More of us are travelling by train than ever before. Last year in Britain, we made 1,718 billion journeys on Network Rail’s 20,000 miles of track; 1.2 billion were within the London commuter belt. Britain ranks just outside the world’s 20 most populous countries but has the fifth busiest rail network. In short, we like trains – or at least greatly prefer them to the increasingly sclerotic road system.
Now the railways, too, are becoming congested: ask anyone who travels on the livestock-transportation model of service operated by Southern, where matters are made worse by a 1970s-style breakdown in relations between management and unions. Many of the passengers live far from a railway station, so must sit in traffic jams to reach them – and hope to find a parking place when they do.
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