Future rail - still building for the wrong reality?

[Nimbus]

It was instructive to attend meetings recently, where discussion of future rail 'growth' and 'development' projects, already being planned for the 2030-40 period, coincided with the release of official figures showing a continued decline in rail-freight figures and a surprising ( to some ) significant drop in short-distance rail commuting, with long-distance rail passenger travel remaining about the same. The drop in commuting should not have come as a surprise to those who are paid to know - the fact that it did ( growth down from 5% annually, to 1% ) is very worrying, as the number is likely to increase very quickly - and the number of people travelling by rail at all may collapse in certain areas within 15 years. It is very difficult to discover detailed official reasons for route and development decisions - what are the economic and social predictions such figures are based upon? Who made the predictions is even more obscure. However, anybody with a foot in the real world of business knows that massive change is already under way and likely to accelerate. The fact that the railway is still planning upgrades and expansions to be built some 20 years' ahead, when we shall be living in a very different world compared to today, appears foolhardy and very badly advised.

I foresee three major elements contributing to near-future rail decline -

1) Collapse of the commuting cash-cow. The recent decline in commuting has been explained, quite rightly, by the use of new personal technologies. On-line business, including meetings, is increasingly removing the need - and cost - of commuting from home into a nearby city. This is happening already and is likely to increase as the world of the 'physical office' declines. Commuting has historically been the railway's cash-cow. That may now be drying up.

2) Collapse of rail-freight. Rail freight is at present in a terrible state. Built around the movement of coal and steel, these two related industries have vanished almost overnight. Today, apart from a small amount of aggregates, the shipping of containers for little profit is all that remains. For political reasons, certain traffic has been sponsored at up to £130 per container to take it off the roads, but this subsidy is now being progressively withdrawn, leaving certain container traffic to run at a potential loss, ( not something that any shareholder would stand for ), so the demise of certain freight companies may not be at all fanciful. Electric lorries, whether self-driving or not, plus delivery drones will also have a huge effect. Personally I think, from the evidence, that self-driving vehicles are still some way off, but this does not reduce the effect of the other changes.

3) [b]The rise of AI. This is perhaps the major near-future cultural shift that could / is already having a major effect on the use of railways. The change may be even more profound than that of the original Industrial Revolution and take place in a much shorter time. This will affect people and society, with knock-on changes to the rail network. The Welsh Government has recently stated that it expects up to one third of its working population to have been displaced by AI within twelve years. Staggering figures, but based on careful analysis. Similar reductions in workforce, albeit at a lesser rate, are expected elsewhere in Britain. There is going to be a large and permanent population of displaced persons, on low or no income, from now on. This will become the new normal. These people will have no economic input into society and are unlikely to want to travel by train or to buy products shipped around in containers. Rail usership may fall by huge amounts.

In light of the above likely changes, it must be a serious question as to whether the present rail network is in fact required into the future and therefore whether vast sums of public money are in fact now being wasted on continued upgrades, when a care and maintenance regime is more realistic for vast parts of the network, ahead of them falling out of use. ( Perhaps this is already happening in Wales, with all rail development having been axed? )

This is not meant to be a bleak discussion point, but is simply based on a reading of the real situation on the ground and asking a few unsettling questions!

Any thoughts?