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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

#11

Post by throwaway210222 »

cies wrote: post #7

And so the privatization experiment come to an end. Bye bye Thatcherism. I hope this silly belief in the cure-all of "small govt" will die with it. Sure govt's should not supply all food, or luxury good, or ... But public transport, schools, hospitals, ... I think we should make a good set of rules by which we can decide which typed of biz should be in private hands, and what we prefer public. The Fed, Blackwater, pr…

> The Fed, Blackwater, prisons, rail, hospitals, banks... What could possibly go wrong?

This is not a universal truth. Come enjoy an African government hospital, then sample one of the listed private hospitals.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#12

Post by matsemann »

Norway's railroad also went "private" a few years ago, and have butchered it up into (not all):

- we have a directorate of railway deciding where to build tracks, what providers must adhere to, their timetables etc

- one government owned company building - one government owned company building and maintaining the tracks

- one government owned company owning the trains

- another one maintaining the trains

- one government owned company responsible for all ticketing, purchasing, route search, providing timetables etc

- 3 different companies having won a bid for different routes. They have to lease the trains. But since they have monopoly on their route and the directorate decides everything, having multiple hasn't really led to any competition. Sure, they fought somewhat on price for the bid, but for the next 10 years the only thing they really do is provide personnel for the trains.

Nothing here made train a better or more viable alternative for the people. Just 5x the amount of highly paid directors. And more overhead and less cooperation. In fact it's now often more expensive to take train long distance, as you end up paying (price + price) from two companies instead of a single rebated long distance ticket.

One of the companies now driving in Norway is the not-very-popular British Go-Ahead, even.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#13

Post by carnagecity786 »

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

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 issues that we've had with privatised rail going away - those issues being incredibly high fees, understaffed and underpaid workers, under maintained infrastructure, and a lack of real investment in areas with little to no infrastructure at all (the north).

Also, you can really tell who the government are targeting this campaign at, and that's what it is, a media campaign. "Great British Railways"? Appealing to nationalist sentiments whilst doing little to nothing is the entire modern tory agenda.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#14

Post by peterburkimsher »

For anyone who appreciates 1980s British comedy, there's a sketch by Ronnie Barker about the joys of British Rail.

"I told BR to be off. Then they offered me £1000. I said I'm not a man who can be bought. Then they offered me £2000. Good evening."

"We're going to replace the existing fare structure, with a very unfair structure"

"British Rail intend to maintain our standards. But now for the good news!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV2lmSDKvO8

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#15

Post by Traster »

cies wrote: post #7

And so the privatization experiment come to an end. Bye bye Thatcherism. I hope this silly belief in the cure-all of "small govt" will die with it. Sure govt's should not supply all food, or luxury good, or ... But public transport, schools, hospitals, ... I think we should make a good set of rules by which we can decide which typed of biz should be in private hands, and what we prefer public. The Fed, Blackwater, pr…

No it doesn't, this is absolutely not the end of privatization. Private companies will still be running all the trains, the only difference will be they'll be run under the branding of GBR so that people can't complain about the private companies.

All this does is move the accountability away from the private companies.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#17

Post by rich_sasha »

carnagecity786 wrote: post #13
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

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…

Re infrastructure, my worst memories involve commuting between Oxford and London (a major rail route in the grand scheme of things) and it breaking down a few times a month, especially in winter, due to “signalling failures”.

It turns out rail signals were controlled by buried cables without adequate insulation, so when it was wet they literally stopped working. And yes, this was 21st century, not steam trains.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#18

Post by bauc »

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…

I thought all the rolling stock was owned by a different company to the ones running the actual franchises. Which is separate from controlling the timetable. Although very confusing.

Re: UK Rail services to come under unified state control

#19

Post by jlokier »

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-...

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