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Rail journeys to work 'take longer than 70 years ago'
Anna Davis06.03.09
Some London commuter train journeys take longer now than they did before the Second World War.
Research from the London School of Economics found that decades of technological innovation have bought little benefit for commuters trying to get to work on time.
Researchers, led by Dr Tim Leunig, compared timetables for services into London from before the war and the present day.
They found a journey to Waterloo from Surbiton took 17 minutes before the war. Last year it took two minutes longer. The trip from Wimbledon takes three minutes longer than in 1930.
Dr Leunig said: "It is not that all trains are slower than they were in 1939 but some are." He said speeding up commuter journeys was vital for the economy.
"The 20 busiest journeys in Britain are all short-distance journeys into London," he said.
"London has become more important in the economy. Londoners are generally paid better and pay more taxes so it is in our interest to get more people into work in London."
Dr Leunig said one of the reasons journeys take longer is because the old slam-doors have been replaced with automatic doors.
He said: "People now take longer to get on and off trains. Everyone who commuted into London knows that on the old slam-door trains people could jump out as they were stopping. Now they have to wait for the doors to open."
The Victoria to Orpington route now takes 30 minutes, compared with 24 in 1976.
A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said: "Passengers want reliability and punctuality over speed of services.
"While there might have been some journeys which were on paper faster before the war, they were not as dependable nor was there the choice of services there is today. We are operating more trains on fewer tracks."
Reader views (3)
Presumably this comparison relies on the timetables giving a valid estimate of the time taken, in rush hour it becomes a pure work of fiction.
- Bob, Cheam
More shoddy research - cherry picking a few lines that had seen substantial speed ups just before the war and completely ignoring lines that have seen substantial speed ups *since* the war, such as those from Marylebone, Paddington, St. Pancras, Euston and Fenchurch Street. How fast was London to Heathrow in 1939? Luton? Bedford? Ealing? Shenfield?
The big speed ups in most cases actually comes from electrification, which happened to be done pre-war south of the river, which are amazingly the examples picked out here. When BR electrified lines north of the river, services sped up - if analysed objectively I'd expect a slight subsequent increase in journey times on those routes, too, for the same reasons of congestion and reliability that apply south of the river. However, it doesn't suit Dr. Leunig's politics to say 'private train operators slower than BR'.
Dr. Leunig (a Lib Dem, actually) has form for this sort of thing (a fairly transparent attempt at making a right wing political statement via ostensibly academic research), and I'm not sure I trust his results unless I can see the full report and the raw data for myself.
- Tom, London, UK
This is not unusual as train companies have lengthened journey times so that they can hit punctuality targets more easily.
In steam days the fastest train from London to Brighton was 45 minutes, I now believe it is now over an hour.
- Paul B, London
