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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

#241

Post by pydry »

iso1631 wrote: post #218
pydry wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A fair price would be a £45 return ticket London to Manchester if I bought it at 9am tomorrow at the station.

This would bring the UK rail prices more in line with most other European countries.

£300 is gouging.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#242

Post by AM1010101 »

_Wintermute wrote: post #219
jokethrowaway wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes this is the problem. Using the train is often a non-option. What’s costs £25 fuel will cost £70 for a rail ticket and often take longer if you are not going between major cities. It’s even worse if there are multiple people. I would love to commute on the train (use your time more effectively, lower CO2, less stress) but it’s just too costly as it is.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#243

Post by 7952 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #46
petepete wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? It’s £200 return for a day for Bristol to London - and that’s if the train gets you there, and doesn’t dump you somewhere outside of Chippenham because it’s the wrong kind of sunny today and the rails have buckled, or it’s cold and the rails have frozen, or it’s raining and the train is poorly with diesel cholera. All of these are acts of god, of course, so aren’t compensatable events.

Problem is that there is massive pent up demand. Cheaper tickets mean more people travelling longer distances to work when there isn't capacity. The last thing we need is even more regular commuting to London from outside greater London.

This demand is caused by high house prices and lack of opportunities outside of the SE. Trains are a sticky plaster that gives lots of subsidy to middle class commuters whilst local bus services are cut. Distance is also environmentally problematic regardless of mode of transport.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#244

Post by breakfastduck »

reedf1 wrote: post #65
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…

> Profits are also capped so these are not potential cash cows people suspect. British tickets are expensive because the government doesn't subsidise the ticket price, which is a separate debate. The system is capped and collared meaning their profits are guaranteed by the government as well as limited. This system incentivised them to underperform on their contract, buy assets, claim losses. When the franchise compl…

Yes, the comment you've replied to is spouting a pretty important mis-truth by trying to make out they aren't profitable for the franchisee.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#245

Post by breakfastduck »

jlokier wrote: post #19
rich_sasha wrote: post #3

This sounds like many niceties, BUT the elephant in the room is the utterly uncompetitive way private contractors are chosen to run the routes, and as a result, high prices / low quality of the actual journeys. Operators have a nice oligopoly on the routes, with barely any competition for tenders. One example is that different routes have different hardware requirements. And guess what, the only provider who has the…

That didn't work for Virgin trains, after running a service for 22 years, undoubtedly still having the right kit in place, and probably the best on-station support staff in the UK for disabled travellers. It was a good service, shame to see it go. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/stagecoach-...

I found it ironic that Virgin lost their contract, considering they operate by far the best service in the UK.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#246

Post by chanc3e »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #157
scatters wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High fares (and they aren't that high) aren't a result of privatization; they're because of a lack of subsidy. In the UK, despite the obvious environmental benefits, subsidizing rail is politically awkward because it's regressive.

Yes, it's hard to argue I should be putting my hand in my pocket to pay for the train fare for my neighbour so they can earn a London wage. People do complain about the fares but the trains are full so it's questionable whether they are too high. If I'm looking at it from an environmental perspective I'd argue the other options (cars, planes) are too cheap.

Interesting that you see rail as a method to earn a wage.

I think it's positively evil for society that someone on minimum wage can't visit family or relations because they can't afford the fare.

That hurts everyone.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#247

Post by pydry »

conjectures wrote: post #175
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 sure operators will push back on 'under one brand' You're probably right, but I don't think they'll succeed. Everyone and their dog can see that TFL has worked well compared to the rest of the country. I don't particularly like our government, but I don't doubt their commitment to populism. This looks like a vote winner to me so I'd put low odds on a u-turn here.

There would be no need for a U turn. Nothing very substantial has been promised. Note the way they very deliberately avoided the topic of price increases for instance.

I don't doubt this government's commitment to populist rhetoric and the appearance of grand, sweeping changes either. It's a formula that wins them a lot of votes, especially against an opposition that is confused as to what it stands for.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#248

Post by vmateixeira »

_Wintermute wrote: post #219
jokethrowaway wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They couldn't agree more. [1][2]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190912051032/https://www.stand...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210225224745/https://metro.co....

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#249

Post by sir-alien »

If you want to see a good train service look at Japan. Went there for a holiday and used the train service all over. They are a classic example of what a train service "should" be like.

Fast, efficient, cost-effective. The only time trains was a little difficult was in the super-peak hours on the underground in the very dense parts of the cities.

I think the world should learn from Japan in many aspects.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#250

Post by mcdowall »

steve_gh wrote: post #54

Note: I have spent the last 7 years working in consultancy, much of which has been involved with both Metro Rail (eg TfL) and Heavy Rail in the UK. There are certainly some messy aspects to UK Rail, but the current system was not nearly as bad as made out by some posters , and there are some very good arguments against further centralisation. A lot of the problem as I see it has been the misalignment between Network…

I similarly spent a few years working in this space (TfL, digitising their data and website etc). It always struck me just how nuts the weekly meetings between different station operators and TOCS within the GLA would be, essentially a shouting match to determine who would have to keep their station open that weekend. Resultant timetable changes on the fly were always fun content to keep updated.

Timetabling (at that point) remained very much a manual process, I think they had to bring a poor chap out of retirement who wrote them by hand.

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