The problem with the proposition is that (a) it is so very much against expectation (b) the numbers are so overwhelming as to inspire disbelief rather than belief (c) few people have ever seen a motor road managed to avoid congestion - the UK road network is (with the exception of motorways and some modern single carriageways) a collection of access roads never designed for motor traffic (d) rail is so romantic.

The primary proposition is expanded below. Nearly all the statements were tested at the Public Inquiry into the West Coast Main Line Modernisation Programme. There, Railtrack's immensely expensive Inquiry Team could do nothing in the face of the research presented.

1. Capacity and use

(a) Rail has one third to one quarter the capacity to move people compared with motor roads managed to avoid congestion - go look at Waterloo.

(b) National Rail carries an average flow per track equivalent to only 300 buses plus lorries per day. It is difficult to find a minor road anywhere in the country so lightly loaded in terms of vehicles.

(c) The density of use achieved by the National Rail system is one third to one fifth that obtained from the Motorway or from the Trunk road and motorway network.

(d) Only one motorised journey in 70 goes by national rail corresponding to just 6% of all motorized passenger miles.

2. Energy consumption

(a) The energy consumption of passenger rail per passenger-km in 1990 was 2 to 3 times as high as required by express buses capable of doing the same job.

(b) In contrast rail freight uses half the fuel per Tonne-km required by road but only if the drag in and out is ignored. When the latter are considered freight by road and rail appear to have similar energy consumptions.

(c) If the National Rail function were carried out by buses and lorries on motor roads managed to avoid congestion there would be an energy saving of 30-40%.

3. Journey lengths, speed and fares

(a) 50% of passenger rail journeys are less than 25 miles long; the same as by express bus, 90% are less those 80 miles long. For all those journeys the express coach, given the right of way, would match the train for journey time particularly after taking account of a service frequency up to 12 times that of the train.

(b) Fares by express coach are often a fraction of those by train despite the coach paying taxes and making a profit. If rail were to operate without subsidy fares would have to double at least without loss of passengers.

4. Safety

(a) The death rate to passengers per passenger-km by rail is historically higher than the corresponding rate by buses and coaches on non-urban roads.

(b) The casualty costs attributable to deaths in Train accidents amount to about 6% of all casualty costs to rail passengers.

(c) The casualty cost suffered by passengers per passenger-km on rail is probably twice as high as suffered by passengers in buses and coaches on non-urban roads.

(d) System wide, including trespassers on rail and pedestrians etc. on roads, the death rate by rail is 3.6 per billion passenger-km compared with 4.6 for all roads. Of the road deaths over 40% were pedestrians, cyclists and motor bikers. If those are removed from the sum, on the basis that rail enjoys a largely segregated system, then the road environment would appear to offer the lower death rate.

(e) Sir Robert Horton said in Railtrack's 1998/9 annual report that rail was "27 times as safe as roads in terms of fatalities and serious injuries.........” Sir Robert forgot to tell us that the roads carry 17 times as many passenger-km as do the railways. Hence, from the start, Sir Robert was exaggerating the relative safety of rail by a factor of 17. Sir Robert also forgot to say that over 40% of road deaths are to pedestrians, cyclists and motor bikers, classes of people singularly absent from railway rights of way.

(f) If the £3.6 billion to be spent on rail safety systems (ERTMS) is to be repaid over 40 years and if the interest rate is set to the Treasury Discount Rate of 6% then the annual cost is £240 million. If the annual maintenance is to cost as little as 5% of the £3.6 billion that will add £180 million to the annual bill, providing a total of £420 million per year. Network Management Statements suggest that that will save 2 lives per year, valued at some £1 million each. However, deaths account for only about 22% of casualty costs in train accidents. Hence the actual value of life and limb saved may be some £9 million per year, or some 46 times less than the annual capital plus maintenance cost - illustrating what must surely be the grossest misapplication of resources on offer.

5. Widths and headroom

(a) A two-track railway typically offers room for a UK standard 7.3-metre carriageway with one-metre marginal strips but no other verges.

(b) On the approaches to towns and cities there is often room for a dual two or three lane highway.

(c) Where there is overhead electrification headroom would often be adequate for a triple-decker.

The following link provides a list of conversions: www.pberry.plus.com/ukroads/railtoroad/index.html
6. Costs

(a) The annual capital cost of rail passenger rolling stock is 3 times as high as equivalent floor space in express buses.

(b) Track maintenance for rail costs are between 4 and 21 times that required by road transport. That very wide range reflect the uncertainty in the data, but whatever the case the rubber tyred option is very much cheaper in this respect than steel wheel on steel rail. The mid range value is a factor of 12.5. The unit of measure is cost per equivalent vehicle-km.

(c) The cost per track-km of the West Coast Main-Line Modernisation programme is 10 times higher than the cost per lane-km of building the M1 built from scratch including the cost of land.

(d) The net tax revenue per lane-km for the Motorway and Trunk Road network has the range £(180-210) thousand per year over a lane length of some 55,000 km. In contrast the 32,000 km of rail track is being subsidised to perhaps £5 billion per year or at the rate of £155 thousand per track-km.

(e) The rail Modernisation Programme is to cost over £70 billion. Its target is to increase passengers by 50%, e.g. from 6% to 9% of current passenger-km, and to increase rail freight from 11% to 17% of tonne-km. That will have a negligible effect on car traffic and a small effect on road freight. Hence the £70 billion will have been almost entirely wasted - equivalent to burning the residential accommodation for a city of 1.5 million people.

(f) In contrast, replacing the railway lines by a road surface managed to avoid congestion would cost at most £12 billion. The effect would be to offer faster journey times for all but the longest journeys at fares a fraction of those charged to most by rail passengers.