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UK Rail services to come under unified state control

bbc.com

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Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#111

Post by pydry »

midasuni wrote: post #107
OJFord wrote: post #48

Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…

I’m not. I have a choice on the WCML of multiple different providers. Manchester to London walk up far for almost any time can be £300 return for the fast train arriving in london before lunch and getting home before 9pm, or £50 for a slower train with a change. Same with crewe-Manchester, Birmingham-london, Edinburgh-london etc. Quite happy with the competition and no government interference.

You're saying there's clearly plenty of competition when a flight from London to New York can be had for the price of a fairly normal rail ticket from London to Manchester?

Those £50 tickets are about market segmentation - separating the customers who have time flexibility or are willing to suffer from those who don't or aren't.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#112

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

Neil44 wrote: post #16

This is very strange. The BBC article has gone 404 and there’s nothing on the guardian or daily mail. But I also heard this discussed on radio 4 earlier. Odd. 8:04am.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/19/uk-rail-ove...

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#113

Post by mjbeswick »

petepete wrote: post #35
rich_sasha wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re infrastructure, my worst memories involve commuting between Oxford and London (a major rail route in the grand scheme of things) and it breaking down a few times a month, especially in winter, due to “signalling failures”. It turns out rail signals were controlled by buried cables without adequate insulation, so when it was wet they literally stopped working. And yes, this was 21st century, not steam trains.

Until lockdown I commuted to Manchester on the Rochdale line in Leyland-branded Pacers[0]. Trains with an intended lifespan of "no more than twenty years", that are now 35-40 years old. The tickets cost £100 per month and in the years I did it, only managed to find a seat on a handful of occasions. I had to wait at the station because the train was too full more frequently than finding a seat - often they'd show up w…

£100 a month not bad. My season ticket used to cost £4400, for a 25 minute ride to London waterloo, and tube to Hammersmith. Still cheaper than £28 for the day!

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#114

Post by midasuni »

Stranger43 wrote: post #97
JI00912 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a private company where there's little/much more indirect incentive to do anything in the interest of the consumer. Well... the incentives really aren't different for the government.

Actually they are because unlike shareholders who cares more about dividends then efficiency and service levels the government have stakeholders who care about efficiency and service levels.

Hahahahaha

Oh wait you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.

Efficiency leads to profits and thus dividends. The government cares more about politics than efficiency. Look the the problems southern have had because the government insisted on getting rid of guards - they effectively nationalised southern (GTR) years ago because they refused to let the private sector run it how they wanted.

Compare with chiltern who converted the Chiltern line from a service about to shut down under the government in the 80s to a leading toc massively increasing service and options

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#115

Post by matsemann »

Skinney wrote: post #51
matsemann wrote: post #12

Norway's railroad also went "private" a few years ago, and have butchered it up into (not all): - we have a directorate of railway deciding where to build tracks, what providers must adhere to, their timetables etc - one government owned company building - one government owned company building and maintaining the tracks - one government owned company owning the trains - another one maintaining the trains - one govern…

They don’t have to lease their trains from the government, they can bring their own trains if they’d like, but leasing is likely cheaper. The company maintaining the trains do have to bid on the contracts, as well, and can bid for contracts in other countries if they wish. The directorate of railway was there pre-privatization. It’s the infrastructure company that decides the timetables, not the directorate. The dire…

I'm one of those (many) people that don't believe in that 12B figure. It is only based on "we used to pay X for this route in the old model, and now we pay Y", but that's two different things to compare and ignores lots of new costs as well. All the offers were also based on traffic growth, meaning subsidies for the tickets in 7-8 years would go down. This would have happened irregardless of the bids (except the contractors have budgeted with it and now carries the risk).

And before when it was the government paying the government owned NSB, it was basically the government giving themselves money. Now whatever profit the new companies make are instead going out of the country. Government takes the cost, others take the profit.

So unless this happens to result in a much better experience for the customers I think it will be a net loss for society. But time will tell, hard to say too much based on the last year.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#116

Post by midasuni »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #78

The flexible season tickets are welcome. However, missing from this news report is any mention of making the cost of rail travel more affordable for the public. The report quotes the former boss of British Airways about " greater flexibility in the way that fares are operated in the future " What does this mean? Can we expect less expensive tickets? The UK already has some of the most expensive rail tickets in Europe…

Why should frequent travellers get 50% plus discounts on journeys? When I travel to london I pay about £1 a mile in the peak on a fast train. A season ticket holder pays about 20p a mile.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#118

Post by ClumsyPilot »

midasuni wrote: post #107
OJFord wrote: post #48

Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…

I’m not. I have a choice on the WCML of multiple different providers. Manchester to London walk up far for almost any time can be £300 return for the fast train arriving in london before lunch and getting home before 9pm, or £50 for a slower train with a change. Same with crewe-Manchester, Birmingham-london, Edinburgh-london etc. Quite happy with the competition and no government interference.

£300 for a train ticket and you are happy? Have you been on a train in China, France or even Czech Republic?

This parody for 'competition' has given us most expensive fares in Europe and soviet-block quality of rail service.

It's a new disease, 'neoliberalism of the brain' that maintains 'free market' even at the cost of organ failure

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#119

Post by OJFord »

flipbrad wrote: post #69
OJFord wrote: post #48

Hurrah! Even as a free market conservative I've long been in favour of this: bidding for the multi-year contract to operate a line is a poor proxy for (impossible) proper competition where rail users could vote with their feet and wallets. There's effectively only one operator anyway, for a given journey, it should be the state, awarding the multi-year contract to the elected government is strictly better than to a p…

I'm sorry to say, but these plans still see routes being operated by private companies awarded multiyear contracts...

So does Transport for London, in some behind the scenes way I don't need to know or care about.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#120

Post by beck5 »

drawfloat wrote: post #88
beck5 wrote: post #49

Most will sympathise with public run railways (rightly or wrongly) so it is worth highlighting some positives from private companies running of the railways. The private companies have pushed for a very large increase in the number of operating trains, with around a 50% increase in the past couple of decades, they are trying to squeeze every drop possible out if the tracks. The train companies are also often making a…

Appreciate that, but vast swathes of the North and rural areas will never be profitable. As a result, entire areas of the country have rolling stock that was supposed to be dropped in the 80s, a couple of services a day, or aren't even electrified. The one that always stands out to me is the fact that the last train from Liverpool to Sheffield (two major cities) is at 9:30pm because it wasn't profitable to continue s…

I completely agree, Northern trains are a disgrace.

I don't think it was a failure of private companies though, rather Network Rail failing to deliver. The government has speced electrification for decades like you say. The cost of eletricifcation has gone through the roof, mainly due to health and safety (good thing). We have also lost a lot of expertise in electrification, much like how we lost the skill to tunnel.

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