British Rail-Who wants it back

[Simster]

What a pity to let facts get in the way of the herd mentality.

Nobody is letting "facts get in the way" here so stop being a prick. I fully agree with [MENTION=29192]Brighton Lines[/MENTION] - I am a massive advocate of non-competitive essential utilities being placed in public hands, and am under no illusions that if the railways were re-nationalised, rail fares would NOT come down (unless the government chose to subsidise them further). But the fact is, they should never have been privatised in the first place. There is now no joined-up thinking between various operators and indeed between operators and Railtrack. The result is an absolute shambles on so many fronts, and it is the rail user who is suffering the most.

It also gets in the way of a coherent national transport policy. For example, the trains have no obligation to provide bike carriages, which seems ludicrous to me. Similarly, when concerts are on at Falmer they just don't stop there. Or the Brighton to London bike ride comes along and nobody is allowed to come home on the train with their bikes. This sort of nonsense never happened under public ownership. They can't even get timetables or the pricing structure to make any sense any more FFS!

I can understand users paying high fares, and I don't really have an issue with that - but a nationalised rail network would work so much better as it does in nearly every industrialised first world country.

 

[Chicken Run]

Yes please.

 

[Beach Hut]

Er, the rail industry in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands etc?

All with consistently lower fares than the UK.

So you would happily pay far higher income taxes to fund a public railway ?

 

[Titanic]

Nobody is letting "facts get in the way" here so stop being a prick. I fully agree with @Brighton Lines - I am a massive advocate of non-competitive essential utilities being placed in public hands, and am under no illusions that if the railways were re-nationalised, rail fares would NOT come down (unless the government chose to subsidise them further). But the fact is, they should never have been privatised in the first place. There is now no joined-up thinking between various operators and indeed between operators and Railtrack. The result is an absolute shambles on so many fronts, and it is the rail user who is suffering the most.

It also gets in the way of a coherent national transport policy. For example, the trains have no obligation to provide bike carriages, which seems ludicrous to me. Similarly, when concerts are on at Falmer they just don't stop there. Or the Brighton to London bike ride comes along and nobody is allowed to come home on the train with their bikes. This sort of nonsense never happened under public ownership. They can't even get timetables or the pricing structure to make any sense any more FFS!

I can understand users paying high fares, and I don't really have an issue with that - but a nationalised rail network would work so much better as it does in nearly every industrialised first world country.

The quality of rolling stock, stations and the service provided by Southern on the Arun Valley line has never been better. I am not sure what all the fuss is about here.

 

[Nibble]

I don't imagine if it were re-nationalised that all of a sudden we'd see reduced fares but we may see the end to the extreme hikes in prices every few months.

 

[Simster]

The quality of rolling stock, stations and the service provided by Southern on the Arun Valley line has never been better. I am not sure what all the fuss is about here.

Why don't you read the thread then, instead of acting like a smug prick? Facts? You obviously don't know them yourself if you don't know what all the fuss is about.

 

[Titanic]

Why don't you read the thread then, instead of acting like a smug prick? Facts? You obviously don't know them yourself if you don't know what all the fuss is about.

I used to travel every day and still do several times a week. I don't know what everyone is complaining out. It is a massively expensive service to provide, massively subsidised by the taxpayer, and serving more people travelling than ever before. So it is going to have some problems. But no idea why anyone thinks it would be 'better' if it was run by civil servants.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I don't imagine if it were re-nationalised that all of a sudden we'd see reduced fares but we may see the end to the extreme hikes in prices every few months.

Exactly this. Prices can't fall but they will not rise at such alarming rates.

 

[Simster]

I don't imagine if it were privatised that all of a sudden we'd see reduced fares but we may see the end to the extreme hikes in prices every few months.

We wouldn't. The price hikes are a necessity because the track was neglected for decades. Ticket prices will only come down if the government decide to subsidise them, and I don't think there is any stomach for that, even under Labour who traditionally might have backed such a policy, never mind the austere government that was elected to power.

 

[GT49er]

“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another."

My wife definitely did NOT appreciate that argument.

 

[Gwylan]

Not a chance. Certainly not perfect now but I remember all too well how goddamn awful British Rail was. You think it's bad now, it's nothing to what it used to be.

That's a totally meaningless statement. In what sense is it worse? It's not reliability,given that some services were running late every single day last year. I work from home now but on the eight occasions I've had a business trip to London this year, either the train there or the train back (and sometimes both) was late every day. It's certainly not cost as rail fares have increased far beyond the rate of inflation. It's not comfort, as standing has become the norm during rush hour services. So, in what sense is it any way better now?

The trouble is: there are plenty of younger people who have no experience of British Rail so when you come out with stuff like that, they believe it. I commuted throughout most of the 80s and experienced what it was really like. Yes, there were the odd delays and cancellations but not even remotely close to the levels we get now

 

[Nibble]

Exactly this. Prices can't fall but they will not rise at such alarming rates.

The way I understand it the various rail companies have to satisfy shareholders, this seems to be the main impetus behind such high rises so often. People have no choice if they need to use the trains so the easiest way to appease the shareholders is to exploit commuters and charge them higher fares. If there were no shareholders, this money simply wouldn't have to be raised. That may be very simplified.

 

[Simster]

I used to travel every day and still do several times a week. I don't know what everyone is complaining out. It is a massively expensive service to provide, massively subsidised by the taxpayer, and serving more people travelling than ever before. So it is going to have some problems. But no idea why anyone thinks it would be 'better' if it was run by civil servants.

By "civil servants", you mean "train experts" rather than the current crop of "management" who are pretty clueless about the industry apparently. Honestly, [MENTION=1416]Ernest[/MENTION] might not be your cup of tea, but he's worked on the railways for decades and has given numerous anecdotal examples down the years of why it is such a shambles under privatisation compared to the days when it was run by proper train people. This is why it's pretty rich coming you that others are "letting facts get in the way" when it obvious to most that you're the one doing exactly that.

 

[Titanic]

So what significant change would we see if it were run by these 'train experts' again?

 

[Machiavelli]

“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.”
― Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

Hayek was not keen on public monopolies, but suddenly lost his critical tenor when private monopolies were on the agenda -- which they now are, in no small part to Hayek.

 

[GT49er]

Thankfully it will never happen, although the present model is far from perfect.

Incidentally, when did any nationalised industry work effectively?

From actual experience I can verify that in the thirty years I lived before Thatcher flogged off everything that moved, I always had gas, electricity, water and mail delivered to wherever I was living, generally reliably and without fuss. Just what is required from a utility in fact. And it didn't cost more than it does now (even taking inflation into account).

They were nationalised industries doing that.

 

[symyjym]

Never made sense to privatise it in the first place. As for Network Rail it was a basket case when it was private. One entity controlling stock, services and engineering with the revenue going back to the railways directly makes sense.

The Japanese and Swiss manage it better than us with private companies but, in reality, the Swiss Federal Rail is owned by the cantons it serves while, in Japan, they were able to rebuild the rail system after the war and, crucially, private companies were incentivised to build their own lines.

We don't have that here and we therefore need a single holistic organisation run by railwaymen rather than corporate graduates who know how to run a stand up meeting but go missing when it all goes tits up.

 

[Titanic]

From actual experience I can verify that in the thirty years I lived before Thatcher flogged off everything that moved, I always had gas, electricity, water and mail delivered to wherever I was living, generally reliably and without fuss. Just what is required from a utility in fact. And it didn't cost more than it does now (even taking inflation into account).

They were nationalised industries doing that.

What about the early 1970's?

 

[8ace]

I don't know what everyone is complaining out.

Missing kick off on friday for a start.

 

[dazzer6666]

The track owner needs to be integrated with the service providers and the people who own the trains. It's the structure of the industry that is wrong, not just the ownership.

nail on head......