Rising cost of running a car brings busiest year for rail since 1920s

THE number of people choosing to let the train take the strain has increased significantly in the last year, according to latest figures, making 2011 the busiest year on the railways since the 1920s.

Spiralling fuel costs combined with improved train timetables are behind the rise of 5.3 per cent rise in rail passengers over the last three months.

There were 314.3 million passenger journeys made on the railways in the period 26 June to 17 September this year – a 5.3 per cent rise on the same period last year.

The figures, from the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc), included a 5.8 per cent increase in journeys in London and south-east England.

ScotRail and East Coast trains said there had been a marked increase in the number of rail passengers in the last year.

Atoc said the high price of petrol was one of the reasons behind the rise, with year-end passenger journey numbers now likely to exceed 1.3 billion – the busiest year on the railways since the 1920s.

Atoc said people were preferring rail to road for breaks and were also snapping up cheap advance tickets, available for those who book early.

Atoc chief executive Michael Roberts said: “Despite difficult financial times, more people are choosing to go by train when travelling to work and on business, visiting friends and family.

“Over the summer, leisure travellers and families left the car keys at home and took advantage of cheap train tickets as a way of getting around the country for less.”

The test for train companies will come next year when regulated fares, which include season tickets, go up by an average of 8 per cent. There are fears the hike could see some people being priced off the railways.

ScotRail said it had seen an increase in the number of passengers over the last year or so.

A spokesman said: “There has been increase in numbers of people using our trains with one of the contributing factors being what we call the fuel impact.”

East Coast trains said recent figures showed journeys from Scotland to England had increased 13 per cent since last year as well as passengers numbers on all its rail services going up to 18.5 million, a 3 per cent increase from last year.

A spokeswoman said there were several factors at work.

“Rising fuel prices is one of the reasons we have seen an increase but since May, we have made the biggest changes to our timetables in 20 years,” she said. “Now 40 Edinburgh to London trains run every weekday and we have introduced an early-morning, four-hour service which gets passengers into London for 9:40am.

“Rail travel has become very competitive. Passengers don’t have to check in and they are taken straight into city centres. There are also companies who have green policies and ask their employees to take the train rather than fly.”

Bob Crow, leader of the RMT transport union, said: “These figures show why we need more capacity and more new fleet.

“We cannot keep on cramming more passengers into crumbling and under-resourced services.”