads remote from a railway.
After
40 years of motorways, no system has been developed which effectively diverts
traffic held up by an accident onto alternative routes. My experience is that
radio warnings come after one has passed the last exit, and arrived behind a
two hour queue. Additional alternative routes such as railways converted into
roads would therefore be wasted.
The Fall-out from Conversion
Converting railways into roads would produce a
serious Doomsday scenario, creating an unending and inescapable burden, far in
excess of any rail subsidy. An inability of the Exchequer to swallow the
increasing burden of road costs would focus economies on other Public
expenditure. Bridge costs, hidden in railway “losses”, would fall
directly onto the roads budget, where they should have been since 1930, as the
Minister of Transport had recommended [19]. Overbridges would have to be
widened and lifted to reduce the risk of bridge bashing.
The burden on the State would be exacerbated by the
consequential increase in fatalities and injuries. In a letter to the Daily
Telegraph in 1991, I pointed out that railway accidents from 1952 - which the
Telegraph [20] had used as a base line to criticise railways, had killed an
average of eight p.a. compared to an average of nearly 5,000 p.a. on roads. The
number injured by accidents in both modes is equally disparate. The cost of
this excessive number of road casualties is a hidden cost of road transport.
Given that there was about ten times as much traffic on roads as railways in
1991, conversion would have increased fatalities from eight p.a. of those using
rail to one-tenth of total road fatalities - about 500 p.a. A letter in the
Sunday Telegraph on 31st December from Andrew Dow said that in last 75 years,
442,000 people were killed on the roads and 19 million injured. Whilst fatalities have decreased on
roads, they have decreased likewise on railways, hence the relative disparity
remains. “Lorries were responsible for a fifth of all road deaths last
year” [21].
The road lobby argues that road casualties are
greater due to the mix of pedestrians and vehicles. This is easily resolved -
at the expense of those who began to use roads after pedestrians, viz.
mechanised road transport. Roads could be fenced along their entire length as
railways were statutorily compelled to do, with controlled gaps at selected
places.
New Messiahs
A
second Sunday Telegraph article [22], highlighted longer gaps between trains as
compared to road vehicles. Such a
comparison is meaningless. A passenger train carries as much as 300 cars [23], at
almost twice their speed. As the safe headroom between road vehicles is one
metre for every one mph [24] the aggregate headroom for 300 cars, at 70 mph, on
one track/lane, would be 21,000 metres, ten times the “long gap”
maintained, for safety reasons, ahead
of a high speed passenger train [25]. If cars travelled at train speeds, their
aggregate headroom would need to equate to 15 times the “long gap”
between trains. A freight train can
convey as much as 200 lorries [26], and travels 25% faster. Travelling at 60
mph, at one metre for every one mph, they require an aggregate 12,000 metres of
headroom, seven times as much as a 75 mph
freightliner [27]. At 75 mph, 200 vehicles would require 15,000 metres
aggregate headroom - ten times as much as one freightliner requires. Figure 1
illustrates the relative headway disparities. Buses are ignored as passengers
would mostly switch to cars.
This
Sunday Telegraph article quoted Sir Phillip Goodhart who had observed a stretch
of the M6 close to the main
Converting Roads into Railways
In view of poor road utilisation, a better option may
be to convert some roads into railways. The annual goods vehicle km of 10.8
billion on motorways [30] equates to only 185 vehicles per hour in each
direction. Given the average load
of goods vehicles is 5 tons, it represents less than one decent train load,
which would not tax one road lane converted into a railway. Huge benefits would
accrue. Motorway construction and repair costs would plummet, and contraflows
would be much less frequent, leading to higher average car speeds. Total fuel
consumption would fall and fewer lorries would be imported, leading to an
improved balance of payments. Fewer accidents would reduce costs of the
emergency services and the Health Service, whose waiting lists would fall in
consequence. Lay-by’s used as cost free premises for overnight or weekend
lorry parking would be unnecessary.
“Heavy
lorry mileage on journeys over 150 km represents 50% of all mileage and 20% of
all goods. Transferring this
to rail would cut total lorry mileage by a half” [31]. If trunk haulage
was by rail, using smaller containers, haulage into towns and villages on
shorter vehicles would slash congestion, and end damage to pavements and verges
- some of which compare unfavourably with ploughed fields.
Converting
some roads into railways would not face the same transitional problems as the
converse proposal. Firstly, random observations indicate that there is
significant capacity on existing freightliner trains. Secondly, the under-utilisation of
roads, to which I referred earlier, allows scope for re-routing road traffic
during the changeover period. Much cross empty mileage would be eliminated by
central control of containers.
Top
of page
For more see “Railway Conversion – the impractical dream”
[1] Later published as the
“Twilight of the railways ”, by T.I. Lloyd (Forest Groom & Co.)
[2] Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, November 1955: “Potentialities of the British Railways system as a reserved roadway system”
[3] The road lobby
[4] British Railways Year
Book 1963
[5] Report to the Minister
of Transport on the Safety Record of British Railways for 1957 by the
Minister’s Railway Inspectors
[6] Hansard, vol. 437, col.
47
[7] British Transport
Commission Report & Accounts 1956
[8] Department of Transport
“Railway Construction & Operation Requirements”
[9] British Rail Internal
publication “Management Brief”, 15th March 1984
[10] A 1994 “Police
Stop” video stated that road accidents cost £5.5bn p.a.
[11] “Goods without
the Bads”, Transport 2000 Booklet
[12] “Square Deal
Denied”, ISBN 0-9521039-3-1, page 18
[13] ibid, Chapters 12 &
13
[14] “Blueprints for
Bankruptcy”, ISBN 0-9521039-2-3, page 63
[15] “Conversion of
Railways into Roads”, ISBN 0-9046980-1-7
[16] British Railways Board
Report & Accounts, 1963, para 4
[17] Advertisement in The
Daily Telegraph, 26th July 1989
[18] “The Railway
Closure Controversy”, ISBN 0-9521039-4-X
[19] “Square Deal
Denied”, page 64
[20] The Daily Telegraph,
9th January 1991
[21] “Goods without
the Bads”, op cit
[22] The Sunday Telegraph,
24th December 2000
[23] Average load of cars =
1.6 [Annual Abstract of Statistics, 1998, Tables 14.2 & 14.4]
[24]
[25] Railway Signalling
Standards
[26] Average load = 5 tons
[Annual Abstract of Statistics, 1998, Tables 14.1 & 14.4]
[27] Railway Signalling
Standards
[28] Highways Agency
[29] Department of Transport
“Railway Construction & Operation Requirements”
[30] “Transport
Statistics of
[31] “Goods without the Bads”, op cit