Railway Technical Web Pages

Road to rail?

Of the total internal journeys made in Britain, 1.5% are by air, 8% by rail and the rest by road. Almost everyone thinks transferring traffic from road to rail is a good idea. It will reduce road congestion and carbon emissions, they say. BUT, in reality, it's not as easy as that. If just 2% of road traffic transferred to rail, rail capacity would have to increase by 25%. Since the railways can barely cope with the traffic they have now, huge amounts of investment would have to be put into the railway network to achieve this level of change.

British Transport Mode Use - 1952 to 2008

Source: Department for Transport

The level of rail travel has risen somewhat since 1952 but the number of road journeys has gone up by 400%.

Rail Passenger Journeys in the UK - 1987 to 2011

Source: ORR

Passenger journeys in Britain are recovering and, following a slowdown at the beginning of the recession, are continuing to grow at a fast rate. More investment in the rail network is urgently needed if overcrowding is to be contained.

Cost of Travel in the UK - 1999 to 2009

Source: Department for Transport

This shows how the cost of buying a car has fallen against disposable income. Even the all-up cost of running a car has only risen by 12% since 1999, less than all modes of public transport.

UK Railway Data Table

A selection of the available data on UK railways, updated as far as possible to Feb 2011.

Item	Statistic	Comments
Route kms 2010	15,777
Route kms 1961	28,100
Track Miles	21,000
Stations	2,516
Platform faces	5,736
Trains	4,000
Services run	20,000/weekday	This is 16% increase from 1995 to 2009
Operating Staff	5,500
Signal Boxes	1,100
Level (at grade) Crossings	7,000
Level (at grade) Crossing Deaths	13 (2009)	This is low by world standards
Turnouts	19,000
Signals	17,000
Tunnels	674
Overbridges	15,000
Undeerbridges	20,000
Viaducts	2,000
Cuttings	3,000
Embankments	3,000
Electrified areas	40% of total
Electrically operated traffic	60% of total
25kV AC electrified track	7,578 single track kms
AC feeder stations	73
DC electrified track	4,285 single track kms
DC sub-stations	430
Network rail property ownership	4th largest in UK
Listed buildings owned	Cost £50 million/year
Persons visiting stations	1.75 million/year	65% of all rail trips start or finish in London
Passenger journeys per day	2.75 million	In the last 10 years passenger kilometres have risen 36%
Passenger journeys in 2010	1.32 billion	Passenger kilometres were 33.3 billion
Railcards Sold	1.9 million	82% of journeys are made on discounted tickets
Freight carried	400,000 tonnes/day
Energy usage	1 car uses 50% of the energy of a whole High Speed Train
Average age of Rolling Stock 2009	15 years
Cost of new rolling stock ordered since 1996	£4.5 billion	4,700 new vehicles at almost £1 million each
Fuel range of UK HST	1,400 miles

Sources: Network Rail, ATOC, SRA