101–110 of 478 posts
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> It's not a stressful job and like you said they get paid pretty well I’m curious as to the criteria there. A train driver must, surely, be more stressed than a software engineer? They’re in charge of a moving vehicle that carries hundreds of people. And yet software engineers will still often make more than train drivers do.
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You can't privatize what can't make money in itself. By that I mean, rail is beneficial to the entire economy of a country. This profit is not something a rail company can benefit from but a country can. Serving low traffic areas are a loss business but vital for a country to grow. Same for fiber infrastructure, running fiber into a desolate town may not be profitable but giving the chance for some kid in that town t…
In the Japanese model the rail company also owns land around the station, so they capture more of the value of rail transport. Rail in the UK does not capture all the value it delivers, so subsidies would be a pragmatic solution.
It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles travelled. Deaths per billion kilometers fell consistently before and after privatisation. A lot of the problems lie in tracks and their maintenance, and the tracks were re-nationalised many years ago. It is not efficiently run (see HS2!). They are expensive,…
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Ignoring the tremendous amount of route training, rules, regulations, etc. — plus if they're delayed (generally through no fault of their own), they're worrying about the per-minute fines levied for delays to the service, and whether they can make the time up. That aside,
— try reporting that comment to any driver who has suffered a fatality... someone appearing on the tracks in front of them and there is no way whatsoever for them to stop in time.
Many drivers end up having to give up their careers after experiencing a "one-under", and don't get back into the cab.
It can be a lot more stressful than you think.
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> Train drivers can be paid as much as aircraft pilots. Yes and that's as it should be, a fully loaded high speed intercity train has more souls on board than most commercial aviation planes (apologies pet peeve of mine because our media keeps banging on about how "overpaid" train drivers are when in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid). A bad day at the office for me…
Hang on a minute. How do you square your claim that it's as it should be that train drivers can be paid as much as airline pilots, with your claim that everyone else is underpaid, including, presumably, airline pilots?
What is inconsistent about those two things?
You can simultaneously believe that train drivers and airline pilots deserve to be paid more.
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I would say BT got worse immediately after privatisation and now have got better - largely I suspect due to competition.
Post-privatisation, Bonfield-era BT really was an abusive monopoly. I do not think the problems have gone away; dealing with OpenReach is very often as kafkaesque as it would have been.
It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles travelled. Deaths per billion kilometers fell consistently before and after privatisation. A lot of the problems lie in tracks and their maintenance, and the tracks were re-nationalised many years ago. It is not efficiently run (see HS2!). They are expensive,…
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Well, that's the point of going on strike. Don't blame the drivers, blame the rail company.
> It's not a stressful job
It actually is, there aren't that many jobs where you are literally responsible for hundreds if not nearly a thousand (ICE-4 has 918 seats alone plus probably 100-200 standing people) lives behind your seat. Even your A380 has only half of that as capacity. The only comparable job is being captain of a cruise liner ship.
> I am increasingly convinced that the second part of making rails great again, after putting rail companies in their place is driverless trains.
Driverless trains in practice only work on a closed system with no at-grade crossings of any kind. There's a reason we only see them in "peoplemover" style systems or in subways that usually have full-height doors preventing unauthorized access.
The only actual full-size railway running ATO is the Rio Tinto ore train in Australia... with large sections of the 800 km long drive having the advantage of being in the utter desert with no one and no thing besides kangaroos posing any sort of danger to the train.
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In the Japanese model the rail company also owns land around the station, so they capture more of the value of rail transport. Rail in the UK does not capture all the value it delivers, so subsidies would be a pragmatic solution.
Why should I, a taxpayer, subsidize rails? It's sarcasm, many drivers don't realize that the public subsidizes them too, but have such silly arguments.
For clarity's sake, I think railways should be public, and paid for with a combination of taxes and fares.
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You can't privatize what can't make money in itself. By that I mean, rail is beneficial to the entire economy of a country. This profit is not something a rail company can benefit from but a country can. Serving low traffic areas are a loss business but vital for a country to grow. Same for fiber infrastructure, running fiber into a desolate town may not be profitable but giving the chance for some kid in that town t…
In the Japanese model the rail company also owns land around the station, so they capture more of the value of rail transport. Rail in the UK does not capture all the value it delivers, so subsidies would be a pragmatic solution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't privatize what can't make money in itself. By that I mean, rail is beneficial to the entire economy of a country. This profit is not something a rail company can benefit from but a country can. Serving low traffic areas are a loss business but vital for a country to grow. Same for fiber infrastructure, running fiber into a desolate town may not be profitable but giving the chance for some kid in that town t…
Italy has seen tremendous success with privatizing High Speed rail. I think the difference is that the infrastructure (tracks and stations) is still owned by the state and leased out competitively to private train operators. It’s kind of like the airline model.
I think whether privatization helps or hurts depends a lot on how corrupt or inept the government is, ie. the more corrupt or inept, the more privatization can probably help.