Trying to drive anywhere in London is often a fool’s errand – unless you’re a bus driver or a cabbie – so it’s a good thing we’ve got the Underground and Overground rail services. But what if we didn’t?
16:06, 20 Jul 2026Updated 16:14, 20 Jul 2026
A fascinating advert dating back almost 40 years has given a peek into what London might look like without its rail network. The black and white British Rail poster shows an aerial image of the area around Westminster Bridge, showing Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
But there’s a major difference – the area is covered with a winding network of roads, looking more like Spaghetti Junction than the centre of London. The Thames is completely invisible, seemingly buried under concrete as far as the eye can see, and each road is at a standstill with gridlocked traffic.
The top of the poster, which reportedly dates to 1979, bears the words: “There is an alternative to commuting by rail. But could we live with it?”
Below, a message reads: “Every working day 400,000 people travel in and out of London by British Rail. But there is an alternative. Like Los Angeles, we could rely entirely on roads instead.
“Of course, some roads would have to be widened to take the extra traffic. Not only that, but we’d need to build an estimated 120 lanes of highway.
“Even then, there would still be the problem of what to do with all the cars as they converged on Central London. Looking at it that way, it makes a lot of sense to invest in our way.”
It ends with the words: “British Rail. The backbone of the nation.”
British Rail was the UK’s state-owned rail operator. It ceased to exist in 1997 when John Major’s government privatised the UK’s railways.
The image was shared on Reddit, where many compared the image to a number of modern-day cities, including Baton Rouge in Louisiana, Toronto in Canada, and Dubai.
Another said: “I will say this, the UK and Europe 100 per cent got it right when they put train tracks everywhere and made that the main form of long range transport. I know that would have been a much larger and harder under taking in US but maaaaaaaaan would it ever be nice to just jump on a train to go visit family and such instead of the options being drive for 12 hours or pay for over priced plane tickets.”
Another said: “The US had and has a lot of rail infrastructure. Much of it was ripped out in favour of highways.
“You had one of the most expansive rail networks in the world. But money won out.”
How many people travel in and out of London every day?
According to the most recent Transport for London figures, there are an average of 26.6 million trips in and out of London every single day in 2024. Of these, 5.4 million are by rail – a huge increase compared with the 1979 figure.
- Train – London Overground or National Rail: 2.8 million
- Train – Underground or DLR: 2.6 million
- Bus or tram: 3.4 million
- Taxi or private hire vehicle: 400,000
- Car driver: 5.7 million
- Car passenger: 3.4 million
- Motorcycle: 400,000
- Cycle: 1.2 million
- Walk: 6.8 million
- Total: 26.6 million
