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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

#221

Post by iso1631 »

secretsatan wrote: post #215
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…

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.

That's certainly how I use the rail network (and often the plane network - I've booked a flight from Europe to the far east with just a few hours notice on more than one occasion), and you can do that (unlike in europe where you have to book long distance trains in advance in many countries). I don't see the conceptual difference between going London - Paris or London - Edinburgh though?

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#222

Post by antihero »

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…

The free market is only as free as the consumer.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#223

Post by ankalaibe »

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…

Yea, as if that’s going to end up working well.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#224

Post by pydry »

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…

My experience was exactly the opposite - nicer stations, high speed rail and vastly cheaper prices.

Please, do let us swap trenitalia for southern rail. I'm not such a fan of forking over 1/3 of a median wage for season ticket on a train that is delayed every other day.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#225

Post by iso1631 »

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

Alternate routes with competitors

London-Edinburgh (West coast vs east coast. West Coast is slower but cheaper)

Bristol-Manchester (XC via Birmingham vs ATW via Hereford - I usually take the slower cheaper Wales train as I prefer the route and the seating)

Manchester-Norwich (via Sheffield-Peterborough, Via London, Via Leeds-Doncaster)

London-Reading (GWML from Paddington vs South West from Waterloo)

Exeter-London (Paddington via Westbury on GWR vs Waterloo via Salisbury on SWT)

Manchester-Warrington (ATW via Newton, EMT via Birchwood)

London-Hastings (via Tunbridge Wells or via Haywards Heath)

And different competitors on the same track

Milton Keynes - London (West Coast, London Midland, Southern)

York - Newcastle (TPE, LNER, XC)

Manchester-Glasgow (Northern+WestCoast, TPE)

Stoke-Manchester (Northern vs XC vs West Coast)

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#226

Post by Guthur »

OJFord wrote: post #125
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.

It becomes a campaign issue (or does if it is an issue), which is what I mean is 'strictly better'. Not great, probably, but not worse in any other way that I can think of, and that is a positive (to whatever extent).

And what happens when party A fucks up and you vote in party B who also fuck it up your are officially out of options.

The tender approach for time limited monopoly was just terrible though and had no good incentives at all, and so I'm not really sure a government monopoly will be much worse.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#227

Post by iso1631 »

signal11 wrote: post #212
andrepd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 p…

Go up North and you have Northern, which as well as running pacers for years (I think they're all gone now) drained funds, because running a rail network with few passengers is expensive.

That means either higher tax to subsidise it, or it means higher prices on profitable parts of the network to cross-subsidise it

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#228

Post by modo_mario »

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…

>The train companies are also often making a loss on these routes, commonly subsidised by foreign Europeans governments looking to expand their rail business, Dutch or Italian tax payers should be annoyed at how their taxes are being wasted.

Last i checked one or 2 examples they ran a profit. Surely they can run a loss/be funded initially but if you get that money back out it's not really what you describe it as no?

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#230

Post by makomk »

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?

In theory this is meant to be a good thing because it allows for competition between train operators which sounds like it should lead to better outcomes for customers. There's also a desire for companies to be able to operate commercial trains that don't have government backing on an equal footing with the government-chosen operators, which only works if the other train operators also have an arms-length commercial relationship with the track owner and operator.

Also, you need to bear in mind that European governments benefit from the other governments strictly following this rule because it means their train operators can run trains in those other countries, but are often less keen on doing so themselves. So there's an interesting dynamic where a lot of countries insist that of course they're following the rules, it's all the other European countries that are unfairly bending them to benefit their train operators.

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