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Comment by simplesleeper | Hacker News Reader

Britain runs 20% of Europe's rail journeys. It has the least accidents and deaths of passengers and staff. It is considered the most improved rail network year on year since 1997. It has some of the lowest fares if you book far in advance (and count the cost of subsidisation for foreign fares).

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"It is considered the most improved rail network year on year since 1997"

Improved in what way? Punctuality? Frequency of services? Affordability of tickets? Refurbishment of stations? New rolling stock? It's a claim that doesn't match the experiences of many passengers. What is the source?

"It has some of the lowest fares if you book far in advance"

Even if this is true, it's little consolation for the vast majority of passengers who need to commute daily. The reality is that, for most passengers, rail in the UK is expensive.

Here is a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017: UK vs Continental Europe:

- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387

- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292

- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85

- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75

Source: https://www.tuc.org.uk/industrial-issues/transport-policy/uk...

As a point of reference from the US:

Dublin/Pleasanton to San Francisco - Embarcadero (35 miles): $6.80 each way, which works out to ~£204 per month for 40 trips.

How many decades did it take to electrify Europe's busiest line, the West Coast Main Line? Did it become modern? No. It used last generation signalling such that when we had 125mph HST they were limited to 80 and 100, when we bought back BR's APT as 150mph Pendolino they were limited to 1980s HST speeds as the tracks were electrified and upgraded to 125mph. In 2010.

The "negotiations" between train operators wanting better rolling stock, railtrack (government), station upgrades and the inconvenient length of franchises made the whole process suitable for a Laurel and Hardy or Buster Keaton movie.

Little wonder they're most improved, they gave themselves so much scope...

No idea if these statistics reflect reality or are just cherry picked, but one of the problems that England has is attempting to cram a everyone into the only city attracts top businesses and talent and then ship them out again. Daily.

Germany for example has multiple cities with over 1 in million population that are attractive for business and distribute resources and infrastructure. England has London with around ~7 million in population then Birmingham at 0.9.

The greater Manchester area has a population of 2.5 million.

Do you have any sources where I can read more about this? I find it surprising

The Office of Rail and Road publish annual safety statistics for UK rail. Here is a link to the 2019 edition. The page linked states: "2018-19 is the twelfth year in a row with no passenger fatalities as a result of a train accident."

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/health-and-safety/r...

The European Union Agency for Railways (ERAIL) collects statistics for EU countries:

https://erail.era.europa.eu/safety-indicators.aspx

> It has the least accidents and deaths of passengers and staff.

I think this is largely only an effect of a lot of rails being third rail and as a result there are fewer crossings.

Lots of rail is third rail... in London. The entire rest of the country uses overhead lines.

We have been phasing out level crossings wherever possible though.

South coast was still third rail, last I checked. Has Wales been upgraded since I left? Not that it matters if the power supply affects the number of crossings and those crossings are supposed to be the cause of accidents, new crossings will be rarely built.

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