TO BE successful Blade Runner will take millions of pounds and several years to come to fruition — what happens in the meantime on our rural railways? What is needed are attractive train services that cost less to operate and attract more traffic. A worthy attempt to reduce the subsidies supporting Britain’s branch lines could end up costing more in development of a novel variation.
Satisfying the requirements of both road and rail will be very difficult, but is Blade Runner really what we need? Urban trams and rural railways already have untapped potential.
Caspar Lucas, Cradley Heath, West Midlands
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Too expensive
BLADE RUNNER is a great idea, making the most of railways and still collecting passengers from small communities. But it won’t happen in this country: the Health and Safety Executive insists on massive structural strength in any new design for collision protection.
This always makes railway coaches ten times more expensive than road vehicles, and will make Blade Runner unaffordable.
Public reaction to any mishap on the railways results in more and more restrictions and vastly more expense in running them. This prevents any cheap and flexible solution like Blade Runner.
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Hazel Freeman, Eaton Ford, Cambridgeshire
Grasp the nettle
THE Blade Runner should be the No. 1 priority for future investment in public transport in rural areas. Dual purpose rail/road maintenance vehicles are already used on the railways in Ireland and the Continent, so why not develop these for passenger transport here? A visit to Switzerland, where the public transport is a dream — clean, efficient and integrated — really does open your eyes to what should be possible in this country. Brunel would be delighted to see just how much of his legacy survives and is in daily use, but would also be appalled at the lack of development since then.
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Blade Runner is in the Brunel tradition of vision and innovation; why is the DTI not fully funding the development? It should grasp the nettle, and quickly.
Philip Baldwin, Portishead, North Somerset
Expanding road network
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BLADE Runner is a brilliant idea whose use should not be limited to buses and lorries only.
A version should be manufactured of a Blade Runner car and every effort made to ensure that its braking distance is the same or better than when it is used on the road. This should enable Britain’s still large network of railway lines to add their capacity to the current road network.
At the same time, a system of automatic driving control could be added, vastly reducing transport accidents and enabling much higher speeds to be safely achieved. This system with its car-like ability to go from door to door and rail-like characteristics would be most attractive.
The DTI should find the funds to fully develop such a system, if necessary by closing down rural lines to save money, reopening them only when they can operate in a modern and worthwhile manner.
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A. Sandman, London NW1
Safe at night
AS A railway enthusiast I recall that the LMS railway company was experimenting with road/rail services in the 1930s. I have often wondered why further experimentation was not carried out; perhaps it was because of the onset of the Second World War.
The Blade Runner could be the saviour of many branch lines and possibly enable the reopening of some. Perhaps it could even substitute late-evening train services so that people could be dropped nearer to well-lit points, rather than at unmanned stations.
Peter K. Wilkinson, pkwilkinson@yahoo.co.uk
ONE hopes that a careful cost comparison will be made between that of the complex new vehicles, and the cost of an ordinary bus. Over the next five years, Network Rail will be spending £5 billion a year on operating, maintaining and replacing its assets — much the same as is spent on the roads, which provide 14 times as many passenger-kilometres, and over eight times as many freight tonne-kilometres. Of the £5 billion, around £1 billion a year is needed to catch up with the failure to renew enough track since the Hatfield disaster.
We who use trains can observe the reason for the huge cost of rail infrastructure in high wage economies — armies of men in yellow jackets engaged in manual work on the track. In spite of increased use of machinery, there is a great deal that cannot be mechanised, whereas nowadays little manual work is needed on the roads.
A. J. Lucking, London WC2