Great Western Coffee Shop

Somewhat spurred on by grahame's postings, I'm making a couple, one now and probably one or two later.
Does rail travel actually matter in the grand scheme of things?

Obviously those of us here are either rail enthusiasts, or depend on the railways for travel, or both.
But for the majority of the public, does it really matter? Certainly most people I know are happy to drive most places and get taxis or walk when drinking etc. London is the main exception, but even then certainly at least some of my London based friends rely on their cars more than the railways.

Certainly I think those of us who do rely on rail tend to easily forget that most people don't, and you could rip up the railways and you wouldn't hear any argument from a large percentage of the British population. Obviously I don't want that to happen, but I think it is helpful if we put it all in prospective a bit sometimes!

Rail does matter.

It shouldn't be seen as an alternative to the private car. Many can't or don't drive.

It's not a black and white issue between train and car. Rail is part of a transport system, public and private. That system should be balanced, but should also encourage public over private wherever possible. The societal benefits are important. Rail is the safest surface transport by far. Rail is far more environmentally friendly.

Does rail matter to many? Maybe not. But the answer should not be to dismiss rail. The answer should be to make it more attractive.

This. It's not just a question of getting people and things from one place to another, rail (and roads, air, even waterways) exist as part of everything else. Like an ecosystem, where removing one thing (or introducing a new one, or radically altering the proportions) has unpredictable consequences on things which don't seem to be connected.

Its a capacity issue.

I am not sure how else you could get the mass movement of people in and out of big cities like London every day. You would have to clear huge swathes of the suburbs to provide roads even if you used buses. The car was the alternative then it would be even larger and you would also have to clar huge swathes of the city centre to build car parks. 

I think this image says it all:

(https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/sites/cycling-embassy.org.uk/files/styles/max_resolution/public/dictionary/Capacity%20and%20road%20space.jpg?itok=tjV0n0zr)

Further information at: https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/capacity (https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/capacity)

Under most circumstances, trains use much less fuel per passenger than private cars.
As fossil fuels deplete and therefore become more expensive, economy in fuel use will become ever more important.

Electric cars help to an extent with concerns about the price and availability of oil derived fuels, but do still need fuel or renewable energy to produce the electricity.
With a growing population there wont be the road space or parking spaces for cars for everyone.

Roads also kill a couple of thousand people a year at considerable cost to society. Trains are much safer.

London would be a very different place without its dense web of railways. I heard somewhere that a tube line has the same capacity as a twelve-lane motorway; to accommodate this the metropolis would have  become a very different place. In LA, with its generous network of freeways the average driver spends 102 hours/year stuck in congestion, whereas in London it's 74 hours/year - and in London, as long as you are able-bodied, you have other choices.

Most railways outside London, particularly post-Beeching, seem organised around the principle that ultimately everyone wants to get to London. This is changing: East-West Rail for example, but the progress is glacial. Part of the problem seems to be that rail (outside London, where to a carrot-cruncher like me it seems the question is not 'shall we build the line' but 'should we gold-plate the ticket machines') is seen as expensive, and this is seen as a Bad Thing. It isn't. Rail is meant to be expensive; that's the point. A rail link shows that a place is to be taken seriously, that it is worth investing in. Rail is quality. In a small town, a substantial well-maintained railway station is says more about a place than the most expensive advertising campaign. And for a decent-sized city, a proper metro system does the same.

Is rail essential? No, we could get by without it. But our quality of life would be diminished, and our economy would be damaged.

I'm not so sure Red Squirrel, "getting by" might not be the case for many.

There are other towns and cities that would suffer if their rail services were severed - look at the numbers of passengers arriving and departing from Reading Station every year. Birmingham and Manchester would also struggle. Guildford has quite a few inward commuters too.

The places from which people commute into the main centres would also suffer, too.

Our rail infrastructure, however much it could improve it's passenger experience, is an important part of our infrastructure. Look at all the minerals on the long stone trains that operate in our part of the world, or the long container trains.