Reader Comments:

Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.

• Keith Trinder, Birmingham

  I am in full agreement that you have to take account of population growth before exagerating the significance of passenger growth. There has, however, to be an acceptance that there is a need to increase the number of destinations. The rail network is simply not accessible to many people. Take the case of someone from Greater London (with a good network) wanting to travel to Kings Heath in Birmingham. In the West Midlands conurbation despite local authority support, petitions, and the huge success of the 1970s Cross City Line, there have been no new stations. The inertia assumes that all rail travel (except London) assumes travel is to City centres. The journeys to Kings Heath are deterred to the economic disadvantage of Birmingham and to the detriment of future revenue of the railways.

• Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex

  No doubt the Anti HS2 brigade will jump on these figures as proof that HS2 is not needed !
  
  Yet passengers already have to stand on trains leaving Euston of Friday nights and that other rail element "freight " is always ignored by them no doubt they still think it consists of milk churns being sent to London !
  
  And, not 2000 tonne freight trains or long trains full of containers or even their new cars !
  
  The fact London Overground has increased trains from 3 to 4 carriages and just ordered carriages to make this 5 shows how growth is continueing !
  
  In fact with thr growth of London Overground and Manchester Metrolink one needs to be sure whether passengers carried by these other operators are or are not included in this national total? [Overground yes, Metrolink and other trams, no.- Editor.]
  
  We have also had one of the worst and longest winters for decades and so leisure travel has no doubt taken a big hit in the first half of this year.

• Tony Pearce, Reading

  Predicting growth is almost impossible. Something like the Internet comes along and just wipes out not only growth out but bankcrupts many businesses. We have been (are?) in a deep recession and yet somethings keep growing (eg Rail travel, National Trust membership, meals in restaurants). But the skill comes in looking for deeper reasons. I am, I admit baffled, by the continous growth in rail usage. It may be down to Council Car Parking Charges, more people with leisure time, Staycations (ie holidays in the UK), or the increase in Taxation on Company Cars. It may also be due to the Oyster Card in London which allows pensioners free rail travel on the Underground and other rail lines. But your ideas are as good as mine.

• Chris Neville-Smith, Durham, England

  To add to what everyone else has said, 3% growth is not too surprising in the year that immediately followed a double-dip recession. To look at it another way, passenger numbers are growing - and, crucially, growing above the 2.5% used in the HS2 business case - even when the economy is flatlining. We saw after 2008 that the effect of a full-blow recession on passenger growth was only temporary, so you can expect the same effect this time round.
  
  And, in any case, I'm not that interested in passenger numbers in 20 years time, I'm most interested in passenger numbers now. And you don't need growth forecasts to see what London Midland trains are like in 2013, never mind 2033. If we knew for certain that numbers weren't going to increase any further, I would seriously look at the option of building a new pair of tracks as far as Milton Keynes (a variant of Andrea Leadsholm's idea, possibly the only proposal made from an HS2 opponent with any credibility). But as this will still involve expansion of Euston and a tunnel under Greater London, don't expect huge savings over HS2 phase 1.
  
  (I do, however, think we should hold off a final decision on phase 2 until we have a better idea of future passenger numbers and public finances. There is a good case to justify phase 1 even without any more passenger growth, but the case for phase 2 without growth is weaker.)

• Lutz, London

  @Tony Pearce, Reading
  You are right.
  
  Regards the tail-off in growth; the poor weather at the time was probably a factor. The economy is booming again, so any pause in growth is likely to be temporary.
  

• Darren, Newcastle

  You are correct in your assumptions of 44 million population and 60 million population now Tony, and you may rightly expect the figure to increase 35% if the population has changed that much! But you fail to take into account in the 1920's there was in excess of 23,000 miles of railway network compared to todays figure of some 9,500 miles. so we are carrying as many passengers as in the 20's on a network half the size.

• Graham, Basingstoke

  A few points, firstly to justify HS2 the anual growth rate is 2.5%, so at 2.9% this years growth is still higher now than a year ago than the model for HS2. Also the growth rate from 2010 to 2013 is 10.9% whilst the model was for 7.7% over the same time. Infact the growth rate is currently more than it should have been in 2014.
  Secondly there have been dips before in passenger growth (2008/09 saw a dip of 0.5%) and then they pick up again, so one year doesn't mean that the growth rate will continue to fall (2009/10 saw growth of 7.6%).
  Thirdly there has been little work compleated and/or new trains delivered this year, meaning that there was little to attract new custom to the railways. Once Thameslink (2018), Crossrail (2019), Northern Hub (2019), GWML electrification (2017) and Reading station (2014) are all compleated as well as new rolling stock deliverd I would expect to see passenger numbers surge again for a few years after each key step.

• Tony Pearce, Reading

  The Population of the UK in the 1920s was around 44 million as compared to todays 60 million. So one would expect the figure to be 35% higher if all things were equal. The figures do show that the growth is all around London and thats where the investment needs to go to show the best return. One could make a reasonable case for HS2 if it really is Government Policy to build Birmingham airport as the main airport of the UK and build the HS2 network to join it to other large Airports such as Manchester and Heathrow. But Long Distance rail travel is not growing as fast as it was just after the WCML upgrade and introduction of Pendolinos (and it includes other lines such as GW) so to say it backs the current case for HS2 is nonsense.