Transwatch “Fact Sheet” No

Transwatch “Fact Sheet” No. 12 – Conversion costs & rate of return

‘Transport Watch does not advocate converting rail to road, preferring to concentrate on facts leading to policy this facts sheet nevertheless deals with costs of conversion & touches briefly on conversion strategy.’

Ø Figures based on assumptions are not facts.

Transwatch claims the rate of return from conversion would be overwhelming & the cost of converting the entire rail network would be less than £12bn - ¹/₆ the present cost of the rail modernisation programme.

Ø The only study (the Liverpool Street scheme) claiming to set out costs of conversion & benefits depends primarily on time benefits claimed to accrue to motorists transferring from existing roads to converted railways, & assumptions about travel time gains by all rail passengers transferring to buses (see rebuttal of the returns - below). Both are disproved in Railway Conversion – the impractical dream.

Transwatch state: A contract by the Dept of the Environment culminated in the Hall/ Smith report Better Use of Railways. It attracted vitriolic but baseless criticism.

Ø The DoE rejected the report.

Ø I could find no vitriolic criticism in the well-indexed Times, nor in extracts of criticisms included in the so-called ‘companion volume’. Had there been no criticism it would not have been published. Hence it cannot be called a companion volume.

Ø That document was supposed to be a ‘measured response to criticism’. Some ‘Rejoinders’ were very sarcastic rather than measured.

Transwatch state: Critics never responded to the companion volume, Comments & Rejoinders, in which they appear in a very poor light.

Ø This booklet was not a companion volume, which, by definition, is published at the same time as the main volume, to amplify. It was compiled after criticism mainly from non-railway sources. Even the authors did not call it a companion volume. The purpose was to try to answer questions that should have been covered in the original Report.

Ø Non-railway critics included: New Scientist, New Society, Traffic Engineering & Control, Surveyor, Country Life, Municipal Engineer, Motor Transport, Planning, Confederation of Road Passenger Transport and Conservation Society.

Ø The MoT’s Transport Policy paper stated: ‘costs were under-estimated, savings doubtful & new traffic questionable’.

Ø Critics may not have responded because they did not see it – it was difficult to find. Its’ flaws are exposed at length in Railway Conversion – the impractical dream.

Ø It is interesting to note that the booklet included an extract from the Sunday Times, but left out a warning of risks to passengers dodging buses, which Smith said would be avoided as ‘bus drivers would switch headlights on to warn passengers to keep clear’. A truly fatuous idea.

Elsewhere Transwatch states that rail lobby criticisms of the Hall-Smith study are risible and vitriolic, but does not divulge where these emotive criticisms may be found. Only two BR criticisms are mentioned in the Hall/Smith rejoinder, and cannot be so described. Indeed, the rejoinder by Smith (intended to be ‘measured’) was sarcastic and vitriolic. In fairness, Smith was equally sarcastic to other non-railway critics. Local authorities - openly critical of BR, and never a rail lobby - dismissed the Study’s figures. A Transport Study Group unconnected with rail comprehensively dismissed it. The DoE, which commissioned the Study, dissociated itself from the findings, as it ‘had major reservations about some of the calculations in the study’ (Times, 23.12.75). That booklet embraces criticisms from 41 sources including: DoE, Hansard, technical journals, Professors Cooper and Spaven of the Polytechnic of Central London, bus engineers, etc. None are part of a rail lobby. Modern Railways, which criticised the study, was openly critical of BR on many issues.

Transwatch states: ‘The main report examined the potential for converting 6 railway lines to motor roads in and around London. The conclusion was that conversion would yield first year rates of return in the range 100 to 500% (except in one case where the return was infinite because the value of scrap and spare land exceeded the cost of the conversion). Those very high rates of return are hardly surprising in view of my (Withrington) analysis which shows rail 3 to 4 times as expensive as, and with one quarter the capacity of, a road’.

Ø The 6 lines were a main line from London to East Anglia & 5 linked branch lines. Only one London terminal (Liverpool Street) was involved, and that was a partial conversion. (see Sheet 1 rebuttal)

Ø The ‘return’ relied mainly on £19.3m for time saved by 39m cars switching from existing roads. No proof was given that even one car would divert nor save time. The car diversion figures were prefaced by ‘assumed’, ‘may’, ‘probably’, ‘if’.

Ø One academic study stated that some claimed diversions would be over a longer route. The study author told the Sunday Times that ‘parking restraints would stop new car traffic on the corridor’ to prevent congestion – a previously unmentioned condition. It would eliminate the return for diverted traffic.

^Ø£1.7m ‘return’ for passenger time saved by using buses is disproved in Railway Conversion – the impractical dream. No increase was entered for the converse: longer journeys of rail traffic routed to existing roads after conversion. See Sheet 3 rebuttal.

^Ø£5.7m is included for land assumed to attract businesses unable to find any, when over 6m acres of brownfield sites are idle in England alone due to industries closed because ‘wage levels were too high’ – not for lack of roads. It assumes that tenants would move & without realistic compensation.

^ØThe ‘return’ includes sales of station and level crossing houses, some may be privately owned already, in consequence of job economies and modernisation. Valuations were made, without evidence of internal inspection. Valuers may well have met abuse had they tried to do so.

^ØThe scheme includes £50,000 to convert part of Liverpool Street to a bus terminal. The New Scientist (5.2.76) wrote this would hardly pay for the drawings! This was missed in ‘Rejoinders’, although quoted in Municipal Engineering (12.3.76), an extract of which is in ‘Rejoinders’. The journal stated that the New Jersey bus lane leads to a multi-storey multi-million dollar terminal, compared to a single level terminal proposed by Smith. The crude & very small scale drawing (1:1785) neglected to point out that 57 tiny dots shown on it represented 57 slender columns supporting Liverpool Street station roof - which was to remain. They would be a hazard for buses – especially articulated buses.

^ØThe New Jersey lane speed limit is 35 mph [56kph], not 72kph [45mph] quoted by Smith. Having praised the study Report, Withrington now refers to 65 mph buses.

^ØTo answer road transport experts, Smith states that that this lane carries 25,000 seated passengers in a peak hour, which ‘no rail track can match’. His Study shows that one Liverpool Street track exceeds it, as do LT lines!

^ØThe American bus service involves peak standing, and experiences collisions which block the route for hours. It is criticised on the Internet by users who say that punctuality is poor.

Ø Road engineers at the 1955 Institute of Civil Engineering debate quoted costs up to 10 times those in the study. Elsewhere, Withrington claims that this debate was followed by 3 years correspondence in The Engineer on widths & the concept. It wasn’t. Correspondence began 3 years later when conversion was publicly ignored by a conference of road engineers seeking solutions to road congestion!

Transwatch claims: “actual Conversions: Edinburgh £10.95, Southport: £3.73, Radnor CC 1970: £2.49, Radnor CC 1969: £2.94, Radnor CC 1968: £3.35 (M-way standards would add about £3 per sq. metre to these costs.

Study Estimates: had the range £8.21 to £19.40 per sq. metre, implying straight away that the study estimates were, if anything, too high”

Ø Inquiries of local authorities (see Railway Conversion - involved in the 211 miles of closed railway claimed as converted to roads (10,000 miles were closed) reveal that they had no separate cost for converting railway sections averaging 1.5 miles per scheme (ranging from 109 yards). To cost them was pointless. The 211 cases were invariably widened – by a factor of up to 8. Records show a 12ft wide railway was widened to a 102ft m-way.

Ø The ‘three’ Radnor cases totalled 1.62 miles of the B4567 and were split in a Conversion League Report to increase the N^o of conversions. That rail branch was 56 miles long! Significantly, he includes this ‘B’ road – part of 200,000 miles of ghost roads that he ignores in comparing rail & road length! This 56 mile line was built on the cheap, & had severe weight restrictions for trains on bridges. (see ‘Cambrian Railways by Kidner). “Converting” 1.62 miles of a 56 mile line was no big deal.

Ø Among lines closed were some of 100-180 mile length, without Conversionists appearing at closure hearings to support closure. When the Inverness-Wick line - long advocated by conversionists as a prime conversion target (and the basis for assumed costs) – was proposed for closure, it was opposed by Sir David Robertson MP who had initially proposed conversion!

Ø In the Southport case (4.5 miles) he ignores that 20 miles of the rail route became a footpath! The engineer who planned it remarked on the favourable condition of the sub soil which reduced the cost.

Ø The Study claimed 150mm asphalt laid on raw formation would suffice for buses & lorries. The width used would be greater than the weight-carrying ballasted area, embracing lineside walking routes (cess) & undulating open-ditched banksides which carry no weight. Conversionists “would lay another layer of asphalt later”. Contractors & local authorities disputed the low costs claimed for conversion. To ‘lay more asphalt later’ defies belief – implying massives delays and diversions

Ø A Railway Conversion Campaign photo of the conversion in Edinburgh has an underwhelming nine cars, carrying perhaps 14 people, in a space that would take four trains carrying thousands or 50 cars carrying 75, illustrating the wastefulness of road utilisation. There are no buses in the photo!

Transwatch states: The conversion strategy would be to stockpile materials and plant at 5 to 10 mile intervals for a particular route. Then on Death of Rail Day the tracks would off and replaced by a road surface sufficient for buses in a matter of weeks, at least to the edges of town and city. During that period special traffic orders would be in place to enable buses, previously procured etc. to operate reasonably in urban areas.

Ø All public and farm roads on level crossings would be closed until new roads were laid.

Ø All freight – including 1500t port to power station trains would transfer at once to existing roads, along with that from quarries, docks, factories etc.

Ø City terminals would close for a year.

Ø Existing roads would be chaotic.

Ø Stockpiles would need new good road access for lorries, cranes & plant over private property (gardens, factories etc) at 1500 sites. They would be used by vehicles carrying workmen daily along residential roads.

Ø The simultaneous demand for experienced contractors & labour would be on an unprecedented scale and its availability has been ignored.

Ø Buses (plus lorries) ‘previously procured’ would have been gathering debt.

Ø He ignores the problem of recruiting & training tens of thousands of drivers and maintenance staff. Conversionists foolishly assume train drivers would be dragooned into this role with increased hours & lower wages! In any case, they could not train until railway operations ceased!

Ø The Liverpool Street/East Anglia Study praised in ‘Fact sheets’ envisaged converting half the width of a 26 mile main line in 9 days, including removing track, signalling, buildings & electric power equipment; and structural alterations to 19 bridges (to achieve a height clearance below DfT standards), whilst trains continued to run on half of the formation; then connecting slip roads (in one direction only!) and surfacing. The second half of the formation would be converted over 3-4 months! The conversion strategy was completely impractical.

‘Fact Sheet 12’ is worthless.