Equal rights for women in Sweden are history

Last Sunday was a Muslim festival, and the Gothenburg city council allowed this to be celebrated with public prayers in Slottskogen, one of the city parks. There was a huge turnout, as the picture shows. How many women can you count?

Who to vote for?

I intend to vote for Reform (if the postal voting form arrives in time) but their policies are not up to dealing with the problems that face the country. These have their roots in the theories that have been current for the past 100 years in the departments of economics in Oxbridge and the London School of Economics, and which circulate within the civil service and and the government. Until these theories are recognised as bogus, policies which might succeed are simply not available to whoever gets elected. 

At their root is the notion that government revenue should be raised primarily from taxes on productive and legal economic activity. This is ultimately self-defeating, since it leads to a death spiral. The present mania for bringing ever more people into the country is a desperate attempt to escape the inevitable. The system was never viable, and much government spending has had to be financed by inflation; sterling has lost 98% of its value since the end of the war, and there are other countries which have even worse records for inflation than Britain.

Whether the country has the stomach for making the necessary changes is doubtful. Reform seems unlikely to take the initiative in the right direction, which means that it will inevitably disappoint.

What is this weird lightweight train for?

Revolution VLR is a project for ultra lightweight trains for use on routes where traffic is relatively light. It is described as

“an innovative, lightweight, cost-effective rail vehicle that provides a compelling alternative to operating traditional heavy rail vehicles on branch lines. Its low mass reduces all aspects of operating costs and can significantly improve the business cases for line reopenings and extensions, enhancing local connectivity. RVLR’s innovative design combines automotive and rail technologies to provide an attractive, environmentally and economically sustainable product that can be deployed rapidly. RVLR facilitates modal shift and enhanced public transport connectivity. It supports a more affordable, greener future for our railways.”

I look at this and scratch my head. What were the designers thinking of? It is a curious design, with vehicles only 18.5 metres long (when the standard mark 1 length of 20 metres can run over the entire British system and another metre of length is probably possible. It appears to have no means of coupling it to another vehicle or locomotive, at least not in regular use. There is what looks like cramped seating for 56, and standing for 26. It compares unfavourably with the trains provided for this kind of service in the past, such as the GWR Auto trains which were used on little branch lines, and main line stopping services a century ago. These were 21.5 metre vehicles; those built in early BR days had extremely comfortable seating.

What is it for? There are hundreds of quite modern EMUs and DMUs coming out of service which have driving trailer cars which could be converted for use as control trailers for push-pull service for this kind of operation. Traction is another issue but the power requirements are about what was needed to run the GWR Auto-trains, which were pushed or pulled by very small steam locomotives such as the 1400 class.

A single de-rated HST power car (which would otherwise go for scrap) could handle up to three coaches with ease, with years of useful service ahead, so that passengers would not have be crammed in and stand, and there would be plenty of space for wheelchairs, prams and bicycles.

Dare one say it – very small steam locomotives such as the 1400 class used for auto-trains are very cheap to build, given a production run of 20 or more; when fuelled with light oil or diesel they actually use less fuel and produce a clean exhaust, and have a 60+ years life. 

The project, sponsored by Eversholt Rail and Transport Design International, seems to be a good example of an inability to see wood from trees or to learn from history. Given the number of GWR Auto-trains which survive, one of these should at least have been brought out for use as a cost/performance benchmark. Whatever traction is used, the total carbon footprint of the operation is minuscule – just 0.7% of the UK total – in the overall scheme of things – the carbon footprint of this project is probably bigger when everything is factored in, including embedded energy. One would have thought that there were still a few people left at Eversholt Rail who were aware how this kind of thing was done in the past, but seemingly not. You can read about it here.

Railway ticket and fares shambles

Once upon a time, a train ticket was a small piece of thick card which you bought at the station when you wanted to travel. You would turn up a few minutes early in case there was a queue at the ticket office, which was staffed by a human being who knew his job. Then you waited for your train and made your journey. And that was all.

Nowadays, except for local journeys, you have to book in advance and have to travel in a particular train. You might have to buy the ticket on a mobile phone, or else you will have to negotiate a terminal with a confusing and poorly designed touch screen, with every train company having a different layout and programme flow.

There is a bewildering variety of tickets and prices. In the latest version of the Swedish Railways (SJ) booking system, there is no means of changing your booking or getting a refund if something crops up. You have to allow an extra half hour or more to be certain of catching the train you have booked for. The railways have adopted one of the worst features of airline practice.

Why has this happened? In the first place, it seems as if railway are managed by people who do not use the system themselves and do not understand what railways are about. In the second place, they are desperate to get rid of staff as half of the labour costs of any business consists of tax. Thirdly, they have got themselves into a position where what is known as ‶yield management″ has to be exercised to the highest degree. 

The railway have always done yield management. As early as the 1840s, excursion trains were run on Sundays, to make use of rolling stock that would otherwise have been standing idle in sidings. Later on, the principle was applied by keeping a reserve of old rolling stock which would otherwise have been scrapped; some of this was parked in remote locations over the whole of the winter season, to be brought out for the busy summer timetable. 

These spare carriages could be brought into service at short notice; photographs of trains in the 1920s often show one or two old vehicles at the front, which would have been attached at the last moment if a lot of passengers turned up. Timetables had built-in slack to allow for the extra weight of these ad-hoc additions, while steam locomotives could, at need, be worked harder than their normal design capacity.

From the 1960s onward, the practice of using fixed formation set trains like the British Inter-City 125 came in, though these were more flexible than subsequent trains, since the carriages themselves were relatively simple trailer vehicles which could be added or removed to suit the traffic. Older rolling stock was simply scrapped instead of being kept as a reserve.

Thus, the railway having got themselves into a straitjacket, have to match a fixed supply to a highly variable demand, which is the root cause of the current user-hostile fares and ticketing systems. Even so, simplification is possible. There is no reason for tying passengers to particular trains; in most situations, a two-tier fares structure - peak and off-peak - should suffice to even-out demand to the fixed supply. In the longer term, the railways need to return to the older practice of retaining a reserve of stock which can be stored without deterioration for several months at a time.