My Country, All Of It

Free Summer Rail Travel for the Young

When I started The Long March back in June last year, this was my first offering. I’m republishing it now because it’s a great idea and there are hundreds of new Long March readers who will have missed it first time round.

The greatest gift we can give our divided Britain is to free its youth to explore their country, meet each other, play around in it history, its culture, its opportunities and beauties. Yes, and meet each other across class and regional boundaries and discover what they share, and what they don’t.

We can take a great step towards this by granting free - absolutely free - rail travel around Britain for youngsters during summer. Make every summer an adventure for the young. Set them free.

What’s the alternative? Well, we’re living in it. High rail fares put travel - put Britain, that is - out of reach for all young people except the rich. North rarely gets to meet South, partly because it can’t afford to get there. South rarely ventures North because, . . well, when was the North ever promoted to Londoners? The social costs are entrenched regional isolation, and the loosening of social sympathy and solidarity upon which true patriotism must call. The economic costs? The absence of cross-fertilization of ideas, experiences, culture: a shrunken talent-pool. Wasted potential.

Imagine you’re a young artist in Lincoln who wants to see the the art in Tate St. Ives. The railway will get you there . . . if you’ve got £200 to spare (ticket estimates from Omio). That’s the real entry fee, not the paltry £10.50 that the gallery wants from you.

Imagine you’re a real culture-vulture, living in Oxford but determined to visit each of the most recent cities of culture (Hull, Coventry, Bradford). You’re doing pretty well (you’re living in Oxford, after all), but still, that’ll be £400 in railfare alone.

What young person could possibly dream of doing it? More damagingly, when the rail fare is £176 one-way, you’re not going to get many youngsters from Hartlepool coming to visit Oxford’s dreaming spires.

Say you’ve an interest in Britain’s religious history, which is one reason you’re living in York. Let’s visit Canterbury - that’ll be £152 one-way.

Or maybe stone circles are more your thing: Keswick (Castlerigg) to Salisbury (Stonehenge) will cost around £113 one-way. Want to take in Sutton Hoo whilst you’re at it? Best budget another £80 on top of that. And then some to get home again.

We all pay a heavy heavy price for pricing youngsters our of their country. The opportunity cost of lost potential alone must run into billions. But the taxpayer also pays when it picks up the bill directly for social and economic disappointment.

So set them free. Given them the run of the railways for the summer. Let them surprise themselves and us. Given them the opportunity to open the gates of our gated country. Hey, let them find jobs where they never dreamed of finding them.

And the cost to the railways? In truth, negligible. Railways after all are a fixed-cost business - it costs almost the same to run a train carrying 600 as it does carrying 6. Let the operators know they’re nurturing the next generation of customers, who, in the meantime, need a sandwich and a beer.