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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

#231

Post by qcnguy »

nyreed wrote: post #36
joshuaissac wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to measure this. British Telecom lost its monopoly around the same time it was privatised. Is today's (very competitive) telecommunications market more a result of privatisation or of the loss of BT's monopoly? Another way to look at it would be, are BT's customers better off now, than when it was a government company?

BT was deep into preparations for a nationwide fiber rollout at the time of privatisation in the early 80s. The project was cancelled, the fledgling factories equipment and expertise were instead exported to South Korea, enabling their widespread fiber penetrance. That delayed fiber rollout in the UK by decades. Was that a success? Could be they were too early to justify the cost? But without someone pushing ahead, w…

It was that kind of delusional decision making that justified the privatization in the first place. Rolling out fiber nationwide in a world where the web had only just been invented and everywhere else in the world was connected via modems would have been catastrophically expensive and supplied bandwidth nobody would have been able to use. The idea the internet could have skipped straight from 33kbaud to fiber speeds is idiotic to anyone who remembers the state of the internet at that time. Most servers were not connected to the internet via fiber.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#232

Post by welshwelsh »

pjc50 wrote: post #154
tompagenet2 wrote: post #111

As always this is grossly oversimplifying. As well as the misleading safety stats, as graemep has noted, it ignores that journeys just absolutely exploded under privatisation [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail ]

That certainly happened, but at the same time the ticket prices have consistently gone up above inflation, so what we're missing is the causal link - why did journeys go up so much? Was it in fact other transport policy to get commuters out of cars?

Ticket prices going up is actually good for mass adoption. If they are too low, you will see people riding the train who are only using the train because they are too poor to afford a car. That makes middle class people want to avoid the train.

Also higher revenue often means better service, which for most people is more important than the price.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#233

Post by graemep »

xnorswap wrote: post #209
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I remember reading an article in the journnal of the RSS about whether it was actually less safe or whether it was just statistical clustering. I don't however remember the conclusion! I've tracked down the article to https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/4/1/15/7029... but I don't have access.

Its available in full online and concludes:

> The conclusion from the analysis of the accident data is that there is no evidence for the hypothesis that railway safety, as measured by accidents, has become worse since privatisation.

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j....

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#234

Post by daedrdev »

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…

I do not like this argument. Margins in most businesses are not very high. There is thus physically not enough cash to raise wages very much. Driving a train is less difficult than a plane, and trains have much worse margins due to lower ticket prices, so we should expect wages to be less.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#235

Post by hexbin010 »

wtcactus wrote: post #148
Symbiote wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail travel is one of the few things that's cheaper now I live in Denmark compared to the UK. A ticket for the next direct train (16:42, peak time) from Copenhagen to Århus is 449kr, £53. That's 300km in 3 hours. London to Manchester is the same distance, 2¼ hours, and £193 .

Hum, there are a lot of trains from London to Manchester today for between 42-47£. Those do take 3h45m. But there are also trains for £80 that take 2h11m. https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/journey-planner/?type=single&...

> Hum, there are a lot of trains from London to Manchester today for between 42-47£. Those do take 3h45m.

Those are indirect train services. That can also be the return price, which is very very good value. You do have to be careful with travelling the right route and company

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#236

Post by Symbiote »

pm215 wrote: post #157
Symbiote wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail travel is one of the few things that's cheaper now I live in Denmark compared to the UK. A ticket for the next direct train (16:42, peak time) from Copenhagen to Århus is 449kr, £53. That's 300km in 3 hours. London to Manchester is the same distance, 2¼ hours, and £193 .

This is partly because of the UK's ticketing system, which (like airline prices) heavily discounts for people who can book ahead and travel at off-peak hours. If you're able to do that, then for instance, right now you can get a ticket from Euston to Manchester on Weds 10th December mid-morning for 35 quid. If you're really price sensitive you can get there for just 14 quid (you have to change at Crewe and take an ex…

Denmark also does this — Copenhagen to Århus on 10 December at 10:52 is £16 if purchased now.

My example wasn't especially ridiculous. Try something like Stansted Airport to Birmingham — 200km, 45 minutes slower than driving, and £97 — or £67 off peak.

The other ridiculous feature of British train tickets is when some return tickets cost just £1 more than a single ticket.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#237

Post by jdietrich »

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?

There's a hard limit on how frequently you can run trains, because you need to maintain safe separation distances. Try to pack too many trains into the timetable and the whole line is just one tiny error away from grinding to a complete halt, or worse. There are some tricks to pack in slightly more trains, but they generally require expensive and disruptive signalling upgrades. For commuter lines with lots of closely-spaced stations, the most effective way of increasing train throughput is to reduce dwell time at stations and ensure punctual departure, hence the often rather brisk attitudes at Japanese stations during rush hour.

There are several limits on the length of trains, but the primary one is platform length. It's no use running a 7 car train if all of your platforms are 6 cars long - anything you might gain in capacity per train is wiped out by increased dwell time. You can extend platforms, but it's expensive, disruptive and only works if you have sufficient space at all (or practically all) of the stations on the route.

Japan can't really justify major rail investment, because passenger demand has been steadily declining for decades. Peak-time trains get progressively less busy every year, simply because there are fewer commuters every year.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#238

Post by hexbin010 »

Symbiote wrote: post #205
wtcactus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hum, there are a lot of trains from London to Manchester today for between 42-47£. Those do take 3h45m. But there are also trains for £80 that take 2h11m. https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/journey-planner/?type=single&...

Yes. I didn't see the slow trains, it looks like they were hidden from my search. (Also bear in mind the median income after tax is 50% higher in Denmark.)

> it looks like they were hidden from my search

I don't blame you. They do make it VERY hard to find and buy that particular cheaper ticket

Ticket websites generally assume you have unlimited funds and want the fastest route, always.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#239

Post by danaris »

tome wrote: post #190
noir_lord wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The "everyone else" is not meant to be read literally.

Many people are well-paid, or even overpaid. CEOs, for instance.

It's just that most people, in most common professions, are underpaid.

It only makes sense to talk about a blanket statement like that being a "contradiction" when someone is attempting to speak in the language of formal logic or detailed argument, not colloquial speech.

Re: Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure

#240

Post by n4r9 »

qcnguy wrote: post #231
nyreed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BT was deep into preparations for a nationwide fiber rollout at the time of privatisation in the early 80s. The project was cancelled, the fledgling factories equipment and expertise were instead exported to South Korea, enabling their widespread fiber penetrance. That delayed fiber rollout in the UK by decades. Was that a success? Could be they were too early to justify the cost? But without someone pushing ahead, w…

It was that kind of delusional decision making that justified the privatization in the first place. Rolling out fiber nationwide in a world where the web had only just been invented and everywhere else in the world was connected via modems would have been catastrophically expensive and supplied bandwidth nobody would have been able to use. The idea the internet could have skipped straight from 33kbaud to fiber speeds…

Unwittingly a brilliant demonstration of how short-term capitalistic behaviour hamstrings society. Japan, Korea and Hong Kong are way ahead of the UK and much of Europe precisely because of the lack of insight and vision reflected in your post.
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