Guided Busways? No Way!

AMG of Live from the Third Rail links to a very silly article in Rupert Murdoch's Times. It starts with this risible line:

Tracks on branch railway lines are to be torn up and replaced with concrete channels, under plans to attract people out of cars by replacing trains with buses.

Needless to say, AMG gives it the fisking it deserves.

Guided busways are one of those silly technologies that gets periodically trundled out by those people who entertain fantasies of concreting over the whole of the nation's railway network. These people always seem to originate from the lunatic fringe of libertarianism. It reality, guided busways are a cheap and nasty substitute for light rail that has all the disadvantages of buses and trains, and none of the advantages of either. I wish I knew where that sort of visceral hatred of steel rails comes from. Is it just an extension of popular distain for train spotters?

The Times ridiculous article suggests than many miles of branch lines up and down the country are about to be replaced with this useless system. But nowhere does it say there's any specific proposal for this. It mentions the Dunstanble and Cambridge-St Ives-Huntingdon proposals, both of which are on lines disused for some time, and have been talked about for years. Nothing ever came of the Dunstable scheme, and the St Ives plan has met serious opposition from those who want a rail-based solution, such as Cast Iron.

The only worrying one is the Bristol to Severn Beach line, on which there's supposed to be a "study". There's no mention of the results of this study; hopefully it will prove such a scheme is impractical. I note that the last few miles of the Severn Beach line share the main line tracks into Bristol with main line trains. The guided buses won't be able to do this, and therefore will have to negotiate Bristol's congested roads into the city centre.

The financial black hole in the railway network is real, and things do need to be done to make things more efficient. I'm sure there are economies which can be made. I'd favour Swiss style light rail for many self-contained rural line, with modern lightweight railcars specifically designed for such routes, and independent local management who will be in a better position than some faraway bureaucrat to determine the needs of the local customers.