The Problem: Rail travel has disintegrated as a result of the restrictions placed on the UK during the Covid era.
The Solution: Re-imagine railways and railway stations as a form of leisure, not just utility, and create an ‘inter-rail’ type pass to encourage increased off-peak travel.
Rail travel has decimated during Covid and many of the home-working patterns established during those restrictions are likely to continue after society reopens. The railway system must adapt to get people back onto the rails and ensure short- and long-term financial performance.
I suggest five areas that should be enhanced, as follows:
1) Re-imagine railway stations, particularly large terminus stations like London Waterloo and King’s Cross, to become destinations in their own right. Stratford station has achieved this in many ways with its Westfield shopping mall, and more stations should do the same, such as creating bars where your drink is delivered by large-scale model train, like in two bars in Prague. St Pancras has done this to an extent, advertising that it has the world’s longest champagne bar, more stations need to follow suit.
2) Run more holiday rail-tours and dinning trains on the national network, transforming it from la utility to get from point A to point B into a leisure space. In addition to dining trains, there could be spa trains, opera trains, and many others such ideas. Such trains should be especially targeted at less-used lines, to increase the numbers travelling on them to make upkeep of such lines more viable.
3) Adapt passenger trains to be able to carry some freight. Given how many packages are sent around the country with the increase in mail-order, the rail network should have a strong role to play in freight movements. Adapting carriages to be able to quickly take palleted freight on and off at particular locations, and possibly smaller packages too, could prove a useful revenue source for the railways, help reduce emissions from road transport, and open the opportunity for new business models using trains and last-mile delivery services from railway stations as their logistics.
4) Create an annual pass for the UK, allowing unlimited off-peak travel on the entire network, with further discounts on peak-travel as well. This would operate somewhat like the inter-rail pass in Europe, although there would be no extra charges for booking seats on long-distance trains. The pass would be billed monthly, and holders would simply scan their pass on ticket machines to gain entry to platforms; it should both increase train usage and encourage the greater use of off-peak services, which often run largely empty otherwise.
5) Railways should work with hotels to create discounts for travellers. That would enable people to commute into their office from afar, travelling off-peak and then staying one or two nights to avoid a long-distance commute each day, which would be intolerable and expensive. By enhancing the experience of the commute, with space to sit and work on an off-peak train, and only having to do the journey twice a week instead of 10 times, more people would see rail as their preferred means of travel, and housing pressures could be eased as people space out around the country.
Comments