Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK Rail services to come under unified state control

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 383 posts

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#331

Post by twic »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #301
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…

How are customers on trains supposed to vote with their wallets? It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort. Capacity is physically constrained , especially on an ancient network like the UK's. Timetable slots are scarce and have to be centrally coordinated and managed. There is no sparkly market magic tha…

> It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort.

To an extent, this does exist on some routes. Both LNER and Grand Central operate trains up the East Coast Main Line, for example. Then there are destinations served by multiple routes, like Cambridge, Oxford, and Bedford, where each route has its own operator.

Competition is impractical for most journeys, though.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#332

Post by VBprogrammer »

globular-toast wrote: post #326
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are customers on trains supposed to vote with their wallets? It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort. Capacity is physically constrained , especially on an ancient network like the UK's. Timetable slots are scarce and have to be centrally coordinated and managed. There is no sparkly market magic tha…

> It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort. Yes, you could. There is an East Coast Mainline and West Coast Mainline and they competed loads over the London-Edinburgh route. But I think in this age of high-speed trains, overhead electrification and 4+ wide tracks, railways are well and truly a natural mon…

> Yes, you could. There is an East Coast Mainline and West Coast Mainline and they competed loads over the London-Edinburgh route.

I've done that route dozens of times in the past. I think it's stretching things to say they are in competition though. For Glasgow it was 40 minutes faster to go up the West coast (if you don't mind the smell of the toilets on the Pendolino) and similarly the East Coast was faster for Edinburgh because it avoided going all the way out to Carluke and back. Of course that missing out the majority of people using those trains were using it starting at an intermediate station, making any competition slightly moot.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#333

Post by VBprogrammer »

chrisseaton wrote: post #275
AM1010101 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What’s costs £25 fuel will cost £70 for a rail ticket Where are you planning on parking when you get there though? I'd rather pay quadruple for a ticket to London, than drive into London and then try to park a car. I can't imagine driving into a city - seems insane.

If visiting a city centre location then trains are great. If you need to get to a place near a city then trains are the worst, at least airports tend to be outside of the city near the arterial routes.

I am originally from the outskirts of Glasgow and now live on the outskirts of London. For my partner and I to get to my parents house by train takes about the same time (assuming all 4 changes go according to plan), costs 6x as much and is far less flexible than driving. We tend to stop at a cheap hotel midway so we can set off after I finish work.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#334

Post by globular-toast »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #332
globular-toast wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort. Yes, you could. There is an East Coast Mainline and West Coast Mainline and they competed loads over the London-Edinburgh route. But I think in this age of high-speed trains, overhead electrification and 4+ wide tracks, railways are well and truly a natural mon…

> Yes, you could. There is an East Coast Mainline and West Coast Mainline and they competed loads over the London-Edinburgh route. I've done that route dozens of times in the past. I think it's stretching things to say they are in competition though. For Glasgow it was 40 minutes faster to go up the West coast (if you don't mind the smell of the toilets on the Pendolino) and similarly the East Coast was faster for Ed…

I was referring more to the historical competition[0]. I don't think it's as relevant today.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_North

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#335

Post by bobthepanda »

himinlomax wrote: post #329
mastax wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that was very good and comprehensive. Glad Wendover decided not to burden the runtime with an unfunny joke every 25 seconds.

They do that on their other channel. That is why they have another channel.

Which one is the other channel?

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#336

Post by andy_ppp »

toyg wrote: post #314
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are customers on trains supposed to vote with their wallets? It's not as if you can set up competing parallel networks running trains side by side between identical destinations at varying levels of speed and comfort. Capacity is physically constrained , especially on an ancient network like the UK's. Timetable slots are scarce and have to be centrally coordinated and managed. There is no sparkly market magic tha…

I agree wholeheartedly. I would add that the real problem is that the current UK political class is too spineless to take on the responsibility of running a rail network without going broke. So they will continue to maintain some degree of chicanery to provide for plausible deniability when the trains don't run or the system goes bankrupt.

How does Japan do it? Can we try to copy them because it’s very good. My 45 minute journey into Tokyo from Chiba was around £125 per month.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#337

Post by scaryclam »

mnd999 wrote: post #180
Stranger43 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It would certainly simplify the structure. At the moment it's all contracts and metrics and fines and lawyers when things go wrong. Perhaps the end to the ultimate metric for whether operators get fined or not being whether trains are on time which leads to bizarre situations like trains switching platforms at the last minute and leaving empty due to all the passengers being on the wrong platform.

And getting flat out cancelled when it's cheaper to take that hit than try to get passengers to where they're going in spite of the delays.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#338

Post by Digit-Al »

mschuster91 wrote: post #169
fmajid wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look how much hay Mussolini made from running the trains on time (which wasn't even the case, they just padded the schedule).

> which wasn't even the case, they just padded the schedule Well, if I'm a company using rail for freight or a worker depending on the rail to get to work, it already is a massive improvement if I can at least rely on the train being where it should be at the announced time. Improving the schedule for faster travel or shorter intervals is another thing, but predictability alone makes my life easier.

Too right. It's always frustrating if your train is 2-3 minutes late and just as you step off the train you see your connecting train leaving its platform and know you now have a 20 minute wait for the next one. The could definitely do with a bit more padding for those situations.

Thankfully I don't have to take the train very often - especially these days lol

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#339

Post by markus92 »

abainbridge wrote: post #328
carlsborg wrote: post #53

Fantastic. Train fares in the UK are prohibitively high. It is at times cheaper to fly via Spain than it is to travel to London from the North East by train, as this story demonstrates. https://metro.co.uk/2017/06/27/man-flies-from-newcastle-to-l...

Isn't transport by plane just cheaper to provide than rail? You don't need to maintain railway lines, bridges, tunnels, points, overhead power lines, signalling or intermediate stations. Routing congestion is reduced because planes can move in 3D. There is no rolling resistance and air friction is reduced due to flying high-up where the air is thin. Airports are built away from city centres, where land is cheap. The…

The energy requirements are vastly different, rolling stock is a lot cheaper than airframes etc.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#340

Post by Digit-Al »

tomxor wrote: post #156
Reason077 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I'm not a regular passenger but my understanding is that reliability of current service is generally poor with little to no recourse." In my experience, the UK rail system has been running fantastically since Covid began! I don't think I can remember even a single delayed train since March 2020 and certainly no overcrowded ones. So it seems like the real problem with the trains was always the passengers ;)

Isn't that a bit like saying it's not the ISP's fault that they aren't delivering even 50% of the throughput they promised? if only there weren't so many subscribers - this is literally what happens on cheap mobile internet with high contention ratios, when it's sunny outside, the throughput and stability shoots through the roof. It might be "one line", but the number of trains, carriages, staff and general stress on…

The OP finished with a winky. They were being tongue-in-cheek.
Post reply on HN