As the country is held hostage once again by the rail unions, it’s time for the nation to ask itself: does it need trains at all? The last time anyone dared ask this question was 60 years ago when Dr Richard Beeching boldly closed more than 2,000 stations and 5,000 miles of track. The time has come to finish the job and shut down the rest of Britain’s viciously expensive, underperforming and fundamentally inefficient rail network. The economic reasons for doing so are irrefutable, no matter how the railroad anoraks might sputter.
Originally private, then nationalised, then privatised again, then morphed into an odd hybrid in which tax subsidies are higher than ever, British railways are hideously expensive, uncomfortable and unreliable. On the continent, it’s little better.
Why does it cost more to take the train to the airport than to fly to Spain? And five times longer to get there on a train, than on a jet? Why is it cheaper to drive from London to Bristol than to take the train? Why are trains so often cancelled, late or stuck? Why do they insist on passengers travelling from where they are not, to where they don’t want to be?
The train has become part of our national mythology, like the BBC and NHS
The worship of trains has a sentimental side.
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