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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

#211

Post by pydry »

iso1631 wrote: post #150
pydry wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That £300 return subsidizes train services in rural parts of cornwall. That's a political decision. Other options are to have more taxpayer subsidy, higher prices in Cornwall, close services in cornwall, or reduce operating costs (which are heavily staff and rolling stock based -- something that HS2 will slash) P.S. I just looked up an equivalent London-New York economy flight (flexible flight leaving this evening an…

It also subsidized Richard Branson's lifestyle. This is also a political decision.

I looked at London-NY - if I put it off one week I can easily cross 1/3 of the world for less than the price of a day trip to Manchester tomorrow.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#212

Post by signal11 »

andrepd wrote: post #185
iso1631 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did privitise the risk too. After the failure of the east coast franchise recently, the government bailled out virgin, but that's not the fault of the system. If I want to travel from Birmingham to London I have a choice of 3 different train companies, as well as a coach company and driving (either hiring a car with or without driver, or using my own car). That's tons of competition, and it shows given the choic…

>If I want to travel from Birmingham to London I have a choice of 3 different train companies Great, now talk about literally any other line in Britain

London to Birmingham is an exception because you have three train companies but also two separate sets of tracks -- the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the Chiltern Line. This builds a lot of resilience into the system. I wish other lines had this as well.

That said, the WCML is extremely well run relative to the horrow shows in S and SE England.

If you live along the WCML (think Bucks, Coventry, etc), you have two providers: Avanti (formerly Virgin) and London Northwestern/West Midland (formerly Midland). You actually have Southern as well, but they are... not a credible provider.

HS2, if it's ever done, will further reduce pressure on the WCML and increase resilience.

But on the other hand, go up North and there used to be trains which are modified bus bodies[1]. Are those still there? So yes, absolutely, the rail network does need to improve across the country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail)

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#213

Post by breakfastduck »

duxup wrote: post #196
makomk wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The seperation of track ownership and operation from actually running the trains is mandated by EU directives, so that part is going to be the same pretty much anywhere in the EU. I think some countries like Germany bend the rules a bit by having them run by nominally independent divisions of the same state-owned company (and sometimes go father than is allowed and end up on the losing end of court battles), but the…

What is the EU's reason for that rule?

Control & standardization.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#214

Post by ant6n »

mvzvm wrote: post #5

Good. This is wildly overdue. The privatization of public infrastructure (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail ) was a crime of the highest corruption. Edit: Link broke? Edit 2: Thank you @bogdan https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57176858

The infrastructure had been renationalized for quite a while. Its the Operators that have still been private, which in general can be made to work. In Britain it didn’t work well.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#215

Post by secretsatan »

iso1631 wrote: post #154
varispeed wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They privatised profits, but not responsibilities. I don't know why even a single person thought this was a good idea (unless they were on it for money). I think the privatisation could work if multiple companies could bid for a given journey / timetable slice, rather than having entire routes for themselves with no realistic way of removing them if the service goes bad.

They did privitise the risk too. After the failure of the east coast franchise recently, the government bailled out virgin, but that's not the fault of the system. If I want to travel from Birmingham to London I have a choice of 3 different train companies, as well as a coach company and driving (either hiring a car with or without driver, or using my own car). That's tons of competition, and it shows given the choic…

I just don't think that's how rail should work, I'm not booking a flight to go to another country, I should be able to turn up to a train station and get on a bloody train.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#216

Post by breakfastduck »

midasuni wrote: post #116
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.

Because buying in bulk gets you a discount, one of the most universally understood things in economics.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#217

Post by malinens »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #207
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…

As someone coming from a country (Italy) with nationalised railway I always found the trains in the UK to be pretty great. Sure, you have a few delays but it's eons better than what I had in my country. I never understood why people were complaining about trains in the UK. Italy added a private offering some time ago, which I personally never tried, but my friends back home always praise them for working - unlike Tre…

on other hand I am amazed how good are Italian trains ehen I travel there- they are fast, cheap and go almost everywhere :)

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#218

Post by iso1631 »

pydry wrote: post #211
iso1631 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That £300 return subsidizes train services in rural parts of cornwall. That's a political decision. Other options are to have more taxpayer subsidy, higher prices in Cornwall, close services in cornwall, or reduce operating costs (which are heavily staff and rolling stock based -- something that HS2 will slash) P.S. I just looked up an equivalent London-New York economy flight (flexible flight leaving this evening an…

It also subsidized Richard Branson's lifestyle. This is also a political decision. I looked at London-NY - if I put it off one week I can easily cross 1/3 of the world for less than the price of a day trip to Manchester tomorrow.

Where does the subsidy for Branson's lifestyle come in? Branson hasn't been involved in the UK rail network for a couple of years.

If I look at Manchester-London in a weeks time with a non-flexible ticket it costs £45 return (actually for £45 it's pretty flexible - you are just limited to one firms trains, a bit like that BA fare, and can't travel in the morning rush hour)

https://i.imgur.com/CNCzmKu.png

That's less than 9p per mile. What do you think a fair price would be?

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#219

Post by _Wintermute »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #207
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…

As someone coming from a country (Italy) with nationalised railway I always found the trains in the UK to be pretty great. Sure, you have a few delays but it's eons better than what I had in my country. I never understood why people were complaining about trains in the UK. Italy added a private offering some time ago, which I personally never tried, but my friends back home always praise them for working - unlike Tre…

The trains in the UK seem ok in terms of the number of services and reliability, but they're so expensive. It's almost always cheaper to fly or rent a car than it is to use the train for anything approaching long distance.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#220

Post by dadelion »

disabled wrote: post #183
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£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

Austerity literally kills, and often leads to neoliberalism. “The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills” by David Stuckler MPH PhD and Sanjay Basu MD PhD is an excellent read on the subject. The British, in no exaggeration, get taxed to death. You get horrible value for your tax dollar. I am saying this as an American who lives in Croatia, who pays quite a bit in taxes. However, I prefer to pay Croatian taxes (in additi…

I couldn't be more surprised by this comment as someone born and raised in Croatia.

You are the first person I heard who likes paying Croatian taxes. Do you follow the national news? There's always a steady stream of corruption news, especially recently.

It's ironic you post this in a thread about rail. Croatia has a truly horrible rail system. It's universally mocked as useless.

Regarding COVID, I would have agreed with you that Croatia did great last year in March, but from late summer 2020, it's been catastrophic. And Croatia depends on tourism, so there's a big incentive to get things to normal levels so tourists come. We could have been better than Portugal now.

Also re COVID, have you witnessed the vaccination campaign? Have you seen how many politicians and their friends got vaccinated ahead of the elderly, despite guidelines saying vaccines should be given according to age? The rector of Zagreb university got a vaccine before my grandma. How is that not sadistic?

Croatia has some great pros, such as a relaxed lifestyle, but you're really stretching it with calling it a rolemodel society and good value for taxes

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