The mystery of the East Coast ghost trains

The Man Who Pays His Way: Why squander public cash and burn fossil fuel sending a 100-ton ghost train more than 200 miles?

Crowd pleasers: LNER Azuma trains at London King's Cross (Simon Calder)

At 8.32 each weekday evening, a big diesel train roars into life and accelerates away from the glorious curve of York railway station, brushing against the right bank of the River Ouse. The CrossCountry service growls its way north, pausing at Darlington, Durham, Newcastle and the Northumberland village of Alnmouth en route to Edinburgh Waverley.

On Monday I was one of a handful of passengers on board. From a network connectivity point of view, though, it makes sense to link the towns and cities along the East Coast Main Line with a late evening train.

But not two.

Yet as I was waiting to leave York, an LNER train drew up alongside, equality devoid of passengers. Three minutes after my service headed north, this quiet electric express set off in our shadow, following the same route with the same stops (plus a couple more Northumbrian halts at Morpeth and Berwick), arriving at an adjacent Edinburgh platform.

Any traveller, taxpayer or friend of the planet could come up with a cunning plan to stop squandering public cash and burning fossil fuel on sending a 100-ton ghost train more than 200 miles: ask the few passengers on the diesel train just arrived from Taunton to walk across the platform at York to the electric service from London. 

With no more than 5 per cent of seats filled on either train, social distancing would not be an issue, even with an infectious MP on board.

A minor hassle for a major saving. So obvious is the solution that there must surely be some reason why this apparent gross wastefulness continues.

My first thought was: perhaps the CrossCountry diesel needs to be in Edinburgh for a southbound service the following morning. Many empty trains shuttle around the nation to be in the right position, and might as well carry passengers.

Yet a glance at the early timetable from the Scottish capital reveals another ghost train arrangement: at 6.56am an LNER departure to York, followed five minutes later by CrossCountry.

Could the answer be not so much duplication as competition? The UK government owns and runs LNER, while CrossCountry is a subsidiary of the German state railway, Deutsche Bahn.

In earlier times that argument had merit: competing for custom on comfort, service and price. But rail privatisation has been ditched since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Britain’s trains, whether run publicly or privately, are all specified by the Department for Transport (DfT) and prodigiously subsidised by the taxpayer. Rail journeys account for only two per cent of trips made in the UK, but devour 56 per cent of government spending on transport.

Travellers and taxpayers need to know why the DfT is using public money to run these ghost trains. So I asked the department.

“This is a matter for the operator,” I was told.

Oh no, it isn’t. CrossCountry and LNER are told exactly which trains to run by the DfT. The buck stops with the government.

This week the same department refused to extend the validity of railcards, despite rendering these discount cards impotent for four months by urging people not to travel by train.

“With fares revenue having fallen to less than 5 per cent of pre-Covid levels, we must ensure we are fair to taxpayers,” said a DfT spokesperson.

Quite.