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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

#361

Post by gsnedders »

jonplackett wrote: post #87

There must be a better way to set up incentives. Eg. Company is chosen - they get a temporary monopoly on a route, for free instead of having to pitch a ridiculous low ball But... Every time a train is late, they pay £100,000 Every time a train is cancelled they pay £1,000,000 They pay £10 for every passenger complaint. Etc etc

The existing management contracts pre-COVID19 (primarily London Overground and the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern railway (yes, that's all one company!)) _did_ have penalties for late running, partial cancellations, or full cancellations.

One can argue whether increasing the fines would lead to better service, or whether it would just increase the cost they bid for the concession to cover those costs, effectively resulting in increased subsidy.

There's also the fact that in many cases there's limitations to what the concession can do: the existing ones have had much decided by the body granting the concession (such as rolling stock, thus limiting their ability to procure more reliable rolling stock if needed), and they don't have any control over infrastructure (and e.g. signal failures or flooding).

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#362

Post by gsnedders »

michaelt wrote: post #63

The UK's rail "privatisation" has always been bizarre, for practical reasons. * Because rail is vital national infrastructure, important to keeping congestion down, and needs to be accessible even to poor people, every train operator receives government subsidies. * So travellers can buy tickets for a complex four-train itinerary and large stations can have multiple operators sharing platforms, much of the ticketing…

> (And yet despite the subsidies and price caps, some train tickets remain absurdly expensive)

This is by design; the subsidy per passenger km has been going down over time, with a greater proportion of costs being met by farebox revenue. And given that's a governmental decision, will GBR actually change that?

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#363

Post by darkwater »

fallingknife wrote: post #330
darkwater wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian living in Spain for a long while, I can say that 10 years ago the difference was abysmal in favor of Renfe and now the gap it's smaller (due to Renfe not keeping up) but I still think the average Spain's train station and service is better than Italy's. I can still see (refurbished for the 3rd time) trains from ~25years ago operating in Italy nowadays.

I don't see why that's a problem. Airplanes have a lifespan of 30 years.

OK, it's 2021 already, sometimes I forget, so we are probably already north of 30 years. Anyway as I said they have been refurbished and they are OK, at least on the comfort side (AC and heating, sits quality). I hope they are the same on the safety and mechanical side...

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#365

Post by jabl »

andy_ppp wrote: post #354
Ericson2314 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piecing together the story from https://pedestrianobservations.com and other places, I would not imitate Japan in this regard. - Japan's terrain is fairly ideal for rail. Yes, mountains make for more work, put people are also naturally congregated near the coast, in valleys, etc. Additionally, the largest cities with the high population form a linear chain from roughly Nagasaki to Tokyo. That means more network effec…

1) I don’t believe for one second that Japan has better geography than the UK for rail 2) we can do much better with planning, however I’m not sure Japanese planning is the answer, when I lived there I thought most of the accommodation was horrendous. Europeans wouldn’t accept it. 3) is JR Rail etc. private? It seemed too cheap! 4) how is rail profitable in Japan, but not profitable in the UK. It’s cheaper there and…

4) Japanese railways get about 50% of their income from ticket sales, the rest comes from owning the high value land around the stations (renting, grocery stores, hotels and whatnot).

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#366

Post by andy_ppp »

jabl wrote: post #365
andy_ppp wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I don’t believe for one second that Japan has better geography than the UK for rail 2) we can do much better with planning, however I’m not sure Japanese planning is the answer, when I lived there I thought most of the accommodation was horrendous. Europeans wouldn’t accept it. 3) is JR Rail etc. private? It seemed too cheap! 4) how is rail profitable in Japan, but not profitable in the UK. It’s cheaper there and…

4) Japanese railways get about 50% of their income from ticket sales, the rest comes from owning the high value land around the stations (renting, grocery stores, hotels and whatnot).

That makes a load of sense, the larger stations are like department stores, China’s remodelling while I was there was astonishing. Must have been £100m invested but they’ll definitely reap rewards.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#367

Post by shermozle »

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…

And still nobody has gone to prison from the Railtrack board. They told they government they'd be insolvent if they didn't get an injection of money, then issued a dividend to shareholders.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#368

Post by fomine3 »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #359
andy_ppp wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I don’t believe for one second that Japan has better geography than the UK for rail 2) we can do much better with planning, however I’m not sure Japanese planning is the answer, when I lived there I thought most of the accommodation was horrendous. Europeans wouldn’t accept it. 3) is JR Rail etc. private? It seemed too cheap! 4) how is rail profitable in Japan, but not profitable in the UK. It’s cheaper there and…

I am no expert in the slightest (I would check the things I linked), I'll try to answer 1) Mountains actually helping is my own pet theory, I should disclaim. Japan does seem to have wild swings in density, while England seems to have people/towns strewn about everywhere and London feels kinda sprawly at certain scales. That said UK obviously has cities / regional clustering at the scale of HSR. Someone should do a p…

Mountains don't help. Actually mountains are top pain for building HSR lanes.

Not all Japanese live in city with great train/public transport network. Most people outside Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, is heavily depends on their car. (Remember there are 8 practical car manufacturers in the land). Just referencing Tokyo would be good.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#369

Post by hakfoo »

Sosh101 wrote: post #25
carnagecity786 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this isn't actual nationalisation. The railway will still be operated by private firms, this is only a transfer of franchising from the department of transport to this new "Great British Railways" department; which is a new franchising model. It's supposed to allow them to set unified fees, and have greater control over branding and speak with a unified voice, but apart from that I don't see any of the…

"Great British Railways" -eyeroll-

You'd think they could go with the existing British Rail branding. The double-arrow logo is iconic and still in plenty of places.

And given that many of the private franchises took the names of prenationalization companies, it's hardly unprecedented.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#370

Post by midasuni »

breakfastduck wrote: post #216
midasuni wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s not what it is though - if I buy 20x £300 returns it costs £6,000. If I buy a monthly season ticket for the same journeys it costs £1500.

It’s rare to get such large discounts too.

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