Community Railways in Britain and Canada

By Mike Jager and Harry Gow
Transport 2000 Canada

En transit 1:4, Summer 2004

With the explosion of car ownership and the proliferation of commercial vehicles in the 1960s and 70s, the UK rail network was cut back by a third. Many routes were simplified to match what traffic was left. Freight yards were closed, sidings taken out, double track lines were singled, and on single track lines, passing loops were removed, signal boxes closed, and signalling systems simplified.

Today's rural and branch lines reflect the cauterised railway created by British Railways (BR) during that period - an infrastructure appropriate to the levels of demand of the 1970s. In the 1980s, new lightweight rolling stock was provided, but during the same period, track maintenance expenditures were considerably reduced. Over the past few years however, demand has grown strongly on many lines. The rural/local lines are now fulfilling a role that was not contemplated thirty years ago - tackling local traffic congestion, functioning as part of the local tourist economy, or in providing environmentally friendly access to historic coastal towns and national parks.

Like anywhere else, the gap between costs and income on these lines reflects the high fixed costs of providing a rail service with its own infrastructure and terminals. Rolling stock costs are high in comparison with the cost of buses and average rail fares are low. Rural and local lines tend to have higher volumes of leisure travel at discounted fares, sparse full fare business travel, and no travel at premium (first-class) rates. Whilst both passenger and freight traffic have grown greatly since privatisation, and some of the seasonal peaks are very high, short journeys at relatively low fares generate insufficient income to meet the high fixed costs of even a basic railway. On average, income from fares covers only one quarter of the attributed costs of providing the service. This economic reality has constrained development.

Closures have been periodically proposed in the past, but were always hotly contested and the closure process takes significant senior management time to handle, with postulated closures leaving huge residual liabilities. Closure of rail infrastructure is no longer part of Government policy - railways are recognized as representing a long-term fixed investment.

There is widespread recognition of the need for major change - to reduce the gap between income and costs and to increase the value of the railway to the community measured in terms of financial support per passenger journey. There is now widespread recognition that this can be done through greater local involvement in defining, promoting and funding the services provided, and particularly harnessing the enthusiasm and drive of the local community in the development of ‘their’ railway.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UK

In 2000/1 Transport Research and Information Network (TR&IN), a specialist consultancy that pioneered the creation of community rail partnerships in the UK and Eastern Europe, and a member of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP), published several books exploring the potential for the local management of rural lines.

In the UK Government’s Rural White Paper (November 2000), overt support is given to the principle of local management. And, a study commissioned in 2001 by the Strategic Rail Authority into Secondary Rail Lines, many of which serve rural communities, recommended ways in which such lines could be developed as community railways. These could involve the main operator subcontracting responsibility for particular branch lines to local railway companies whose focus on promoting the line, the report argued, could bring benefits in passenger numbers, better-integrated services, reduced costs, and a more dynamic and sustainable economy.

In October 2002, the Rail Passengers Council (RPC) published a major work by TR&IN - “Re-inventing the Local Railway – How locally-managed railways can be at the heart of a rural renaissance”.

According to the SRA’s widely-praised publication “Everyone's Railway”, issued in 2003, the railway is now helping local authorities and others to deliver on a wide range of Government objectives, including those relating to the environment, accessibility, safety, health, economic development, social inclusion and rural affairs as well as its transport objectives.

Prompted by all this groundwork, the Strategic Rail Authority published in February 2004 a consultation document on Community Rail Development. 316 responses were received from a very wide range of organizations. The major findings of the subsequent report, “Community Rail Development – Summary of Responses” show strong support for:

In an SRA News release, research submitted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales reported that business is as dependent on community/local rail as it is on inter-city rail, with two-thirds of members saying that they rely on each other. Over 60% of respondents believed that railways can help to generate business.

The SRA’s report notes “…A good start has been made with the establishment of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP) over the last ten years, and these have recently expanded to cover a total of 34 lines proposed for designation as Community Rail routes. Without exception, passenger volumes have increased on lines supported by a partnership. The Bittern Line in Norfolk has seen a 140% increase in demand over the last seven years with active promotion by the line partnership and its operator, Anglia Railways (now ‘one’ Railway).

At the same time, local enterprise has expanded the railway network with new independent lines like the Wensleydale Railway and the Dartmoor Railway starting up, as well as the expansion of professionally managed heritage railways. There are lessons to be learned from the innovative solutions adopted that have resulted in lower unit costs for these lines, as well as impressive ridership figures. Local authorities are more closely involved, and can use a range of funds to improve public transport in their area and to fulfil other aspects of Government policy for which they are responsible. All this suggests the need for a systematic approach to Community Rail Development, rather than piecemeal endorsement of ideas as they arise.

THE LIKELY FUTURE

The SRA hopes to finalize its strategy document in July and submit it to the Government for approval. Assuming that this is forthcoming, of the sixty lines (covering 12.5% of the network and 420 - 17% of the stations on the network) proposed for designation as Community Railways, five proposed schemes will be used to test out different approaches:

LESSONS FOR CANADA: A ‘RENAISSANCE’?

While some of the culture, organizational structures and planning mechanisms described in this article are peculiar to the UK, many of the individual and summary observations and recommendations in the various documents referenced are potentially transferable to Canada (although the majority of the funding mechanisms either in situ or proposed in the UK, are not in place in Canada.

It is interesting to contrast British and Canadian regulatory and other positions on ‘who does/who should do, what’. “Re-inventing the Local Railway” contains a list of key issues (p60) that will need to be addressed if local management is to make a real difference to how ‘secondary lines’ are operated. I reproduce these below, together with applicable UK and Canadian regulatory responsibilities, or ‘areas of interest’:

Key Issue

UK

Canada

Safety and Group Standards

Central Govt. responsibility Recommendations for relaxation for secondary lines.

Central Govt. responsibility. Some evidence of relaxation (viz. Ottawa O-Train)

Vertical integration

Not allowed (with the exception of Island Line), although some evidence it is creeping back.

Standard

Rolling stock

Huge variety available

Paucity

Staff

Unions’ ‘normal’ antagonism withdrawn on Community Rail issue.

Experience with shortline, diesel LRT and tourist railway staffing indicates a favourable environment

Transport integration

Problematic due to unfettered competition by bus companies

Fewer impediments/challenges?

Integration with local development strategies

Not widely practiced although no legal reason why not

Practiced in some cities

Finance

Many types of UK and European grants have been routinely available. Becoming even stronger central government policy.

Hugely problematic – federal government policy in disarray. Provincially, support varies.

Community support

Strongly demonstrated

Groundswell?

Available expertise

Large (numbers of people, expertise)

Small numbers of experts

That there is room for community involvement in the creation of passenger services on local lines has been demonstrated repeatedly in Canada. The creation of tourist train services by communities in New Brunswick (Hillsboro), Québec (Hull Chelsea & Wakefield) and Manitoba (Prairie Dog Central) etc., has shown the way, just as early British community involvement in the field did with preserved railways initially for tourism (Talyllyn, Bluebell, Severn Valley and now well over 100 others).

The step of getting involved with regular passenger services is a bit more complex, but three Native bands are showing the way (BC Rail, Pictowagan and QNS&L). The experience of the native bands with the model of community rail will provide a community test bed. The experience of rural communities in Québec in providing guichet unique shared (road) transport can also provide an experiential base.

The next step will be to consider retrofitting existing tourist train operations with public passenger transport (not just tourist) operations. For example, the Chelsea (Qc) municipal council has asked the HCWR to meet to discuss a modest beginning. It is possible that other tourist operations or their communities may want to go in the same direction. New-start operations could combine the two types of service. A very big community railway operation may get off the ground on Vancouver Island where Councils have formed a coalition to create a community railway on the E&N around the current VIA service and existing freight services.

Technology may help the community railways get off the ground. In British Columbia, band councils have chartered very light internal combustion railcars to provide service over a segment of line left without passenger service by the Campbell government. In Ottawa, (relatively) light Bombardier Talent DMUs are used with great success on an 8km. segment of CPR track for the (Diesel) Light Rail Pilot Project. The project had a huge amount of community input in its conception, implementation and continuation. A German fail-safe automatic train stop system (Indusi) protects the trains from collisions with each other and heavy rail trains. Indusi is also now being implemented on the TTC in Toronto. The traditional heavy train-only model is increasingly being questioned in North America, leading to consideration of lighter, less expensive trains than such veterans as the Budd RDCs.

SUMMARY

The British experience in creating, maintaining and developing community railway services is gathering steam from year to year, and the sum of experience is extremely convincing. It is now evident that there is an alternative to declining centrally run (and centrally neglected) secondary railway services. This alternative is a decentralised network of light or heavy railways with services designed and even administered by the communities served. The fact that three Canadian Indian bands are getting into the business is a harbinger. Will majority communities have the courage to step in and salvage an industry that has been all but destroyed by decades of wilful central neglect, downgrading and abandonment?

Résumé

Le système ferroviaire en Grande-Bretagne a été amputé d’environ 30 % pendant les années 1960 et 1970, surtout de ses lignes rurales et locales. Or, les lignes locales restantes connaissent maintenant un regain d’intérêt et d’achalandage. La gestion locale de ces lignes permet de mieux exploiter leur potentiel, en intégrant le chemin de fer aux autres modes de transport, en répondant aux besoins locaux, et en assouplissant la réglementation pour tenir compte des conditions d’exploitation locales. Au Canada, plusieurs lignes secondaires sont également passées sous contrôle local et d’autres pourraient l’être (notamment le chemin de fer E&N sur l’île de Vancouver). La prochaine étape sera la transformation de trains touristiques en véritables services de transport et l’adoption des technologies appropriées et du cadre institutionnel nécessaire. Il y a donc une solution de rechange à la détérioration et à l’abandon des voies.