I never understand why Greens like railways. The UK system is wanton with the amount of CO 2 it creates, as it tips our taxes into its huge black hole for subsidies. Very few people live near a station and very few want to go to a station location, so if you travel by train there is normally a couple of bus or taxi journeys to factor in as well. They all generate CO2 as well as creating extra delay in getting to your destination. Many diesel trains still run on the UK network. Trains specialise in waiting in stations with their engines running to increase the use of fuel. The electric trains draw power from a grid which is often more than 50% supplied by gas generated electricity. Too many trains run with few passengers , forcing much fuel to be burned for very few people benefitting from travel.
The rail system in the UK is swallowing far too much of our cash. In 2023/4 it took £22.3 bn of taxpayers money with another £7.1bn for nationalised HS2 costs, making a total of more than £30 bn. That is nearly £1000 per employee in the country and over £1000 per household. Rail accounts for just 2% of all trips made compared with 60% by car and 4% by bus. If you take miles travelled, rail is 8% of the total compared to 78% by car. Walking is 29% of trips but just 4% of miles.
So why do we spend so much, or why are railways so poor at getting us to use them more with all the subsidy they enjoy to take more of the strain off our inadequate, poorly maintained and too little invested in roads? The government does everything it can to make motoring too expensive and too vexatious, yet the underlying flexibility and convenience of the car triumphs over the rail.
The reason the railways attract so few and cost so much is bad management. Rail managers see the government as their main customer , knowing however much they lose they will be bailed out. They devote their time to Whitehall games to maximise their subsidy and capital take from national budgets, ignoring the needs of their passengers and the opportunity to sell them more by offering better service.
The national rail system, nationalised for most of my lifetime apart from a brief period in private hands with Railtrack, failed to invest in the new routes and the new stations that provided opportunity. For many years there was no mainline station to serve one of the world’s busiest airports at Heathrow. There is still no good link from Oxford to Cambridge to complete the golden triangle of science based activity. When there are big sporting or entertainment events there are insufficient train specials to get the audience to the location. In London tube stations local to a big event are often closed for it for fear of too big a crush. The railways are not energetic in promoting rail excursions linked to a holiday break, a shopping trip or other travel opportunity. That is because they rightly see the government as a much bigger source of cash than the potential traveller.
Travelling by train you look out on a dystopian world of waste, mess and graffiti. There are once great stations literally falling to bits or with paint peeling. There is grafffiti all over structures, broken fences, weeds and shrubs growing out of the lesser used tracks and sidings, rusting old equipment left to die without thought, stocks of materials for repair left to decay. It is all symptomatic of a management that does not care, does not have control of its stocks and fixed assets, and wastes money on a gargantuan scale.
The new management of the transition and then of Great British Rail should only get bonuses if they either boost the fare paying passenger revenue or cut costs or do both. Paying people over £500,000 a year to make the huge mess and lose the huge sums run up by recent managements is a disgrace. All taxpayers should be offended and say No.
November 26, 2025
Good morning
Don’t worry, Sir John when the government force us to abandon our cars and on to public transport the rail companies just might break about even.
November 26, 2025
But it will make Reeves’s doom loop economics even worse. Getting to work without a car, especially at odd hours and rural areas is virtually impossible for many and even if not too slow or expensive – so they will stop working or leave the country.
November 26, 2025
TRUE LL, THE MAJOR PROBLEM SIR JOHN IS ALMOST ALL THE GREENIES ARE IGNORANT OF ANYTHING TECHNICAL OR WITH ENGINEERING IN THE SUBJECT, THEY CERTAINLY HAVE NO IDEA OF HOW TO THINK LOGICALLY
November 26, 2025
But only if they charge excessive rates even higher than they are today.
November 26, 2025
So Sir John do you want to scrap the railway?
Looks like Wokingham Station not doing too bad a job.
I can get to the centre of Amsterdam without a car or taxi.
Not withstanding the car is a major competitor there is the Management gravey train which has growen over the past forty years and infects all the public services and government
November 26, 2025
indeed. They do not really save CO2 – note that the end journeys by taxi or family drop off are v. inefficient as usually a double journey at both ends. Plus the CO2 output of the professional driver. More efficient to park at the station but that is often prohibitively expensive on top of the expensive train fare.
Trains have low average occupancy over the whole day so on commuting journeys they have start empty slowly fill up and are then nearly empty on the reverse commute. This give you circa 25% occupancy even if it is full by the time it arrives at the (for example) the London terminus in the morning or is full when it leaves it in the evening.
Note more passengers view the full trains and few or non view the empty ones. A huge statistical sampling error which gives people hugely the wrong impression of average occupancy.
Then we have all the CO2 used in track construction and maintenance the staffing etc.
Not that CO2 plant, tree and crop food is actually a real climate emergency problem anyway.
November 26, 2025
As JRMogg says in his video today:- Trial by jury matters. It is fundamental to the development of liberty in this country. We must do all we can to defend it.
Even the dire David Lammy used to defend them perhaps one of the few sensible things he has ever said but it seems it was perhaps just yet another Labour lie like not taxing working people, not increasing NI taxes…
November 26, 2025
The Greens and liebour like trains because they hate the freedom of the car. In the old Soviet Union there were few if any cars for the proletariat because individual travel was scorned. With trains, journeys can be monitored and after we’ve been priced off the road pur movements can be controlled/curtailed.
I know thos sounds Orwellian but who 10 years ago would have believed you would get 10 years jail for a hurty tweet or a caution for carrying an English flag (not applicable to other flags)
November 26, 2025
So Kevin Hollinrake compares the Reform UK party to the Nazis by linking a social media post about Reform’s new badge to the Wikipedia page for the Nazi Golden Party Badge. Nigel Farage rightly accused Hollinrake of “inciting” violence. Kemi, rather pathetically just said it was a joke. Cleverly pathetically failed to condemn too.
Do these three really think this truly evil approach will win them votes and cost Reform?
Lammy who used to be a lawyer once rightly strongly defended the jury system but now he wants to destroy it. So we will have laws judged by often politically motivated judges who are clearly not remotely impartial people. People like those on the sentencing council who want two tier justice in sentencing or those six appeal court judges who twice refused Letby her appeal or thought Lucy Connolly’s 31 month sentence was not remotely excessive for a tweet despite all her many mitigation.
November 26, 2025
Free speech died, but politicians can use abuse about people and get away with it. (scum)/.
November 26, 2025
Oh dear John, what a rant. For your information I don’t have a car so do use public transport. I happen to live five minutes walk from a train station, and don’t think I am alone in that. My local trains are well used and usually pretty full. Yesterday I had a hospital appointment at RBH so used the train and a pleasant fifteen minute walk, it did the job nicely. I missed some issues on the track which happened while I was in Reading so my trains ran on time. You seem to enjoy criticising the railways but they do an excellent job and the government should be supporting them.
November 26, 2025
If they did an excellent job the government would not need to support them, the public would be supporting them.
November 27, 2025
Indeed why should car drivers pay extra taxes for circa same again for your train journey ticket plus the admin. On top costs?
November 26, 2025
davews
Family member recently had to go to Charing Cross Hospital for an operation, with a check in time of 07.30 hours
Checked out train times, impossible to get to the hospital time from Wokingham Station, as first train of the day would have been far too late.
Thus had to make a car Journey to Twyford Station at 05.20 in the morning, to get the 05.50 train to Ealing Broadway, then a District line train to Baron Court, with a 10 minute walk to the hospital, thus arrived at 07.15.
Due to General Aesthetic was not allowed home on Public Transport even with a responsible adult, so had to be collected by car which had to be ULEZ compliant to save an entry fee charge.
November 28, 2025
What % of the population live within a five minute walk of a train station? Perhaps 5% or so and even of they do does that line go to where they want to go at the times they want to and how far is the walk at the far end?
November 26, 2025
The only significant investment I have seen at most stations is new lifts often out of order and places to park you bike so it can be stolen. Note that the British Transport Police (BTP) will not investigate bike theft at railway stations if the bicycle has been left for over two hours or is valued under £200. This policy means that CCTV footage is only reviewed within a two-hour window, which has led to criticism that bike theft is being “decriminalized”. This decision impacts thousands of cyclists who rely on “secure”, CCTV-covered bike parks at stations.
November 26, 2025
Another good question Sir John. Why do railways cost so much tax payers money and need support? The answer is the unions, and is same for so many public sector costs and inefficiency.
It is due to union restrictions stopping management from making changes. The managers would like to reduce costs and improve the ‘service’ but are prevented. That word service is a key to the problem.
The railways no longer consider themselves a business needing to be run efficiently, making a profit. They are now run simply to provide a ‘service’ the cost of which is secondary if considered at all.
Look at the National Health ‘service’ see how that is operated. It is not run for profit and forms a glorious example of how to extract endless tax payer funding for ever less provision of good ‘service’ outcomes. The police force is now the police service, no doubt providing ‘service’ to the police. Those funding it wonder what the once highly regarded police force do all day?
It can not be too long before the Border Force get up to speed and become the Border Service, providing a welcoming face to all who may turn up no matter their mode of transport, or intention…..
Its the unions and rampant inefficient socialism that is holding taxpayers who fund the ‘service’ to ransom.
We look forward to the budget later today. Well, we look forward, in the same mindset as we look forward to a visit to the dentist generates. Sadly on this day the pain will continue without relief, Rachel is about to increase the gap between ‘our’ public services and the long suffering tax payers….again.
November 26, 2025
I’ve had to travel into London from Wokingham twice in the last few days, once to Paddington and once to Clapham Junction (to change to the Windrush Line). Each time there was standing room only. (After 9.30am!) Without railways what would be the alternative?
November 26, 2025
If you have 200 people who want to go from point A to point B at a particular time then the same number for a return from B to A trains or buses/coaches can be quite efficient. But the world is not like that. They all want to go to different places and from different places and at different times. How can a train be efficient at 2AM when only perhaps 3 people want to travel at that time. Or when they live four miles from both stations or when then need to call off at the supermarket or a childs school on route or they have heavy tools, samples or luggage they need to carry and stow safely when not in use?
November 26, 2025
I’m glad you mentioned the dystopian view from the train window and the stations left to rot.
It hardly encourages people onto the railway, and doesn’t need to be like that and in fact should not be allowed to be so. Ditto that for some areas in some towns, just get a grip on basic law and order and instil civic pride.
Nipping things like graffiti in the bud would work wonders, but we can’t do that someone might get upset and the police are too busy with serious crimes such as politically incorrect tweets. So we get the ‘broken windows’ theory in action.
Dropping my Daughter off at a station in a neighbouring town while our local closed for engineering works I was hit by the sheer waste of opportunity, and the clearly once beautiful facade being left to rot.
The toilets closed, weeds growing up through the tracks and beautiful scalloped wooden edgings on the roof edge just peeling and rotting.
Dirty and unkempt, when it could be buzzing with a cafe, and shops that people would visit and spend money in even if they were not catching a train.
November 26, 2025
The BBC reaches a weekly average of 447 million – 453 million people worldwide, including about 91% of UK adults across television, radio, and online services. The BBC has a reputation for accurately reporting newsworthy items, despite the never ending “bias” campaigns undertaken by right-wing media
Approximately 100 million people in the U.S. visit the BBC website each month and the BBC’s news and television services are accessible to roughly 60 million pay-television households through channels like BBC America and BBC World News
Visits increased significantly during the U.S. election in November 2024, with Americans accounting for 55% of the growth on BBC.com. The reason is simple – voters wanted truthful, unbiased news reporting on election issues
Following the controversial Panorama program reporting Trump’s part in the Jan 6th insurrection, Trump has labelled the BBC “100% fake news” – for telling the truth
The reason the right-wing press constantly accuse BBC News of “bias” is because they cannot control editorial policy. Their recent furore has led to the resignation of an excellent DG, Tim Davie and a very good CEO Head of News Deborah Furness. Shame.
November 26, 2025
Wow, so many Americans watching ten BBCs fake news about T4ump, they have ADMITTED IT!
So Trump will probably w8n his case.
November 26, 2025
The BBC HAD a reputation for “accurately reporting newsworthy items”. But this has gone as a result of Bashir and his Princess Diana interview, their reporting of the Gaza conflict, Panorama’s and Newsnight’s editing trickery over Trump’s Jan 6th speech and the way that the BBC does not allow any alternative opinion at all to be broadcast on the possible causes of climate change which is a national disgrace in the eyes of western democracies.
November 26, 2025
For me it went when they favoured the IRA.
November 26, 2025
Same principle then as with Iran’s proxies and Israel now: terrorism good; law and order bad.
November 26, 2025
they must love you…taken in hook line and sinker.
November 26, 2025
Then take a look at rail’s illegitimate offspring, the tram. Birmingham and the West Midlands have squandered a fortune on this means of transport from 100 years ago. Not only does it tick all the inconvenience boxes described above, it also puts drivers out all the more as a result of roads being permanently closed, narrowed or converted to dual usage, with all the associated inconvenience of roadworks. Wasn’t the mantra “the man in Whitehall/the Town Hall knows best” supposed to have been permanently discredited?
November 26, 2025
DC :
Yes, I never understood the sense of a tram when trolley buses do not require the road to be dug up, are quieter and can negotiate obstructions in the road.
November 26, 2025
The Railtrack privatisation was botched by the Conservative government. All it created was a monopoly nominally in the private sector which was bound about by a mass of regulations and price controls, with no competition and a very limited number of customer operating companies. This model of privatisation doesn’t work at all – see also Thames Water. No country in the world runs a profit-making private rail network except Japan which used a different privatisation approach. Best to just nationalise the whole lot, network and operators.
Reply Network Rail, a nationalised monopoly has been running it and owning it for two decades
November 26, 2025
Not to mention the amount of empty buses I see polluting our towns.
Greens love them as well.
November 26, 2025
The United Soviet of Great Britain doesn’t care what we like or need Sir John. We are there to serve it, it doesn’t care what we what. The private car was one of the greatest liberators of the masses and is therefore a threat to be managed and supressed. Fuel duties, luxury car VED, parking charges, 20mph speed zones, EVs and of course congestion charges are all designed to limit our freedom. I’m sure another tax increase will be dropped on the driver again today.
November 26, 2025
With all this public subsidy, isn’t there a case for everyone to get a quota of free tickets every year? The tickets could be restricted so they aren’t valid on commuter routes during rush hour. This policy might encourage more rail use in general.
November 26, 2025
I find it ironic, to say the least, that the one part of the Rail service that always works easily and efficiently is the ‘Delay Repay’ facility for reimbursement when a train is late. I just wish I did not have to make so much use of it.
November 26, 2025
Why? it is all about themselves, the Metro well off Socialist. What is right for the Metro champagne socialists of London is right for the Country.
Today is not a cumulation of tax rises to pay for ego is just the beginning.
November 26, 2025
You rightly say:- “Rail managers see the government as their main customer, knowing that however much they lose they will be bailed out. They devote their time to Whitehall games to maximise their subsidy and capital take from national budgets, ignoring the needs of their passengers and the opportunity to sell them more by offering better service.”
Indeed and even worse with the NHS, at least with trains the passengers do pay about half their total revenue.
With the NHS, A&E and GPs they actually have an incentive to deter their “customers” as much as possible and spend their time demanding more money form government. As they cannot do it by cost they make it inconvenient with large waiting times, waiting lists for waiting lists, rationing and similar. A state supermarket funded in the same “free” at the point of use would have to do the same or it would always be empty.
One way to justify more money from government is to show just how little the tickets prices cover or for the NHS just how large you waiting lists are so the incentives are totally wrong. But even thatcher did little to sort out the NHS or indeed Education. The way to do it is to have fair competition between state and private for the provision of services. People who really cannot pay obviously may need help but the more that can be encouraged to pay for themselves with tax breaks or part payment vouchers the better for all.
Alas Starmer has the reverse agenda now with the appalling war on state schools making them pay four times over if they decline to use the state system. Pure vandalism that will cost more than it raises and do vast damage. Same with private healthcare with Insurance Tax replacing VAT!
If the price of train travel doubled so passengers paid the full cost and cars had no fuel duty or vat so fair competition between road and rail what would the true demand for train travel be? Perhaps 50% down? So which lines could still be profitable on a fair playing field with road transport in the UK? Circa 10% of them perhaps – are there any Dr Beeching types around?
November 26, 2025
Dr Beeching in the sixties.
“On one half of the whole route mileage of British Railways, there is only one 20th of the traffic… the real question is whether you, as owners of the railways, want us to go on running these services at very high cost when the demand for them has very largely disappeared.”
So what are the figures now? Also if trains had no ast subsidies and the huge tax advantages they get with no fuel duty, no VAT etc. what would the genuine demand be? With driverless cars and taxis coming soon they will make even less sense. Perhaps they should build more houses on the land make the rest in to cycle tracks, parking spaces or more roads for the driverless cars and taxis. Vehicles that can go door to door, with luggage, family, tools… at the time you wish too and more directly too.
For a trip from Birmingham Int. airport to near Cambridge recently I ended up having to going via London Kings Cross and then an 8 mile taxi trip (doubtless the taxi retuning empty so 16 miles total). So the journey must have been about 190 miles total rather than 85 miles direct by car or soon by a cheap driverless car or taxi perhaps?
November 26, 2025
This government ran out of steam and is desperately burning taxpayers’ money in the firebox to fuel it.
November 26, 2025
Totally agree I need to go to Yorkshire the train costs and the mucking about . Cost for two people to go in a car is less than one train ticket. And that’s without cost of cab to station
November 26, 2025
+1
November 26, 2025
A minor point on this subject which you and I disagree about. You cannot blame graffiti on the railway system. Yes it is a disgusting disgrace that makes the railways look like some third world dump.
The blame for that lies with the feckless, anti social youths that paint it. If the police and courts were to crackdown on these yobs, maybe we could end it. Or perhaps the government could get them into employment, instead of leaving them on the NEET scrapheap, with too much time on their hands.
November 26, 2025
Its even simpler than that. Stop the thieving of the aerosol cans from wide-open DIY stores; you dont suppose they pay for the paint ,do you? They nick spare nozzles as well….
November 26, 2025
That’s a big NO from me
I rarely use trains, but I can agree with all the points made by our host. Railways could be a bigger part of our lives if they were more attractive and less rigid. In many cases Rail is the only way to get somewhere if you don’t have a car. They need a vast improvement to make them the first choice of travel.
True, and very little money has been spent on new roads or improved routes since Blair told us his priorities were Education (indoctrination)
In my area the roads are frequently choc-a-block – all it takes is a breakdown on the M25 and all journeys by car take at least double time, if you are lucky. Still the authorities ignore the fact that if they upgraded the narrow country lanes in this area motorists would at least have viable alternative routes.
If the computer industry taught us one thing it is about resilience. No computer engineer would have designed our road systems without adding in extra capacity, extra roads to handle extra peak demands. A shame they weren’t consulted.
That famous quote from Prescott that successive governments have failed to achieve; Joined up infrastructure: roads, rail and buses. That’s another thing they have allowed to decay and with it our ability to travel economically, effectively.
November 26, 2025
Most of us have said NO with our feet.
November 26, 2025
on the pedals?
November 27, 2025
Ah yes, I well remember Mr Prescott’s bus/taxi lane on the M4 which reduced a 3 lane road to 2 lanes, which thank goodness was removed soon after he was.
November 26, 2025
The Tories privatised the railways. The argument in UK has always been primarily ideological and outcomes are influenced by the unions. Very few countries operate railways profitably. Japan, Switzerland and Hong Kong are three. Deutsche Bahn is said to be profitable but it does receive significant government support. It seems railways can be made profitable only in imited circumstance and they are by no means generally profitable. Perhaps UK should learn from these examples and run private railways only where the conditions are conducive to profitability. Unfortunately the British state is notoriously unproductive so whatever it runs will deliver poor service and waste.
November 26, 2025
My authority has a novel idea, they increasing the number of ‘park & ride’ at every rail station which decreasing the number of car parking spaces, introducing a hotel levy and more traffic wardens …..its a plan to force everyone onto trains
November 26, 2025
Yet again when you thought the make believe world of parliament couldn’t get any worse – Reeves blames Brexit for ‘damage’ to economy
In a pre-Budget video, Rachel Reeves blamed “a chaotic Brexit”, austerity and the pandemic for the state of the economy as she prepares to raise taxes.
A Budget that cuts waiting lists, that cuts our debt and borrowing, and cuts the cost of living.
That is my commitment to you. pic.twitter.com/bvqMciKyy5
— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) November 26, 2025
November 26, 2025
In our new Two Tier World of Justice – Protesting Farmers have been arrested in London after a last minuet change of the rules, seemingly stemming from the 2TK Empire. It appears because they were trying to save their livelihoods, and not campaign in support of Palestine or a Labour Government they are criminals.
Free Speech, the right to Protest all depend on the PM’s whims – that’s without getting to the situation of juries are now to be banned
November 26, 2025
Chancellor just announced EV pay per mile ……big brother gone to far
November 26, 2025
@glen cullen – that will be confirmed either by the spy in the car, or in a free society the year on year usage as reported when the MOT takes place. One is about spying and control the other is just a level playing field for tax.
That said as with most modern cars, EV’s are externally controlled over the air by the manufacturer. Some of it is part of an EU directive that this Government slavishly adherers to, for instance the Chinese Government can turn off all the UK EVs, with a flick of a switch in China. Conspiracy theory? Afraid not one we have EU Law and on the other Norway recurrently found out while evaluating the use of Chinese buses for their network they found China had remote access to all the controls. Even Tesla confirmed this and demonstrated their external control back in 2017 during Hurricane Irma
November 26, 2025
Personally I think that as the driver is now being removed from the control of a vehicle, it should be government/manufacturer that picks up all insurance claims. In the UK we will never know as trail by jury is deleted and its up-to politicly motivated judges to decree our future
November 26, 2025
A short-term “solution” to improve the railways would be for a new incoming administration to bribe the existing train drivers sufficiently for them to install driverless trains. The long-term solution, as we saw with the dockers in the 1960s and the printers in the 1980s, is to change the technology to something far cheaper and more flexible. Convert steel wheels on a steel track to rubber wheels on a tarmac track and run licensed individual private vehicles (coaches and lorries) running on this tarmac (road) track controlled by computer. These licensed coaches and lorries will of course be able to also run on the normal roads to provide the door-to-door flexibility needed.
November 26, 2025
@Original Richard – Sir John has previously suggested that the money just for HS2 spent on updating signalling and automation alone would probably lift capacity for every region beyond what the money soak that HS2 will ever achieve in passenger numbers
November 26, 2025
Off Topic.
Outrageous Budget Release (OBR) capped their previous regular shambles by leaking decisions made by Rachel from Complaints in her Budget. She really does have a complaint to deal with now.
November 26, 2025
Bet they still don’t abolish the OBR
November 26, 2025
It’s like a French farce.
My income tax increased by 2p because I have paid my allocation of NIC.
Lots of cutting income back to come as a result.
November 26, 2025
The only excuses for continuing with such an expensive rail network are congestion and emissions.
Commuting is something that technology will eventually kill off to a great extent and if the switch to EVs actually happens the idea of rail reducing emissions goes away.
The cost of rail is far greater than the benefits seen by the average taxpayer, most of whom never step onto a train, yet has to pay for them.
Looking at HS2, when Labour’s Lord Adonis first proposed it, the statistic that convinced me that it was a fool’s errand was the extraordinary one that it would cost every family in the country £3,000 yet less than 5% of those families would ever use it.
Given the escalation in costs, and the much- reduced extent of the service, that figure must now be at least £5,000-£6,000 for every family in the country.
We woud surely be better off to built more motorways but equip at least one lane with conductive recharging and run electric buses on them at very close distances using dynamic cruise control. These buses could drive into the centre of every small town along the route, allowing much more flexible travelling for passengers.
Given the enormous cost of electrifying the rail line from London to Bristol, there would be a huge saving overall.
November 26, 2025
Without any debate other than inside the group thinking left wing think tanks, without parliamentary assent, without putting it in the manifesto, the global communists have changed the relationship between the individual and the state where property is concerned. No longer is the Englishman’s home his castle. No longer are we a property owning democracy. They have established the principle, based on envy and spite, that they can seize arbitrary thousands from home owners regardless of their income. The public has been worryingly complacent about this. Do they think it won’t affect them so it is alright? With continued mass immigration and inflation it most certainly will affect them. And they will also be affected by the upset in the housing market which the stock exchange started to fret about straight away. And it will be some time before the Treasury starts raking in actual money from this.
November 26, 2025
Mrs Badenoch is doing very well in the House.
November 26, 2025
what I cannot believe is that the new GB rail is just network rail taking over the train operating companies, sheer madness as NR HQ is the most useless organisation Ihave ever seen
November 26, 2025
How can we say no.
Just like most decisions repeatedly incompetent successive government’s make that we don’t like or fiercely object to, we have little to no choice