As a means of transport, trains have the lightest carbon footprint: taking a train instead of a car for medium-length distances reduces emissions by about 80%, and taking a train instead of a domestic flight cuts them by 86%, according to the climate and data researcher Hannah Ritchie.
That’s per person per km. Using UK rail average load figures – and average electrification too. And not allowing for two or more people to be in the one vehicle.
Travelling in a lightly loaded diesel on a backwoods route will have a higher emissions that a fully loaded car going around the back lanes.
If trains are to compete with low-cost, often subsidised, flights, affordability also has to be addressed. Services need to be far more competitive for families, and not just in price.
But air is largely unsubsidised already and trains are highly subsidised already.
Trains work, well, for crowded urban environments tho’ they’re going to need subsidy there. For a couple to a few hundred miles they work unsubsidised. Often enough, that is. But the idea that they’re less emmittive really just isn’t true. Not when measuring average laod against average load for a car on the shorter routes they’re not. The reason the left love them is because they’re collective, nowt else.
I also suspect that the only emissions counted are those of the train or the car.
Not those involved in laying rails or tarmac, nor the staff getting to work.
But a carbon tax would cover those. Cheaply too, AFAIK.
The mental contortions of the greenies / left are weird.
200 people in seats in a metal frame on wheels on rails- swoon – subsidise it cos its public transport.
200 people in seats in a metal frame on wheels till it takes off – wah – eeevil stop the proles going on holiday cos its not public transport.
“Trains work, well, for crowded urban environments tho’ they’re going to need subsidy there. For a couple to a few hundred miles they work unsubsidised. Often enough, that is. But the idea that they’re less emmittive really just isn’t true. Not when measuring average laod against average load for a car on the shorter routes they’re not. The reason the left love them is because they’re collective, nowt else.”
For starters, I don’t think that we need to subsidise underground trains where people are pressed up against doors. Clearly, the demand is excessive at the current price. You could raise a tube fare from £2.70 to £4 and people won’t take a taxi. Khan only doesn’t like losing subsidies because it’s bad politics. But people will grumble and still pay it. And that’s before we get into how much rail subsidies ultimately just lead to rail staff earning more. They know how much money is coming in and can strike to get most of it. You have less money coming in, they’ll have to suck up what they get. Rail work pays these people better than anything else they can do, which is why they strike rather than quit.
The general thing with trains is they’re very efficient compared to cars for commuting. Where you have solo people in cars going to work, compared to a full train. Those 7-9am, 5-7pm Monday to Friday journeys used to be half of all the money. 20 hours were as much money as the other 80. The rest of the time, they really aren’t. A lot of midday trains aren’t half full, while people travelling at that time generally have more passengers in the car, doing leisure trips. And evening trains are worse, often less than 1/4 full, at which point, putting each passenger in a taxi would be greener.
The reason why coach travel is overall greener than train travel is that you can run more variable capacity and run it frequently. A coach is smaller, so if there’s only 30 people wanting to do it in a particular hour, that’s far greener. And for the odd time when there’s 150 people wanting to do it, yes, that is worse than a train, but it don’t make much difference that for 1 hour of the day, you run 3 coaches. Oh, and they price to demand, to fill coaches, which the morons running trains don’t.
No mention of where the electricity used to power the trains comes from? Hint, it ain’t renewables:
“A solar power plant with a capacity of 6MW opened in 2023 at Brežice, linked to the hydro power plant.
Slovenia had just 2 wind turbines in 2022”.
p.s. The lack of self awareness of this bird is astounding. Taking a plane powered by fossil fuel for a self indulgent jolly is verboten, taking an ‘electric’ train powered by fossil fuel for a self indulgent jolly is perfectly acceptable.
If trains are so efficient, why is train travel so much more expensive than car travel?
Andrew M,
“If trains are so efficient, why is train travel so much more expensive than car travel?”
That depends on whether you include the depreciation and maintenance of cars. But also this is energy efficiency only.
Trains are generally more expensive because it’s an intolerant form of transport with no markets and too much government interference. Like if a rail gets buckled, that’s it, no trains. Road surface gets broken, a coach or car will carry on. And there’s none of the sort of production line manufacturing of coaches and cars. It’s all made as expensive custom orders. The staff can’t just be taken off the shelf. Find people with a PSV and they can drive a coach. Trains need months of training. Or weeks just to change route or the train on a route (this is why there’s a shortage of train drivers). Which is also why train drivers can demand so much money. If coach driver salaries rise, you’ll quickly get a load of people taking their PSV. And finally, so much of rail is about other government-approved things, like they want to buy trains from factories in the UK creating jobs, rather than cheapest places. They want to run rural trains that almost no-one wants to use. They piss money away on projects that make no difference, like electrification (who cares if a journey takes 50 instead of 60 minutes)?
Trains won’t be low emission if “undocumented migrants” insist on burning citizens alive on them.
(Has he yet used the excuse that she was a Lutheran?)
@AndrewM
Is it when one prices in the cost of owning & running a car? I know with my life style it would probably be cheaper to use taxis or the train & just hire cars when I needed them. I’m just too lazy to do the forward planning would be required.
I don’t think the urban trains here (in Tokyo) are subsidised, and they are clean, efficient, fast, go everywhere, damn-near door to door. Many rural lines are subsidised, as shown in the *excellent* NHK Japan Railway Journal. But the rural lines are subsidised often because there are barely enough people living in rural to cover the costs, but rural in Japan is often impentrable to buses, and many lines are the only transport from A to E even though usage by B,C,D is negligible.
And the rail system is so comprehensive in Tokyo that you have price choice between different levels of service. The express for £4.50, the fast for £3.50, or the all-stopping local service for £2.50.
There weird factors at play as well. There are people who would never take a train, bus or coach and would always use a car. However , they will take a plane , even though it is a form of public transport and it can be a humiliating for of transport with all the degrading security procedures.
Then there are the people who do not mind trains but hate buses and coaches.
Everyone has their preferences.
it would probably be cheaper to use taxis or the train & just hire cars when I needed them
According to some website I just googled, average annual running costs for a car in the UK are £3,800. That’s a lot of trains and taxis. Even more if you’re one of those paying £500 a month to lease a car.
Depends on household size of course….
Once you decide to own a car you’ve decided that its immediacy, flexibility and convenience are of more value to you than its fixed costs of ownership, no matter how much you use it. Whether you use it for every journey you make depends on other considerations such as traffic, parking problems, avoiding driving mistakes that immediately generate PCNs, journey time from A to B vs. public transport alternatives, rammed buses and Tubes, etc. etc., especially when Freedom passes make almost all public travel free after 9:30am.
This is why we keep a small, old car that usually gets less than once a week on average, either for extremely local trips (to the Tube station to pick up/drop off when it’s pissing down) or for trips out of town, when 2-up it’s considerably cheaper than trains, even with old tosser travelcards, or when hauling freight.
On the financial side we’d probably be better off ditching it but, as the wife points out, it’s been very handy for the odd trip to A&E over the past few years. One of the great, looming problems as we consider a downsizing move out of London is where we could reasonably live without a car, an inevitability as age renders us incapable of driving and pension poverty unable to afford ownership, that doesn’t involve living in a cheap, metropolitan Diverse shithole.
Fuck the CO2.
The European commission is investing billions of euros in expanding high-speed rail connections, aiming to double their use by the end of this decade.
I’d be mildly surprised if the EU still exists by the end of this decade. It’s less popular than the League of Nations.
Sal – There are people who would never take a train, bus or coach and would always use a car. However , they will take a plane , even though it is a form of public transport and it can be a humiliating for of transport with all the degrading security procedures.
Airports truly are vile places, it’s like a preview of the duty free shopping section of Hell.
This is the kind of thing that will kill the EU:
Ukraine Forces a Halt to Flow of Natural Gas From Russia to Europe
A transnational pipeline was shut down on Wednesday after Kyiv refused to renew an agreement that allowed for the transit of Russian gas through its territory.
Everybody’s favourite country, Ukraine, is helping to lock Europe into poverty and economic destruction. Slava Ucantaffordheatinganymore!
“This is a historic event,” Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, said in a statement. “Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses.”
If a Ukrainian shot himself in the head, and the bullet mildly grazed a Russian, they’d be dancing in the streets celebrating Russia’s loss.
“We won’t allow them to earn additional billions off our blood,” Mr. Zelensky said when he announced the decision earlier this month to shut down the pipeline.
Yet for the last 3 years Ukraine has been happy to earn money transporting gas from a country they claim – without evidence – is trying to “genocide” them.
So, the EU. You’re not allowed to buy Russian energy, but you’re also not allowed to exploit your own energy sources because the environment innit. Who will rid us of these turbulent Commissioners?
BIS,
The bulk of my transport was replaced with remote work and internet shopping. The rest is so sporadic as to not be worth having a car. A couple of journeys by train a month, or the odd trip to the countryside where I hire a car. I think I’m going to spend about £80/month over fuel in January. I’m not even going to run a banger for that.
– Yet for the last 3 years Ukraine has been happy to earn money transporting gas . . .
No, Ukraine has honoured multi-party contracts that benefit the parties to the west despite the extreme hardship of the party to the east invading and destroying its energy infrastructure. If they were happy with the arrangement they would have renewed it. Ukraine has been clear from the start of the invasion that the contract will not be renewed, giving the parties to the west ample time to find alternatives. If those parties gambled on Russia winning in the meantime and continuing the supply, then tough – they can search in the cold.
. . . Ukraine, is helping to lock Europe into poverty and economic destruction.
Stopping being a demented, lying Russian shill not one of your new year resolutions, then.
“The trip cost about €12 and took just over two and a half hours. It was not high-speed rail, but a small Austrian train with a few carriages where you had to bring your own food (a good opportunity for a picnic with Trieste’s food delicacies). Still, it was joyful. That is the case for many train journeys around Europe, an increasingly popular way of rediscovering space and history in a less stressful, less polluting and more convenient way – and not just for leisure.”
Hmm… but is this less polluting? I’ve ridden a few trains with no food and they’re the empty rural trains. Swindon to Westbury, for example. GWR have figured it’s not worth having a trolley on them for the 5 people who will be riding them. You might flog £10 of coffee and that’s not worth paying someone to do.
And this is the problem with subsidies. It distorts the real cost. Like everyone is complaining about the bus cap rising to £3 from £2. But rural buses cost a load more than that, because of a long distance and that no-one uses them. You take the Swindon to Oxford bus, it’s often really full to the edge of town, around South Marston where there’s retail parks, a few factories, the Amazon warehouse. And then you’re on a bus with 5-10 people for an hour to Oxford, which just for fuel and driver is going to cost £50, let alone bus maintenance and other costs. The fare should be minimum £5-10 and people are complaining it’s going to be £3.
PJF – No, Ukraine has honoured multi-party contracts that benefit the parties to the west despite the extreme hardship of the party to the east invading and destroying its energy infrastructure. If they were happy with the arrangement they would have renewed it. Ukraine has been clear from the start of the invasion that the contract will not be renewed, giving the parties to the west ample time to find alternatives. If those parties gambled on Russia winning in the meantime and continuing the supply, then tough – they can search in the cold.
So, the story is, them Russians are GENOCIDING Ukraine, but thankfully Ukrainians are scrupulous fans of contract law.
And this seems plausible to you?
Stopping being a demented, lying Russian shill not one of your new year resolutions, then.
You never have any arguments or facts, just abuse, because you don’t like the truth. That’s why you try to shut down any discussion of the war with insults, snark and evasion. Lalalalala can’t hear you, Putin!
Very disappointing.
BUT, I’ve been re-reading Hitler’s War by David Irving. It keeps surprising me that people keep making the same stupid mistakes throughout history, and yet here you are. The entire Third Reich was on a guaranteed path to disaster from late 1941, but still stubbornly fought on until they were completely defeated. Millions and millions of smart people in offices, workshops and factories – all furiously beavering away for years towards their own physical destruction. Because they refused to accommodate reality.
£5 to the Ukrainian charity of your choice if you can back up your claim that I’m a liar.
Otherwise, I’ll await your unreserved apology and flowers x
Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Ukraine were always going to lose without Western nations getting involved in the fight.
As the armies of the whole EU are even more useless than the Russian army (despite suffering from gross pilfering of funds& equipment) any direct intervention was never going to happen.
Putin knew all he had to do was to wait until the EU politicians were bored of it (like what the Americans did in Afghanistan) and he would win.
That the Ukrainians decided to kill off 100,000s of it’s young men for this is gross stupidity. Yes, you don’t want to be taken over (anyone who is not a RoPer in the UK knows this) but what level of attrition is acceptable? Sharia law, barber shops and raping white girls is acceptable in the UK, surely Ukraine could have held it’s nose over Crimea?
Steve,
“BUT, I’ve been re-reading Hitler’s War by David Irving. It keeps surprising me that people keep making the same stupid mistakes throughout history, and yet here you are. The entire Third Reich was on a guaranteed path to disaster from late 1941, but still stubbornly fought on until they were completely defeated. Millions and millions of smart people in offices, workshops and factories – all furiously beavering away for years towards their own physical destruction. Because they refused to accommodate reality.”
No, that’s not it. It’s the thing that BIS says, that everyone works for their own self-interest. You’re running the Messerschmitt factory, and the government keeps ordering planes and paying you, you’re going to keep making aircraft. The state of the country only matters if you have outstanding invoices when all the generals start side-eyeing each other about Steiner, and Hitler starts yelling, and two days later, the Red Army are in charge and they’re not going to take much notice of your sternly worded letters about late payment.
Like I’ve worked on some really stupid government software projects, On one, it was checking routing from IP addresses, but the manager was like “of course, anyone using a VPN gets around this” and laughed. They probably could have explained this to the government department, but why would they? Why would it be in their interest to scupper work? And the thing is, it got scuppered with a change of minister. Someone else took over, decided it wasn’t worthwhile. Phase 1 got paid for and we all had a piss-up and then fucked off.
Joe – reminds me strongly of Covid. Despite it becoming abundantly clear to the small minority of thinking people that lockdowns were a disastrous overreaction, it took years to get out of the lockdowns. We were locked in to a deeply self-harming course of action – accompanied by menaces – for reasons that still aren’t clear.
Remember Saj Javid was promising to exclude the unvaccinated from society? Steve members. The Ukraine war is similarly surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, has inflicted trillions of Euros of losses on Europe so far, has killed hundreds of thousands of Europeans, and yet nobody’s allowed to question or criticise it if they don’t want to be cancelled.
WB – the duty of statesmen is to avoid preventable evils.
The state of the country only matters if you have outstanding invoices
Well, this is the thing. The Germans persisted down a path that not only led to the death of millions of their own people, saw the surviving women being mass raped by the Red Army, and led to the physical destruction of their Reich and its occupation by hostile foreign powers for generations, but all of this was foreseeable and they went along with it anyway.
Makes me think about Net Zero, replacement migration, and other signature policies of the modern West. When the fate of your civilisation is nobody’s immediate concern, unbelievably bad things can happen more quickly than anybody imagined.
Like I’ve worked on some really stupid government software projects, On one, it was checking routing from IP addresses, but the manager was like “of course, anyone using a VPN gets around this” and laughed. They probably could have explained this to the government department, but why would they? Why would it be in their interest to scupper work? And the thing is, it got scuppered with a change of minister. Someone else took over, decided it wasn’t worthwhile. Phase 1 got paid for and we all had a piss-up and then fucked off.
I think most of us grew up expecting that, even though we knew government was highly inefficient and to some degree corrupt, they would at least hopefully avoid doing mental things that would lead us to poverty and ruin.
But no, it’s just spivs, all the way down. Most of them aren’t even intelligent enough to understand the implications of their own actions. Two Tier Kier, for example, obviously feels like he’s got a right to hoover up money and gifts from his wealthy owners, and how fucking dare you question him.
Shades of Mrs Ceausescu angrily declaring she’d been “like a mother” to the fed up Romanians who net zeroed her.
Steve,
“I think most of us grew up expecting that, even though we knew government was highly inefficient and to some degree corrupt, they would at least hopefully avoid doing mental things that would lead us to poverty and ruin.
But no, it’s just spivs, all the way down. Most of them aren’t even intelligent enough to understand the implications of their own actions. Two Tier Kier, for example, obviously feels like he’s got a right to hoover up money and gifts from his wealthy owners, and how fucking dare you question him.”
But this is the propaganda you were fed. That politicians were smart. Either smart good people making the world a better place, or smart bad people playing 9 dimensional chess games.
I did some canvassing, got to know a few MPs in the area, mostly just having a chat on a walk, a coffee afterwards. And most of these people are really 3rd raters. You’re a successful bloke, doing well at a merchant bank or a computer company and someone comes along offering you a pay cut, and in exchange, you spend your day doing bullshit committees, having your personal life questioned, and being a social worker about every residents minor issues (even if the issue is mostly them). You’re not going to do it.
This happened in one of the local parties to me. The guy they wanted to be a councillor designs railway signalling systems. He’s a bright bloke. And as such, strruggled to combine that with being a councillor. So instead, they got someone who fits cable for BT. Who is an alright bloke, but he isn’t that clever.
“So, the story is, them Russians are GENOCIDING Ukraine, but thankfully Ukrainians are scrupulous fans of contract law. And this seems plausible to you?”
No, the story is that Russia INVADED Ukraine. It’s like Trump Derangement Syndrome: shamelessly and dishonestly daemonise and misrepresent someone, then make hysterical posts about people not seeing the monster that exists only in your own mind.
It is possible that Ukraine is simply doing today legally what would have been impossible a year ago.
(Note that I have no inside knowledge)
Two major gas pipelines transit Ukraine. Transit fees were negotiated at the planning stage and updated according to some formula as the gas flowed.
For nigh on two decades Ukraine and Russia have been bickering over the issue. R says U is stealing gas, pays late transit fee if at all. U says R is sending more than agreed quantity / pressure and won’t pay for maintainance and mid point compression costs.
Many other bones of contention, As you would expect from two countries lying 146 and 148 in the world corruption index.
But Ukraine has a deal with EU to maintain pipeline for X years. That contract expires in… (now?)
Ukraine is probably still in dispute with Russian gas crooks about transit fees, etc etc
Says. Fuck it. Not getting paid. Not doing the job.
“Russia INVADED Ukraine”
It took them 8 years, so they hardly went off half-cocked.
And the US in Kosovo had already demonstrated it was “legal” to invade a country in defence of a minority without UNSC or in this case, even Congress’s backing.
So the US can do it with impunity, but not anyone else. Because.
Hang them all.
The Germans persisted down a path that not only led to the death of millions of their own people, saw the surviving women being mass raped by the Red Army, and led to the physical destruction of their Reich and its occupation by hostile foreign powers for generations, but all of this was foreseeable and they went along with it anyway.
I’ve known many Germans who lived through the war years & this is absolute bollocks. The legacy of hindsight. Germans did what they believed was in the interest of themselves & their families & close associates. Mostly they didn’t have much choice. As you lot don’t over paying Two Tier’s taxes or obeying his stupid regulations. Are you going to make the choice of not paying or obeying them? Of course you’re not. Not if it isn’t in your interest. And as WB says, it was the same right to the top. Everyone continued acting in what they perceived was their personal interests. Whether they agreed with it is irrelevant. Nobody was asking their opinions.
And was it so different on the allied side? Did my mother’s brother climb aboard his Wellington in his own personal interest never to return? Don’t suppose he was particularly concerned about the fate of N.Africa although maybe his parents & sisters living under the Blitz may have influenced him. But the RAF made it very clear what the future held for aircrew refused to fly.
It’s the same with the Russia/Ukraine war. Russians know it is not in their personal interests not to oppose it. And those at the shooting end most definitely do not get a choice. Feelings seem to be somewhat different on the Ukrainian side. It’s very hard to believe they would have prevailed as well as they have if individual Ukrainians didn’t believe it was in their personal interests to continue.
WB, Wat, Philip, BiS – I tried responding, but the blog ate my (unfortunately rather long) message.
So here’s a picture of a dog instead:
ˁ(OᴥO)ˀ
Interesting that a blog post about trains got derailed…….But anyway, I thought there were sanctions in place against Russia? You know, of the type that said ‘we are going to stop buying Russian stuff even though it’s cutting our noses off to spite our face and will costs us billions. Pootin can put that in his pipe and smoke it’…..
Addolff,
As someone pointed out somewhere recently, most of what Russia makes is gas and oil. Unless everyone refuses to buy it, it makes little difference. Europe doesn’t buy it, India or China do. Then there’s various black market shipping, so it goes to a refiner somewhere and comes out and how do you know if it was Russian or Arab refined oil coming out?
Addolff – the train is fine.
WB – Yarp, it’s a commodity product so India is doing well out of reselling Russian oil to the West. At a markup for the mugs, natch. White people love being made to pay more for things, makes em feel virtuous.
BiS – I’ve known many Germans who lived through the war years & this is absolute bollocks.
Your confidence on any given subject seems to be inversely related to your knowledge. It was foreseeable that the war could end in disaster for Germany because that’s what happened the first bloody time. Canaris and some of the other German senior brass saw it coming in 1939.
Wat – No, the story is that Russia INVADED Ukraine.
We know.
It’s like Trump Derangement Syndrome: shamelessly and dishonestly daemonise and misrepresent someone, then make hysterical posts about people not seeing the monster that exists only in your own mind.
The only shameless, dishonest and hysterical people here are the pro-war fans, and the pro-war grifters you choose to believe.
Such as the execrable Colonel Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon OBE, who is paid good money to make a fool out of you with his amusing fairy tales. If talking shite was a weapon, by Jove, Blighty would still rule the waves.
Slabber Ugandhi!