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Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

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Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#181

Post by luesterklemme »

mentalgear wrote: post #64
dickiedyce wrote: post #33

As a Scot who travels on Scottish, English, and Welsh railways, and on Swiss and German railways... Scotrail (now in Public ownership) is pretty good. And I say that as someone in the Highlands, which has had the worst of it in the last 30 years. There's been recent investment, and even the re-opening of closed lines and finally new stations where they've been desperately needed (Inverness Airport, Kintore, Laurencek…

Fun fact: DB (Germany public-private national rail company) has become one of the UK's biggest train service providers - even the Queen's train was under their service. DB (Schenker) buys stakes in transportation all over the world - with German tax payer money: A fact that many Germans do not like given the very poor train service in their own country.

DB Schenker was sold recently. So your point is not entirely correct anymore. Also yes, it did invest tax payer money but was profitable doing so.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#182

Post by brookst »

nielsbot wrote: post #175
brookst wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean investment is also inefficient?

how is that related?

Profit is literally the return on investment. Would you invest your money in a startup that guaranteed no profit?

Profit is essentially interest. The only reason new and growing companies get funded is because the EV of future profits (including the probability of losing everything) is higher than just stuffing that same money in S&P 500.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#183

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

graemep wrote: post #22

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,…

This is incorrect. The biggest accidents - Potters Bar, Hatfield, Southall - happened in the years immediately after privatisation, before passenger numbers had grown much.

The problem was more that - in typical privatised fashion - the industry was treated as a cash grab, and property speculation and other side quests got more management attention than running a safe railway.

That first incarnation was so bad it was quickly nuked, and replaced with the hybrid arrangement we have today, which has a much better safety record, but is still comically expensive and inefficient.

And franchises very clearly have improved, so that's incorrect too. Delays and cancellations are down across the network, and that's before the system is reintegrated.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2025/oct...

The biggest disaster of privatisation was the loss of more than a century of engineering and management culture and knowledge. The UK invented tilting train technology, and it was given away to foreign corporations instead of being licensed and exploited in the UK.

This is the pattern behind all UK privatisation. Foreign countries and shareholders benefited hugely, while prices of essential services exploded, and service quality degraded.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#184

Post by FuckButtons »

noir_lord wrote: post #71
graemep wrote: post #22

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,…

> 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…

Well, that and people don’t keep on turning themselves into a red paste on the front of your server rack. I’ve heard some fairly harrowing stories from a train driver that made me think all the money in the world wouldn’t be enough to get me to do that job.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#185

Post by tome »

trial3 wrote: post #124
tome wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Hang on a minute. How do you square your claim that it’s as it should be that none of us crabs should be in the bucket, with your claim that including, the crab closest to the edge of the bucket, presumably, should be climbing out of it?

Sorry, what?

EDIT: Oh, I think I understand what you mean. If I've got my understanding correct then my response is that noir_lord said that one of the crabs shouldn't be climbing out:

> their pay is fair for the responsibility

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#186

Post by squaresmile »

gcanyon wrote: post #82
komali2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree and am working on an article arguing that Japan rail privatization represents a failure, as does its much lauded pedestrian friendliness. The premise is basically that Tokyo is the busiest city on planet earth and so should therefore have the best public transit and pedestrian infrastructure by a huge margin, when in fact it still gives unbelievable space to cars (Shibuya crossing should have been permanen…

> As for trains, during rush hour trains can be so full you might be squashed against the door unable to move I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but: is there a reason they can't run more trains or higher-passenger-capacity trains? The demand is obviously there, so the question is: do they like it super-crowded?

> higher-passenger-capacity trains

Length is limited by platform length and width is limited by tunnel loading gauge and platform sizes. To increase the platform length, you have to do it at most if not all stations. Crowded stations are usually in desirable areas which make it harder to dig or acquire land.

> run more trains

For lines at capacity, I believe it's usually limited by trains dwell time. Longer and bigger trains take longer for people to safely board. To improve this on the train side, you can have more doors and bigger doors. Station platforms also need to be bigger, have more stairs, bigger walkways, etc. Longer trains also make it tougher for train drivers and station staff to open and close the doors safely.

Tough but not impossible problems but many solutions contain trade offs. Only surefire way is to build another line but that costs tons of money.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#187

Post by guywithahat »

wood_spirit wrote: post #2

Does Britain have any privatisation success stories? Or any public-private partnership (PPP) success stories? Does any country have any success stories? I can’t think of any.

One could argue the rails were a success. The article argues deaths went up after privatization, but that's only because the miles being ridden went up significantly as well. Actual deaths per mile are down. Further the drop in ridership in 2021 was due to covid, and the financial strain was caused largely by the rail industry re-investing heavily before covid.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#188

Post by bluGill »

noir_lord wrote: post #71
graemep wrote: post #22

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,…

> 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…

Train drivers are mostly obsolete. More than 20 years ago full self driving trains became a reality in several areas. Since a train cannot stop if something is on the tracks anyway, we can ignore safety issues. The computer tells the track to switch, and then the train to go when the track is clear. When it is time to stop the computer stops, and the doors are exactly in the right place to align with the doors on the platforms.

An automated train is better for everyone. So if your system doesn't have it they should be investing in getting it.

In some cases you need safety people at the platforms, or on the train, but their only useful control is the stop/go button.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#189

Post by phatfish »

RobinL wrote: post #89
fergie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them. They consequently became more expensive. A somewhat fun side effect of the free market, especially given the prevailing assumption that moving public sector employees into the private sector would dri…

Is that true? My understanding is they command very high wages because their unions are strong and they have a lot of leverage: by striking they can impose extremely high costs on the wider economy (not to mention bad press for politicians).

I want someone who cares to be driving the train I'm on. They also require in person participation which make outsourcing hard. I'm fine with self driving when the line is designed for it. It will be a very long time before existing lines are self driving, and its not because on unions.

Not really sure why people like moaning about train drivers. Are they jealous a train driver is making more than them? While in the case of tech workers they sit quietly and watch their £65k jobs go to India.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#190

Post by tome »

noir_lord wrote: post #162
113 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the contradiction?

They are been pedantic by pointing out that the set "everyone else" excluding train drivers would still include pilots rather than reading it as intended which would conventionally and implicitly exclude pilots. It is what it is with some people.

Thanks for trying to help me understand. I'm not sure if I do yet. Can I check my understanding? Did you mean, when you said

> in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid

that train drivers and pilots are fairly paid, whereas everyone else is underpaid?

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