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Home > Rail transport in Great Britain

2 Geography & infrastructure

Great Britain is an island roughly triangular with an acute apex. The capital, London, is in the south-east. Main railway lines radiate from London in many directions; the major lines are discussed elsewhere (see linkbox, below).

At the end of September 2003 the first part of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, a high speed link to the Channel Tunnel and on to France and Belgium, was completed, significantly adding to the rail infrastructure of the country. The rest of the link, from north Kent to St Pancras railway station in London, is planned to open in 2007. A major programme of remedial work on the West Coast Main Line is ongoing.

3 Passenger services

Passenger train services in the UK are, in the main, structured on the basis of regional franchises awarded by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) to Train Operating Companies. There were 26 such regional franchises up to April 2004, though ultimately fewer companies since multiple franches were let to single companies such as Arriva, National Express and Stagecoach. A number of regional or specific rail services are let by regional government authorities, or, such as the Heathrow Express, through other arrangements not involving the SRA.

In statistical terms, SRA franchised services in the 2002–3 period provided some 976 million journeys amounting to 39.7 billion passenger kilometres of travel. In terms of change comparison with the 1986–7 period shows the number of journeys up by 32% (from 738 million) and passenger kilometres travelled up by 29% (from 30.8 billion). Equally, takin a longer term view, the number of journeys in 2002–3 is lower than figures for 1950–60 period; the passenger kilometres figure, after being a flat trough from 1965–1995, surpassed the 1947 figure for the first time in 1998, and continues to rise steeply.

The key index used to assess passenger train performance is the Public Performance Measure which combines figures for punctuality and reliability. Performance against this metric has been expecially poor since mid-2000. From a base of 90% of trains arriving on time in 1998, the measure dipped to 75% in mid 2001, and by the end of the 2002–3 period, had only recovered to 80%.

The real increase in rail fares after accounting for inflation over the 1995–2004 period was 4.7%.

Average rolling stock age — thought to be an indicator of passenger comfort — fell slightly from the third quarter of 2001–2 to the third quater of 2003–4, from 20.7 years old, to 19.3 years old.

See List of UK Train Operating Companies

4 Freight services

There are four main freight operating companies, the largest of which is English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS). Types of freight carried include intermodal — in essence containerised freight — and coal, metals, oil, and construction material. Freight services have been in steady decline since the 1950s, although the Department for Transport's Transport Ten Year Plan calls for an 80% increase in rail freight measured from a 2000–1 base.

Statistics on freight are specified in terms of the weight of freight lifted, and the net tonne kilometre. being freight weight multiplied by distance carried. 87 million tonnes of freight was lifted in the 2002–3 period, against 138 million tonnes in 1986–7, a decrease of 37%. 18.7 billion net rail kilometres of freight movement were recorded in 2002–3, against 16.6 billion in 1986–7, an increase of 13%.

A symbolic loss to the UK rail freight industry was the custom of the Royal Mail, which from 2004 is discontinuing use of its 49-train fleet, and switching to road haulage after a near 170 year preference for trains. Red liveried mail train s have long been part of the tradition of the UK railways, not least because of the film Night Mail , for which W. H. Auden wrote the poem of the same name.

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