Memorandum from Transport-watch UK (TS
30)
Transport-Watch is an independent association
not connected with any business or political party funded by a
trust and dedicated to making the best use of land already committed
to transport in the interests of the Community as a whole.
TRAVELLING WITHOUT
FEAR
This inquiry is concerned with the terrorist
threat to our transport Systems. Our concern is to illustrate
that rail is uniquely exposed not only to acts of terrorism but
too many relatively trivial events.
CHILD VANDALISM
The writer recalls that some 50 years ago he
heard he could obtain an extremely flat and excitingly wide old
penny piece by placing an ordinary one on a railway line. So he
did. When the front bogy of the dashing steam train hit the penny
the boggy leapt inches clear of the rails, miraculously crashing
back without derailing the train. The author remembers to this
day the terrified faces of the engine crew glaring back. What
would have happened had today's relatively fat one-pound coin
been available is too dreadful to contemplate. In contrast who
ever heard of a major road accident being risked by a penny piece.
Otherwise a rope thrown over a catenery by children or others
may short circuit and disable a complete railway line for hours
let alone the consequences of rubbish tipped from a bridge onto
the line below.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
In addition to the wrong sort of snow, leaves
on the line and unduly hot weather rail also has to contend with
the wrong sort of bird's nest. At any rate according to the Telegraph,
reported in the New Civil Engineer of 21 June 2001 "Railtrack
has placed plastic hawks close to its rail lines to prevent birds
nesting on the gantries. The nests come loose and fall onto wires
causing track short circuits and train delays." On the Monday
after a weekend of flooding in November 2000 the entire rail network
came to a virtual standstill. On the following Tuesday the Today
programme interviewed a major road haulier. He said that, despite
the conditions, his organisation had reached virtually all its
customers. No doubt there was disruption on the road network but
probably 95% of movement was unaffected compared with a completely
paralysed rail system. This year end rail services have again
been nearly paralysed by the weather.
ACCIDENTS
An accident such as Hatfield or Ladbrook Grove
(Paddington) disrupts the rail systems for weeks, if not months.
On a relatively small scale, a trivial land slip on 4 November
closed the West Coast Mainline north of Preston for four days,
see picture attached and the associated Churchillian prose used
to describe two feet of mud. (Today's Railways, January
2006 issue 49). In comparison, the disruption, which arises when
there is a major motorway accident seldom, lasts more than a few
hours.
TERRORISM
Because rail is so fragile it is a particularly
easy target for terrorists—eg as in Spain, and as on our
own underground system. In contrast roads offer unattractive relatively
small-scale opportunities.
CONCLUSION
We conclude that if the Government were concerned
to develop a system relatively robust to terrorism, vandals and
ordinary life it would seek to pave the railways at the earliest
opportunity.
The added advantage would be a reduction in
cost by a factor of at least four, an increase in capacity by
a similar factor—so providing all London's surface rail
commuters with seats—a halving of the death rate suffered
by passengers, a substantial saving in fuel, and the transfer
of many thousands of lorries and other vehicles from the unsuitable
rural roads and city streets that they currently clog. See evidence
to the Transport Committee's inquiry into the Future of the Railways
( Volume II, FOR 25, Evidence page 241).
December 2005
| 
