Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2010-06-06 07:07:24 - Graham Ellis
"This is the best time to drive" says the cabbie who brought me to the ferry port in Portsmouth, from where I'm posting early this Sunday morning. I'm off to train in Germany this week, and I'm traveling overland, by public transport. Something of an experiment; I'll be writing up as I go.
Yesterday - home to Cosham where I stayed overnight with good friends (thank you for putting me up). Tonight .. I don't know exactly where I'll be, save that I'm on the 08:30 boat, and I have an "InterRail" ticket with two days to get to Numerberg. I'll post as I can.
We were talking last night about the cuts imposed by the new government on the rail industry - the 1300 new carriages not happening, then looking to tighten budgets which already threatens rural railways. Yet at the same time there's increasing overcrowding - here and now - on many lines. A real picture when a lot of sensible things could be done, but we know and fear that a lot of rather unsensible things could be done. There's only a small saving that can be made by reducing services but maintaining infrastructure anyway - so the fear is that we may be looking at proposals for a new Beeching or Serpell - and indeed the boss of Network Rail has hinted at this, pointing at the green (rural) lines on his route maps. And if you close down these green lines, instead of scrapping the relatively small number of 30 year old trains that you release, you can use that stock to bolster other services which have been growing in double figures rather than at the 1% to 2% forecast. It's a depressing scene that's set to be a real issue from Xxxx to Xxxxxxxx (but I am not going to fill in the Xxxx es). Railway finances (in a very odd system that we have) are one thing - the effect on areas / communities served are quite another, and don't effect the Train Operating Companys, nor Network Rail's , bottom line.