Why can't we have trains at Christmas?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Guardian - 20th December 2007 (the first year of the Coffee Shop!)

For new arrivals to these shores, Britain presents many learning opportunities. The festive season is no exception. There is no point, for instance, in trying to act on our railway companies' annual exhortations to book early for "Christmas services". Similarly, anybody who foresees "Christmas rail travel" betokening a trip from A to B on a train, is about to discover the "replacement bus service".

Christmas Day service is, in a word, zero. And Boxing Day, next-to-zero. Indeed, so eroded has the timetable become across the whole festive season that Britons now accept this as normal. But why? Can we not have proper railways that carry us around the country seeing (and crucially, fleeing) our loved ones at Christmas?

Lack of public demand is the key reason cited by the Association of Train Operating Companies. "After 1948, Christmas Day train services went into in decline," it says, with passenger numbers falling throughout the 1950s - "one reason being that cars were more accessible". The last passenger train at Christmas ran in 1964. Following that lead, London Underground's last Christmas Day tube was in 1979.

Rail privatisation - put in place between 1993-97 by John Major's Conservative government - has reinforced the closure trend, as commercial operators jettison unprofitable services. Often they attribute their patchy festive timetables to engineering work. Yet across the Channel, trains whiz all over the European Union throughout Christmas: Genoa to Naples, Gdansk to Przemysl, Lisbon to Braga. Spain, France, Hungary, and many more - all miraculously still getting their engineering done.

In Germany, cancellation of a single train on the Yuletide schedule produces national apoplexy. And that may be the main reason Britain has no Christmas trains: the public accepts their absence, our EU^» (European Union - about) neighbours do not.

[TaplowGreen]

It's a nice idea, but a reliable train service Mon - Fri, and even at weekends, should probably be prioritised.

Let's not try running before we walk.

(Bah, humbug etc!)

[grahame]

It's a nice idea, but a reliable train service Mon - Fri, and even at weekends, should probably be prioritised.

Let's not try running before we walk.

(Bah, humbug etc!)

I would agree on the utter priority of a reliable, decent service at other times.

It is, though, useful to keep an eye on the drift of things going on around and be aware of the typical activities on Christmas Day to have at least an inkling of how things might change in the future.

It is not an indicator of people travelling, but I've taken a look at forum use for 25th December - a day without train and where the typical daly activity of people is far from standard. Some stats:
* Members logged in - last 8 and 24 hours - 49, 68
* Most people online at one time (Members plus guests - 65
* 25 posts during the day, with 4 new threads

Pretty meaningless without comparators so:
* 3rd lowest posts number for December so far
* typical number of new threads
* "Members in 24 hours", I expect to see around 90 on a typical day
* "Members in 8 hours", varies during the day, I have no comparator spec for midnight
* Most people online - that number is very typical for a day without external sharing
** Overall - activity perhaps three quarters of a typical day. So quiet, but far from dead!!

I was out locally - doing lifts - around midday and again around 4 p.m.  The roads were noticeably quiet at midday, and virtually empty mid afternoon.  That was all roads on which I would expect the journeys to be short ones - I did not venture onto any regional or long distance roads.

[Electric train]

I'm still not convinced the demand is there at all for Christmas Day, for Boxing Day "Metro" type services in and around the larger conurbations in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom); services like Thameslink, Elizabeth, London Overground in the London and similar types of services for the other major cities.

Interciy services are extremely unlikely there is just not the demand