Is it time to bring the rip off railways back into public ownership?

[Hove Seagull]

As much as I dislike the woman, the railway privatisation had nothing to do with her - it was John Major.

Just using the opportunity to do a bit of thatcher-bashing!

Point remains, though. If Argies hadn't invaded Falklands, history would have been different and Major may never have come to power!

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I remember them and however woeful you thought they were they were better value for money than we have today. Britain always had a railway system that was the envy of Europe... until we privatised... now they laugh at the fuss we make and the amount of money we have to pay.

And Europe does laugh at us. I watched a news article in Germany when we opened up the high speed stretch of the Eurostar track.......15 years or so after France. They also took the piss when we vetoed a EU decision for minimu standards for allowing bikes on trains.

 

[User removed 4]

Maybe not as clean as the current rolling stock and I have no idea how efficiency compares but they were well priced, tickets were simple (6 types across the entire network apparently..now there are 6 types on some journeys alone), carriages were spacious, the staff on the trains, stations and platforms were generally enthusiastic helpful train spotter types with a wealth of knowledge and the service was integrated and trains and stations worked with each other as opposed to being in competition. We need to build on this with a few tweaks not destroy it which is what has happened. All we needed to do was add reliability and scrub the trains up and BR would have been a decent and solid service.

can i have some of whatever it is you're smoking ?

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

No. A train in Switzerland is punctual if it arrives with 15 seconds of the advertised time, and if its is due to depart at 09:00.00 t will leave precisely at 09:00.00 . In the UK a train is, for the TOC's records and agreements, puctual if it arrives within 5 minutes of the advertised time

The figures I stated were based on 3mins in Switzerland and 5mins in the UK. A differnce i admit but not a huge one. Certainly not basis for saying that Swiss trains are more punctual than UK trains

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

To be fair to southern, they dont seem to run a bad service in my experience, its the abysmal FCC who need sorting out.

They're all right when everything is working...but disintigrate the minute something goes wrong. It's like Frankensteins castle.....seemingly okay but there is a monster in the basement.

 

[User removed 4]

And Europe does laugh at us. I watched a news article in Germany when we opened up the high speed stretch of the Eurostar track.......15 years or so after France. They also took the piss when we vetoed a EU decision for minimu standards for allowing bikes on trains.

That must have been hilarious, the germans are famed the world over for their caustic piss taking and cutting edge humour.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

As a commutter I don't need some trainspotter type telling me that this a type 5 loco with small gague. I want a reliable clean service. BR didn't deliver that. Privitisation has.

I'd also challenge your statement on spacious carriages and staff. The trains are far better places than they used to be. As for staff, as a rule I find them a lot nicer. Back in the old days there were loads of staff who thought they owned the railways and were frankly pretty obnoxious to passengers.

When it was one industry - British Rail - it was subsidised to the tune of a billion to a billion-and-a-half in today's money and at the moment it's getting four billion pounds of taxpayers' money. Still think it's more expensive to have a privatised railway?

It can't have been difficult for them to be more efficient and cleaner when they have nearly four times more subsidy than when it was British Rail.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

The company you all want to be part of is not First Group 9who are a TOC) but Porterbrook, who lease the trains to the TOCs.

Porterbrook’s culture is of being highly proactive and pioneering, as evidenced by the purchase of the first new passenger trains in the UK post-privatisation and subsequent award of the largest single order of new vehicles with the purchase of 700 Class 377 Electrostar vehicles. Similarly Porterbrook was the first rolling stock leasing company to add freight equipment to its portfolio.

As well as investing in new trains, Porterbrook finances the refurbishment and upgrading of existing stock to modern standards and has already invested more than £200 million in this process, as a result enhanced passenger comfort and safety creates the effect of new trains thereby extending the operational life of the vehicles.

Since 1996 Porterbrook has invested in over 1,700 new passenger vehicles for UK rail industry.

So as a result of privatisation we have another level of management created that, in the days of British Rail was unnecessary? And privatisation is supposed to drive efficiency?

 

[jmsc]

For all you FCC haters, when their franchise ends in September 2013, they are to be merged with Southern!

 

[Storer 68]

Punctuality (2009): 87% of all trains with less than 3 minutes of delay
Subsidies for operation, maintenance of assets and construction investments (2010): 2.603 billion Swiss francs
The Swiss Federal Railways rail network is almost totally electrified. The

 

[Storer 68]

For all you FCC haters, when their franchise ends in September 2013, they are to be merged with Southern!

Corporately they already are. Both owned by First Group.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I am not questioning the cleanliness. The BR trains did need a good scrub. And I have no idea how reliable trains are now compared to 20 years ago either. What I do know is that they still seem very prone to delays. Especially FCC.

Ask a member of staff a question these days and they know f*** all about anything let alone the service, timetables, best option etc. Back in the day staff could rattle the times and connections off the top of their head.

You seem to have a very rosy recollection of the old BR staff. IMO they were absolutely dire, I had many bad experiences with them - one once told me to f*ck off when I asked him a question. I never met one who "knew the schedules". Now, I may have many issues with Southern but the on-train staff are generally pretty good.

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

For all you FCC haters, when their franchise ends in September 2013, they are to be merged with Southern!

Just to tidy it up a bit, the current Thameslink and Great Northern franchises currently ran by First will be ran by a new operator from 2013. The current Southern franchise runs out in 2015 and then it will merge with the Thameslink/GN franchise - so it will all be ran by one company. Cant remember who is bidding, but First and Go-Ahead (who run Southern) are in the running.

Should make things easier down here - will include direct trains from Brighton/Horsham to places like Cambridge and Peterborough. Should end the confusion with fares only valid on specific trains too.

Corporately they already are. Both owned by First Group.

No, Southern are operated by Go-Ahead, a completely different company.

 

[Storer 68]

Corporately they already are. Both owned by First Group.

Tosh Southern owned by Go Via

 

[Beach Hut]

How many different providers run regular trains to say Shoreham and Falmer and Lewes from Brighton?

Only from Brighton to Shoreham - SR and FGW

 

[Uter]

For those that are interested here are the latest TOC performance figures.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/742.aspx

A few things to note:

There is a huge difference between TOCs.

Of the top two performers one is effectively state owned and one is privately owned. The same is true of the bottom two.

As suspected FCC is the worst performing non-long distance TOC.

Punctuality has been steadily improving in recent years, as has reliability.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

You seem to have a very rosy recollection of the old BR staff. IMO they were absolutely dire, I had many bad experiences with them - one once told me to f*ck off when I asked him a question. I never met one who "knew the schedules". Now, I may have many issues with Southern but the on-train staff are generally pretty good.

Maybe there is something about you and Bushy?

I always got a polite response from the friendly, helpful and courteous BR staff.

Also, you needed to talk to the staff members which had guts, beards and hundreds of train related enamel badges on their uniform for scheduling, connections and time table info. What they did not know did not exist.

 

[Dandyman]

You mean this tax gap?

Whats the Tax Gap? » Tax Research UK

Indeed, £35bn - a staggering amount.

 

[jmsc]

Corporately they already are. Both owned by First Group.

No they're not! Southern are owned by Govia which it self is owned by Go Ahead (a bus company!) & Keolis (owned by SNCF)

Govia uesd to run Thameslink until they lost the Franchise to First Group.

I hope that clears up the murky world of TOC's & rail franchises.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Maybe there is something about you and Bushy?

I always got a polite response from the friendly, helpful and courteous BR staff.

Also, you needed to talk to the staff members which had guts, beards and hundreds of train related enamel badges on their uniform for scheduling, connections and time table info. What they did not know did not exist.

I get the image - but I think you've been watching too many Will Hay films

I've been commuting Shoreham to London for 24 years, and I'd take the service today over what it used to be, any day. Things are CERTAINLY not perfect - when anything goes wrong Southern are like headless chickens, and if the downline is closed there is no other way of getting us back other than routing to Havant or somewhere, but in reality, whilst we remember the bad journeys a lot more than the good ones, there are not that many of them - although when they happen for me they can be quite traumatic (medical reasons).

Information could be much, much better during problems (currently non-existent info). Currently we only have 2 morning services and 3 evening (direct S'ham - London Bridge) which are overcrowded, so an extra service or two would help. I'd like to be able to get WIFI on the train (which should be automatic these days). I expect the price to go up each year and I guess the wages in London counter that to some extent - whether it's "value for money" I don't know how to judge, there's nothing to compare it to.

Just a thought off the top of my head - not really considered in any depth - but instead of decreasing the number of companies, maybe I would think about adding extra competition. If I had two companies doing the same journeys, and I knew one had better staff, gave me info, had WIFI etc., and another low cost, cheap as chips no frills service, I'd probably pay more for the better service, but I'd have a choice, and the comanies would have to up their game to deliver.