And cities also have networks of pedal powered couriers who delive documents and small items, and do it faster than any other form of transport would. (They're also good for fluffing up client egos - 'Yes, I'll bike it over right away' is so often the right answer for clients who believe they're too important for a mere postal delivery.)
The hub problem isn't just an issue for steam, obviously. The UK's rail freight companies have been trying to work out how to combine bulk and smaller-scale freight for years now. There are a couple of places where supermarkets have been built next to freight lines and deliveries have switched from road to rail. But mostly, the UK hates its own railways. The business landscape is fragmented, and the Whitehall interface is even less coherent. So the road and air lobbies have been winning the freight campaign, in spite of some aggressive attempts by the freight lines to innovate.
A fascinating pro-steam feature though. I think it's doomed as a business idea because there's so much irrational prejudice against steam that only a working prototype might have a chance of changing it. And that would be so fantastically expensive, in manufacture, and also in licensing and commissioning, that it's unlikely to happen.
But it might make a comeback in a generation or two, when things may be more desperate and there's more pressure to experiment.
Here in New Mexico we are building a light rail system for public transportation in the Albuquerque area and the railroad company is laying new track to carry even more of those cargo containers the shipping lines are so fond of. I keep hoping we'll get passenger rail service as well. Small steps in the right direction.
... mostly, the UK hates its own railways
I understand that is so. I don't understand it. Perhaps because I've never ridden the lines.
The only thing to hate about the British Rail is that it is outrageusly expensive. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
It's the difference between neoliberal pipe dreams and the reality of the market. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
Rail companies run trains.
They don't own the trains, which are leased to them by train leasing companies.
They don't own the permanent way, which is maintained by a special semi-public company called Network Rail.
They don't own the stations, which are owned by Network Rail too. So there's not much incentive to develop them.
They don't own access to the railway, which is controlled by time slots called paths. They rent it for a while using a complicated and expensive competitive franchising scheme. Which is supposed to encourage open competition, but doesn't, because franchises are mostly closed, so competitors mostly aren't allowed on the network.
They have a limited ability to set timetables, which are decided by the Department of Transport.
No one is in charge of strategic planning. Supposedly the Department of Transport looks after this, but since it hates the railways its efforts are desultory and grudging at best.
The annual government subsidy - which now has to be paid for contractual reasons, and is out of Treasury control - is more than five times what it was the days of British Rail.
A sane solution would have been simply to pay BR that extra money and let them get on with it. Former BR managers would have exploded with delight to be given the sums that are being paid today.
Instead it gets frittered away in a maze of bizarre and arcane legislative and bureaucratic interfaces between each of the different players.
This is what NeoLoon economics looks like.
Finally, earlier this year the Tories admitted that perhaps the scheme hadn't been a total success.
Idiots.
A certain Dr Beeching tried to remove a third of the UK's rail system in 1963 and almost succeeded. A lot of useful lines survived. But there are still places where recovery is impossible because lines that could be useful now have been built over.
The Isle of Wight is the size of a city (140,000 people in 380 square kilometres) and its rail network used to be dense enough to feel like the tube. A real shame, if you ask me.
But you say this happened 50 years ago, so why are we blaming Thatcherism for the fact the UK hates its railways? It seems to be a more deep-seated feeling. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
I'll try and get back later for a more substantial response.
