The future of rail travel in the UK looks bleak. Here's why.

Last month’s announcement that the government will scrap phase two of the HS2 rail project, set to run from the West Midlands to Manchester, felt like another nail in the coffin for Britain’s beleaguered train network. Conceived in 2009, the HS2 main line was set to cut journey times between the north and south and create more seat space on the network, encouraging travellers to prioritise lower-carbon rail travel over cars and flights. 

What’s the problem with train travel in Britain? 

Slow trains, service cancellations and delays are all major bugbears — but ticket cost often comes top of the list. In July this year, the UK performed particularly poorly in an analysis of European rail by climate campaigner Greenpeace. It analysed 112 routes in Europe and found train fares were on average twice as expensive as the equivalent flight — in the UK, it was around four times as expensive. “The cost is a barrier,” says Cat Jones, founder of UK-based flight-free holiday company Byway. “Take the London to Edinburgh route — it’s five times less carbon if you go by train rather than fly, but up to four times more expensive to do so.” The reason behind the expense is complicated. Policy and privatisation are major factors. “It’s about where you decide to invest as a government and, at the moment, the investments are going into air,” says Jones. The aviation industry receives tax breaks that other transport doesn’t — flights in the UK are exempt from jet fuel tax and VAT, for example. Annual subsidies reportedly worth around £7bn enable airlines in the UK to offer artificially cheap fares that rail simply cannot compete with. Since British Rail’s privatisation in the 1990s, the network has been seen to operate on the principle of profits, not people.  

Why would HS2 have made a difference? 

“HS2 is — or rather, was — the greatest upgrade the existing rail network could have had,” says Mark Smith, founder of the Man in Seat 61 train travel website. Connecting eight of Britain’s 10 biggest cities on a new main line, it would have produced a step change in speed, reliability and capacity, encouraging more car-free movement and curtailing domestic air travel. This would have freed up space for local services on the existing network.  “When fully completed, London to Edinburgh or Glasgow would have taken three hours 38 minutes [compared with around five to five-and-a-half hours now], transferring significant passenger numbers from air to rail on two of Europe’s busiest air routes,” says Smith. The carbon footprint of that journey from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley is 12.5kg, compared with 165.1kg for the equivalent journey by air.   Greater capacity would have helped bring fares down, too. “You cannot fill 900-seat trains leaving every few minutes with expensive business fares, you need to price people on,” explains Smith. 

What’s happening in Europe? 

Though European rail is by no means perfect, the continent has made great strides recently. Cheap tickets, such as Germany’s €49 pass, a monthly ticket covering most public transport across the country, and Spain’s free-ticket scheme for short train journeys, are signifiers of wider change — as is France’s decision to ban short-haul flights on routes where the journey can be made by train in two-and-a-half hours or less. In contrast with the UK, many of Europe’s networks are still state-run, and European rail is subsidised to the tune of €73bn a year. “Italy has the added benefit of competition on its high-speed network,” says Smith. “This has driven up quality and capacity, reduced average fares by an estimated 25% and reversed the proportion of air versus rail passengers on routes such as Milan-Rome.” Jones points to recent successes in Spain, too, which has adopted high-speed rail with gusto in the past two years and now has three competing operators. The result is increased services and cheaper prices. 

Can the UK replicate Europe’s rail successes? 

It’s not looking likely without big policy changes. “Two years ago, I would have said we need the consumer demand. But we’ve got it now,” says Jones. Research on UK travellers conducted by Byway in conjunction with OnePoll has shown support for rail travel steadily increasing year after year; in 2023, 42% of those polled said they want alternatives to flying; that figure rises to 61% for Gen Z. The desire to travel by train is there, but government policy-making has yet to catch up.