speed and comfort, and on cost for the individual traveller. On longer journeys, the adverse effect of terminal congestion is relatively less important, but the wear and tear of a long road journey then becomes an important deterrent. Therefore, for most of those passengers who make up the steady, year round, component of long distance travel, i.e. people travelling on business who rate their convenience and comfort highly, rail will remain preferable to road transport, provided that attention is given to the speed, reliability and comfort of trains.
Air transport is not competitive in terms of speed for inter-city distances of less than about 200 miles, nor is it competitive in terms of cost except while operating as the minority carrier able to keep a high load factor by creaming from the total flow. This restricts the routes over which air competes seriously with rail to the London–Manchester, London–Newcastle and London–Scotland routes.
On the Scottish routes, air makes quite serious inroads into the loading of day trains, and will continue to do so. Even though trains may be speeded up, they will not match city-to-city transit times by air over such a distance, and erosion of daytime rail traffics between London and Scotland will probably continue to the point where some trains will have to be withdrawn. On the other hand, sleeper trains between London and Scotland continue to attract a satisfactory level of traffic, and there is good reason to suppose that they can be improved and increased.
On the Manchester route, rail and air are more nearly matched on time, and the difference will be reduced to a negligible level when rail times are reduced to 2¾ hours, as they will be with the completion of electrification of the route. Comfort will then become a predominant factor in rail/air competition, with the balance of advantage potentially in favour of rail for the journey as a whole. For the reasons outlined, the general level of traffic on fast and semi-fast trains is expected to hold up well. As a group, these services make a substantial contribution to system cost, and their profitability can certainly be improved by detailed attention to individual services and trains. There is, therefore, no doubt about the continuation of the railways' inter-city passenger services on substantially the present broad pattern, so long as the main line network remains in being, adequately supported by other traffics. For this reason, it was thought unnecessary to include a rapid detailed examination of all the fast train services among the special studies connected with reshaping of the railways.
This does not mean that British Railways feel complacent about their intercity services, nor that services will not be studied with a view to improving them. Improvements have and are being made, and will continue.
Some patterns for the future have already been set. The introduction of the Blue Pullman services between London and Birmingham, London and Manchester, and London and Swansea, with journey times of l hr. 55 min., 3 hrs. 10 min., and 3 hrs. 35 min. respectively, heralded the luxury train of the future.
The diesel-worked hourly day service between King's Cross and Newcastle, including trains in each direction which cover the 268½ miles in four hours, compares favourably with the oft-quoted pre-war service in both frequency and capacity.
Where a demand capable of supporting quality services covered by supplementary charges is seen to exist, they will be introduced.
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