# Fate of rail passenger service in various countries



## George Harris (Sep 30, 2022)

Bob Dylan said:


> I rode this Train several times to Laredo to catch the Aztec Eagle to Mexico City!


To the best of my knowledge, ALL Mexican passenger trains are gone and have been for quite a few years. Please correct me if I am wrong, along with information about whatever they are running now.


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## Bob Dylan (Sep 30, 2022)

TransitTyrant said:


> Wouldn’t all these proposals for long distance trains fall under the FRA study and not the corridor ID?


Currently there are only 2 Passenger Trains still running in Mexico, The Tequila Express from Guadalajara to Tequila,Jalisco and The Copper Canyon Train, both Tourist Trains.( Both Privately owned)

The President of Mexico has a plan to restart a Passenger Train in the Yucatan for Tourists, and also a High Speed Corridor Route between Mexico City and Queretero.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Oct 3, 2022)

George Harris said:


> To the best of my knowledge, ALL Mexican passenger trains are gone and have been for quite a few years. Please correct me if I am wrong, along with information about whatever they are running now.


As Bob Dylan noted above all regular passenger trains except the tourist trains are gone. I believe this was one of the conditions of the privatization of NdeM that there would be no "Mextrak".

I do believe there is a suburban commuter line out of Mexico City also.


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## jis (Oct 3, 2022)

Whenever a country was driven by "American" transportation experts they tended to lose rail passenger service, and once they shed those shackles their rail passenger service tended to improve. Witness Pakistan as exhibit number one of this phenomenon. Maybe Mexico can get past its past "American" transportation experts. And for that matter it is only recently that the US Possibly has managed to be on the verge of recovering from its own "American" transportation experts.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Oct 3, 2022)

jis said:


> Whenever a country was driven by "American" transportation experts they tended to lose rail passenger service, and once they shed those shackles their rail passenger service tended to improve. Witness Pakistan as exhibit number one of this phenomenon. Maybe Mexico can get past its past "American" transportation experts. And for that matter it is only recently that the US Possibly has managed to be on the verge of recovering from its own "American" transportation experts.


Although in the case of Mexico, from what I understand the passenger trains were pretty run down in the later years whereas you had intercity buses that were much more comfortable and reliable (based on what I have heard, not based on personal experience). Not sure whether this was by design due to following American transportation "experts" or just due to economics, the same lack of profitability of rail travel that killed it in the US.


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## jis (Oct 3, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Although in the case of Mexico, from what I understand the passenger trains were pretty run down in the later years whereas you had intercity buses that were much more comfortable and reliable (based on what I have heard, not based on personal experience). Not sure whether this was by design due to following American transportation "experts" or just due to economics, the same lack of profitability of rail travel that killed it in the US.


The whole business about "profitability" is the great American transportation expertise. But that is a matter to be discussed in a different thread. But in general, what is profitable and what is not is not ordained by the almighty. It is determined by human being by their choice about what they choose to socialize and capitalize in what way. In other words one decides what one wants to appear to be profitable and what not, to quite an extent. Again, compare what happened in India vs. what happened in Pakistan regarding passenger rail to see how two systems starting from essentially the same point went in opposite directions.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 3, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Although in the case of Mexico, from what I understand the passenger trains were pretty run down in the later years whereas you had intercity buses that were much more comfortable and reliable (based on what I have heard, not based on personal experience). Not sure whether this was by design due to following American transportation "experts" or just due to economics, the same lack of profitability of rail travel that killed it in the US.


You are correct, Mexican Passenger Trains had become really rundown and were neglected by N de M, sort of what SP did in the run em off days!

Mexican " Delujo" Buses are some of the Best in the World, a far cry from the days of the 2nd Class and "Chicken Buses" back in the day!


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## Metra Electric Rider (Oct 3, 2022)

When I was in Mexico City, maybe three/four years ago (in the before times) there were murals/billboards in the airport for the planned high-speed service and it's my understanding that there are a couple commuter lines around CDMX in the works.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Oct 3, 2022)

jis said:


> But in general, what is profitable and what is not is not ordained by the almighty. It is determined by human being by their choice about what they choose to socialize and capitalize in what way. In other words one decides what one wants to appear to be profitable and what not, to quite an extent.


It seems to be a general rule that for passenger travel one cannot generally charge enough to make the service cover its costs plus provide income for capital expenditures. In the past private railroads often accepted the fact their luxurious trains lost money because they considered them part of the company image. Today government runs systems accept that train travel is a social good and worth being subsidized. It is true that in countries following the American model, subsidizing of private auto transportation is considered higher priority than other modes and that creates pressure on the other modes to be priced competitive with the perceived out of pocket costs of driving ( basically gas and tolls) and therefore the need to be highly subsidized. The UK seems to be struggling with this - rail and transit fares are priced high to try to break even, on the other hand petrol is expensive and congestion charges added to artificially raise the cost of those that choose to drive. Plus an inadequate road system - unlike the US in many cases it is faster to use the train than to drive due to congestion.


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## Brian Battuello (Oct 4, 2022)

Excellent summary, thanks.


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## jis (Oct 4, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> It seems to be a general rule that for passenger travel one cannot generally charge enough to make the service cover its costs plus provide income for capital expenditures. In the past private railroads often accepted the fact their luxurious trains lost money because they considered them part of the company image. Today government runs systems accept that train travel is a social good and worth being subsidized. It is true that in countries following the American model, subsidizing of private auto transportation is considered higher priority than other modes and that creates pressure on the other modes to be priced competitive with the perceived out of pocket costs of driving ( basically gas and tolls) and therefore the need to be highly subsidized. The UK seems to be struggling with this - rail and transit fares are priced high to try to break even, on the other hand petrol is expensive and congestion charges added to artificially raise the cost of those that choose to drive. Plus an inadequate road system - unlike the US in many cases it is faster to use the train than to drive due to congestion.


True that. One saving grace for UK is that in spite of Beeching UK did not manage to almost totally gut its passenger rail system which has been successfully achieved across North America, except in small pockets of high urbanization.


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## cirdan (Oct 4, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Although in the case of Mexico, from what I understand the passenger trains were pretty run down in the later years whereas you had intercity buses that were much more comfortable and reliable (based on what I have heard, not based on personal experience). Not sure whether this was by design due to following American transportation "experts" or just due to economics, the same lack of profitability of rail travel that killed it in the US.


The same can be said for many countries including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay etc which still retain some residual passenger trains but in which the competing bus routes are often both faster and more comfortable, thanks to decades of insufficient investment in rail, and in some cases also incompetent management, but essentially due to governments seeing their priorities elsewhere than passenger rail.


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## cirdan (Oct 4, 2022)

jis said:


> True that. One saving grace for UK is that in spite of Beeching UK did not manage to almost totally gut its passenger rail system which has been successfully achieved across North America, except in small pockets of high urbanization.



I think Beeching would never have been able to totally gut the UK system as the UK rail system never fell into the type of marginal insignificant role that the US system outside of the NEC did. Even in the darkest years, there was a considerable and consistent system-wide ridership on BR that could not easily have been absorbed by the roads. In many cases rail was also considerably faster and more comfortable than driving, and large cities, especially London, were even then heavily afflicted by congestion meaning that closing the commuter lines was simply unthinkable.

Beeching reduced the system mileage of BR by about half, but reduced passenger miles by only a fraction of that. Many of the lines he closed were extremely marginal or indeed duplications of other routes and would sooner or later have had to close anyway. France and Germany have seen their systems shrink by a similar amount (if not more) but over a longer period of time. So what Beeching essentially did was apply a shock therapy that permitted BR to concentrate on the routes where it mattered. It was of course a huge and regrettable waste that this came so shortly after the modernization plan with lots of near new equipment becoming surplus and having to be written off.

In terms of the freight network, Beeching reduced this by more than the passenger network, but also managed to reorganize the rather backward and slow system and create profitable corridors, as well as accelerate the introduction of things like intermodal services.


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## jiml (Oct 4, 2022)

In all my years of studying British rail that's the most articulate defence of Beeching I've ever read.


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## jis (Oct 4, 2022)

I think the bottom line was that in Europe and in many parts of Asia there was a social consensus about the importance of passenger rail. American exceptionalism viewed that as backward thinking as they thought they had arrived in an alternate Nirvana. Ironically Europe at least proceeded to develop both their rail and road networks where America fell behind over time, as far as passenger rail was concerned, while most western European countries did not really fall behind in road development.


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## John Webb (Oct 4, 2022)

As I understand it, when the conservative government under Fox took over, it de-nationalized the NdeM and sold off chunks of it to American railroads (Kansas City Southern). Technicaly the owners are still under an obligation to provide passenger service or face a fine. The American owners (with a legal whitewash of Mexican ownership) choose to simply continue to pay the fine. Simply a cost of doing business to them.

Too bad for the Mexican people. As poorly managed as it was, at least the NdeM provided inexpensive transportation to Mexico's poor. Not something important to the new owners.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 4, 2022)

John Webb said:


> As I understand it, when the conservative government under Fox took over, it de-nationalized the NdeM and sold off chunks of it to American railroads (Kansas City Southern). Technicaly the owners are still under an obligation to provide passenger service or face a fine. The American owners (with a legal whitewash of Mexican ownership) choose to simply continue to pay the fine. Simply a cost of doing business to them.
> 
> Too bad for the Mexican people. As poorly managed as it was, at least the NdeM provided inexpensive transportation to Mexico's poor. Not something important to the new owners.


In Mexico, Plans for New ________ are Announced with Great Fanfare by the Government , then the Money Disappears into Connected Peoples Pockets and in Six Years ( the Presidential Term Limit) the New President starts his Grift!

Best example was the Proposed New Airport for Mexico City that never got off the ground!( literally and figuratively)


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## Metra Electric Rider (Oct 4, 2022)

Bob Dylan said:


> Best example was the Proposed New Airport for Mexico City that never got off the ground!( literally and figuratively)



They got the basic earthworks done - you can see it from the air when you fly in/out - truly a massive cancelled project.


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## Willbridge (Oct 4, 2022)

John Webb said:


> As I understand it, when the conservative government under Fox took over, it de-nationalized the NdeM and sold off chunks of it to American railroads (Kansas City Southern). Technicaly the owners are still under an obligation to provide passenger service or face a fine. The American owners (with a legal whitewash of Mexican ownership) choose to simply continue to pay the fine. Simply a cost of doing business to them.
> 
> Too bad for the Mexican people. As poorly managed as it was, at least the NdeM provided inexpensive transportation to Mexico's poor. Not something important to the new owners.


People who know more about it than I do have suggested that the focus on inexpensive transport for the poor was one of the problems. That handed coach travel to the "luxury" buses.

In 1974 as an example, the First-Class Coach fare from Neuvo Laredo to Mexico City was $11.14. By comparison Albany->Boston was $11.75.

The Amtrak tariff back then showed US$ fares radiating from Ciudad Juarez, as well. That was the gateway sold by ex-SP agents on the West Coast.


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## JWM (Oct 4, 2022)

Compare British rail fares to German and you'll find the former sometimes a lot more. Still, the service is pretty good and the overnight "Caledonian Sleeper" and its "Club Car" (let's hear it for smoked salmon) are great.


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## Willbridge (Oct 4, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I think Beeching would never have been able to totally gut the UK system as the UK rail system never fell into the type of marginal insignificant role that the US system outside of the NEC did. Even in the darkest years, there was a considerable and consistent system-wide ridership on BR that could not easily have been absorbed by the roads. In many cases rail was also considerably faster and more comfortable than driving, and large cities, especially London, were even then heavily afflicted by congestion meaning that closing the commuter lines was simply unthinkable.
> 
> Beeching reduced the system mileage of BR by about half, but reduced passenger miles by only a fraction of that. Many of the lines he closed were extremely marginal or indeed duplications of other routes and would sooner or later have had to close anyway. France and Germany have seen their systems shrink by a similar amount (if not more) but over a longer period of time. So what Beeching essentially did was apply a shock therapy that permitted BR to concentrate on the routes where it mattered. It was of course a huge and regrettable waste that this came so shortly after the modernization plan with lots of near new equipment becoming surplus and having to be written off.
> 
> In terms of the freight network, Beeching reduced this by more than the passenger network, but also managed to reorganize the rather backward and slow system and create profitable corridors, as well as accelerate the introduction of things like intermodal services.


I think the slower approach by France and Germany let them better analyze the cutbacks, find alternative operators, etc.


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## jpakala (Oct 4, 2022)

I wonder how all this would be if, for example, the airlines had to: 1) build & maintain all the airports, 2) pay taxes on it all like railroads, and 3) pay the personnel, from air traffic controllers to custodians. Or let the waterborne carriers build & maintain all the ports, pay taxes on it all, pay for all the dredging, and build & maintain all the locks & dams.


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## George Harris (Oct 5, 2022)

One issue in Mexico is historically most of their passenger equipment was old US equipment bought from the US railroad companies at little more than scrap prices and in near scrap in condition.


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## cirdan (Oct 7, 2022)

George Harris said:


> One issue in Mexico is historically most of their passenger equipment was old US equipment bought from the US railroad companies at little more than scrap prices and in near scrap in condition.


This is not unique to Mexico.

Many African countries for example use a lot of second-hand European (especially French) equipment and in some cases keep it running with minimum maintenance. I believe Argentina, Chile and Egypt have some ex-Spanish equipment (some of it extensively rebuilt and modernized). You can find second hand German trains in places like Iran and in several Balkan countries.

(just to name a few examples)

I guess many of these systems would not be able to afford new equipment. Second hand equipment at near scrap prices is thus their lifeline and is what keeps these railroads afloat. Although that is changing somewhat with Chinese manufacturers offering new trains at a substantially lower cost.


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## Maverickstation (Oct 7, 2022)

Yes, there is a suburban line serving Mexico City. The plan was/is to have multiple lines, but for the moment only 1 line is in service.









Tren Suburbano - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## jis (Oct 7, 2022)

cirdan said:


> This is not unique to Mexico.
> 
> Many African countries for example use a lot of second-hand European (especially French) equipment and in some cases keep it running with minimum maintenance. I believe Argentina, Chile and Egypt have some ex-Spanish equipment (some of it extensively rebuilt and modernized). You can find second hand German trains in places like Iran and in several Balkan countries.
> 
> ...


Iran actually manufactures some of its own rolling stock and even exports them. For example Pakistan Railway runs a bunch of Iranian imports.

China is not the only player in the rolling stock market outside of the western manufacturers. There are countries like Indonesia, Iran and even India and such doing brisk business in addition to China, South Korea and Japan. Bangladesh for example is swimming in Indonesian and Indian manufactured passenger cars both air-conditioned and non air-conditioned.


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## cirdan (Oct 7, 2022)

jis said:


> Iran actually manufactures some its own rolling stock and even exports them.
> 
> China is not the only player in the rolling stock market outside of the western manufacturers. There are countries like Indonesia, Iran and even India and such doing brisk business in addition to China, South Korea and Japan.


There are lots of niche rolling stock manufacturers, and in fact quite a few not so niche but quite big ones who we just generally don't get to hear very much about if we are not specifically following developments in the countries concerned. Interesting stuff happening in South Africa too I have heard for example. In many countries there is also an astounding engineering capability that can remanufacture, modernize and improve second hand equipment they procure, and this knowledge base could possibly over time evolve into manufacturing from scratch. There are plenty more manufacturers and potential manufacturers than a one-sided look at the somewhat consolidated western market might suggest.

But I guess what I was trying to say that second hand equipment is not necessarily a bad thing or a sign that a railroad is on its last legs, but that its procurement can in some cases be a totally rational decision and be used to provide a totally adequate service.


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## jis (Oct 7, 2022)

Oh yeah. Specially for countries with less than spectacular rail budgets second hand can be the mainstay. But there are many countries which have healthy new rolling stock manufacturing ability and others who do not do second hand even though they don’t manufacture e.g. Bangladesh imports from Indonesia, India and China.

Of course Indian manufacturers taken together are nothing to sneeze at. Over 6000 cars and 400+ locos a year is pretty respectable I’d say. Of course the locos are more electric than diesel and many of the cars are part of EMU or DMU sets.


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## JontyMort (Oct 8, 2022)

jiml said:


> In all my years of studying British rail that's the most articulate defence of Beeching I've ever read.


To be fair to Beeching, it should also be said that the report, as well as advising closure of unprofitable and/or sparsely-used routes, also stipulated investment in the remainder. Needless to say, the governments of the day were much more willing to forget that part.


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## jiml (Oct 8, 2022)

JontyMort said:


> To be fair to Beeching, it should also be said that the report, as well as advising closure of unprofitable and/or sparsely-used routes, also stipulated investment in the remainder. Needless to say, the governments of the day were much more willing to forget that part.


Canada used a similar model.


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## Willbridge (Oct 9, 2022)

Edmonton's trolley coach fleet included some of British Columbia Electric's original CCF Brills. That turned out to be an important piece of trivia when a judge ruled that "No Smoking" signs must have the correct municipal by-law number. No one had noticed that the by-law quoted in the ex-BCE Brills was the Vancouver number. As there had been no outbreak of smoking on those specific used buses we let them go to the scrapyard with their BCE interiors unrenovated.

The life of these T-44's stretched from 1947 to 1962 in BC and from then till the Commonwealth Games ended in 1978. The maintenance cost per mile was one-tenth of the mid-1950's GMC Diesels retained into 1978.


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## Anderson (Oct 9, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I think Beeching would never have been able to totally gut the UK system as the UK rail system never fell into the type of marginal insignificant role that the US system outside of the NEC did. Even in the darkest years, there was a considerable and consistent system-wide ridership on BR that could not easily have been absorbed by the roads. In many cases rail was also considerably faster and more comfortable than driving, and large cities, especially London, were even then heavily afflicted by congestion meaning that closing the commuter lines was simply unthinkable.
> 
> Beeching reduced the system mileage of BR by about half, but reduced passenger miles by only a fraction of that. Many of the lines he closed were extremely marginal or indeed duplications of other routes and would sooner or later have had to close anyway. France and Germany have seen their systems shrink by a similar amount (if not more) but over a longer period of time. So what Beeching essentially did was apply a shock therapy that permitted BR to concentrate on the routes where it mattered. It was of course a huge and regrettable waste that this came so shortly after the modernization plan with lots of near new equipment becoming surplus and having to be written off.
> 
> In terms of the freight network, Beeching reduced this by more than the passenger network, but also managed to reorganize the rather backward and slow system and create profitable corridors, as well as accelerate the introduction of things like intermodal services.


One other thing in the UK is that the "commuter network" around London covers a non-trivial portion of the country, so there was only so far that you _could_ cut the network before serious practical issues with getting cars into downtown would have been an issue. One way to think about it is that if you had a version of the US that was only north of the Potomac River, you'd probably have a decent network in the region (almost all trains being day trains) simply because the basic networks needed for NYC, Philly, Boston, and DC-Baltimore are not insubstantial.


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## cirdan (Oct 10, 2022)

JontyMort said:


> To be fair to Beeching, it should also be said that the report, as well as advising closure of unprofitable and/or sparsely-used routes, also stipulated investment in the remainder. Needless to say, the governments of the day were much more willing to forget that part.


To be fair, the modernization plan was a considerable investment and almost all of it came from the government.

The problem was that it was badly thought through, poorly managed and failed to substantially improve the attractivity of the railroad in many areas.

But let's not forget that the 1960s to early 1970s saw the electrification of the West Coast Main Line as well as several other lines and also a massive expansion of electrification in third rail territory in the south of England. There has not been a comparable electrification push to this today, even though today one would think the arguments for it are much harder to ignore.

One massive mistake that Beeching made was that none of the abandoned railroad ROW was ever safeguarded or railbanked.

In the 50 years that have passed since then there have been huge demographic changes and places that were insignificant back then have significant populations now and there are quite a few lost routes whose reinstatement would make sense, but is made uneconomical because the original ROW can no longer be used, at least not without a lot of eminent domain.

Then there are also routes such as Didcot - Newbury - Southampton that don't serve any noteworthy traffic in their own right (which is why it was closed) but would today provide a much needed diversionary route to keep freight away from the constrained passenger junctions at Reading and Basingstoke. Especially when you consider that the rail industry is saying that the reason that they aren't running more freight trains out of Southampton docks is that there isn't route capacity.


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## JontyMort (Oct 10, 2022)

cirdan said:


> Then there are also routes such as Didcot - Newbury - Southampton that don't serve any noteworthy traffic in their own right (which is why it was closed) but would today provide a much needed diversionary route to keep freight away from the constrained passenger junctions at Reading and Basingstoke. Especially when you consider that the rail industry is saying that the reason that they aren't running more freight trains out of Southampton docks is that there isn't route capacity.


Reading isn’t actually too bad now. The recent rebuild provided grade separation on the west curve to the slow* lines (the four-track main is paired by use).

*Slow is relative here - the limit is 100 mph between Reading and Didcot. This minimises the inconvenience for Cross-Country, whose trains can use the slows and then untangle themselves in the (non-conflicting) reversal at Reading.

But - as you say - Basingstoke and, to a lesser extent, Didcot are seriously constrained for traffic from Southampton to the north. Those constraints would have applied in spades at Newbury and Didcot if the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton still existed.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Oct 11, 2022)

JWM said:


> Compare British rail fares to German and you'll find the former sometimes a lot more. Still, the service is pretty good and the overnight "Caledonian Sleeper" and its "Club Car" (let's hear it for smoked salmon) are great.


I think at least part of the reason for high UK fares is the "privatisation" scheme with separate train operating companies that lease trainsets from rolling stock companies and pay Network Rail for access, the national organization that owns the infrastructure. All of these various layers (except Network Rail) are private companies that have to make a profit so that gets passed on to the users.


jpakala said:


> I wonder how all this would be if, for example, the airlines had to: 1) build & maintain all the airports, 2) pay taxes on it all like railroads, and 3) pay the personnel, from air traffic controllers to custodians. Or let the waterborne carriers build & maintain all the ports, pay taxes on it all, pay for all the dredging, and build & maintain all the locks & dams.


This is complicated by the fact that unlike rail, the air traffic infrastructure also handles military and private owner aircraft, the latter being mostly well to do and with some political clout, which provides justification for government involvement.


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## cirdan (Oct 11, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> I think at least part of the reason for high UK fares is the "privatisation" scheme with separate train operating companies that lease trainsets from rolling stock companies and pay Network Rail for access, the national organization that owns the infrastructure. All of these various layers (except Network Rail) are private companies that have to make a profit so that gets passed on to the users.


I don't believe this is the case as Britain already had Europe's highest fares before privatization.

I am unable to offer a full explanation of why this is, but I think definitely many European countries subsidize their systems more generously. So what people don't pay through the farebox they pay through the taxman.

Also, fares are actually quite difficult to compare on a one to one basis as for example the privatized UK system has been good at doing yield management and is offering lots of attractive fares to fill empty seats during times of low occupancy. So what you pay as a tourist or a pensioner maybe, when you can be flexible about when you travel, does not at all reflect what a commuter has to pay, who does not have that choice. Germany and France have been moving more in this direction too recently. So British fares can if you are lucky be extremely cheap but if you are unlucky be very expensive.


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## JontyMort (Oct 11, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I don't believe this is the case as Britain already had Europe's highest fares before privatization.
> 
> I am unable to offer a full explanation of why this is, but I think definitely many European countries subsidize their systems more generously. So what people don't pay through the farebox they pay through the taxman.
> 
> Also, fares are actually quite difficult to compare on a one to one basis as for example the privatized UK system has been good at doing yield management and is offering lots of attractive fares to fill empty seats during times of low occupancy. So what you pay as a tourist or a pensioner maybe, when you can be flexible about when you travel, does not at all reflect what a commuter has to pay, who does not have that choice. Germany and France have been moving more in this direction too recently. So British fares can if you are lucky be extremely cheap but if you are unlucky be very expensive.


I agree, particularly about your last sentence. Even for commuters, the season ticket discount is/was significant on some lines. Pre-pandemic, my Worcester-Birmingham annual fare was £1,250 - not bad considering I expected to make the return journey (about 25 miles each way) 220-odd times in a year. Hybrid working messes this up to an extent, but some companies are experimenting with carnet-style discounting.

For leisure travel, it varies between very reasonable and eye-wateringly expensive. Even then, it would be interesting to know how many people on a given train are actually travelling on the most expensive “walk-up” fare. Very few, I suspect.


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