[Football] Trains to Sheffield

[Herr Tubthumper]

I’m very pro renationalisation of railways (the lot, into just a single entity) and water companies. It’s not ideological and I’m less bothered than the social media chatterati in party political name calling.

Railways in this country are incredibly complex. Built 180 years ago on higgledy-piggedy routes and completely boxed in by £100b’s of homes and businesses making compulsory purchase of urban sites impossible. Whilst our European neighbours industrialized later and/or were bombed to bits giving a fresh start bankrolled by the Marshall Plan. We also build/renew railways at a very expensive rate. I’ve (socialist, interestingly) mates who all became multi millionaires in making kit for the railways. They filled me on the shenanigans of a web of consultants and leeches milking the system. Whilst the French for TGV lines just bulldoze countryside in straight lines, complainants are overrode by Paris in quick time. Note the £100b estimated cost of the full HS2, a train line ignoring shocking services within the north.

We’ve all discussed this at great length, every two months . @jackalbion is the only ITK, I know he wants a renationalisation too. I wish he’d give tangible hope of what Labour can and will achieve in charge of the railways for 10 years.

I saw an recent article about how cycling became a big thing in Amsterdam. It was basically a bunch of enlightened councillors who took a bold and visionary view and flew in the face of public opinion, and a lot of criticism, for the greater good. Decades later they are applauded. Will anyone in the UK be as radical?

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

I saw an recent article about how cycling became a big thing in Amsterdam. It was basically a bunch of enlightened councillors who took a bold and visionary view and flew in the face of public opinion, and a lot of criticism, for the greater good. Decades later they are applauded. Will anyone in the UK be as radical?

No. Radical as a nation is one thing we are not.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I saw an recent article about how cycling became a big thing in Amsterdam. It was basically a bunch of enlightened councillors who took a bold and visionary view and flew in the face of public opinion, and a lot of criticism, for the greater good. Decades later they are applauded. Will anyone in the UK be as radical?

You say 'big thing'.

I say terrifying. Especially if you're, say, freshly arrived in the city, conditionally trained to check traffic the other way, poor at picking out unmarked cycle lanes and have spent most of an evening in various establishments in De Wallen.

*shiver*

 

[Bodian]

I saw an recent article about how cycling became a big thing in Amsterdam. It was basically a bunch of enlightened councillors who took a bold and visionary view and flew in the face of public opinion, and a lot of criticism, for the greater good. Decades later they are applauded. Will anyone in the UK be as radical?

How Groningen invented a cycling template for cities all over the world

Motorists woke up one mid-70s morning to find new one-way streets made direct crosstown journeys impossible by car. Forty years later Groningen boasts two-thirds of all trips made by bike … and the cleanest air of any big Dutch city

www.theguardian.com

 

[de la zouch]

As a follow up:
Price of annual Brighton to London season £4744
Price of BahnCard 100 which permits travel at any time across the entire German network £3956 (€4550)

This price difference is stark. Is this just down to a few extra staff manning a gate?

Staff are a huge cost, clearly not the only factor but one that is often ignored when looking at the cost of UK train tickets. Think about air travel, not totally unionised, staffed according to needs (very safely) and often an incredibly cheap way to travel.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Staff are a huge cost, clearly not the only factor but one that is often ignored when looking at the cost of UK train tickets. Think about air travel, not totally unionised, staffed according to needs (very safely) and often an incredibly cheap way to travel.

I’m not so sure:

“The aviation industry is one of the most undertaxed and overly subsidised sections of the UK economy.

There’s no VAT on plane tickets, and there’s no tax on aviation fuel.

A 2019 government briefing paper said the lack of an aviation fuel tax was seen by many as “an indefensible anomaly” – but nothing has changed.

Instead, the aviation industry receives £7 billionin annual subsidies, according to the New Economics Foundation. In fact, eight days after the COP26 climate conference ended in November 2021, the government added £4.3mto this total.”

 

[Weststander]

Anna

I saw an recent article about how cycling became a big thing in Amsterdam. It was basically a bunch of enlightened councillors who took a bold and visionary view and flew in the face of public opinion, and a lot of criticism, for the greater good. Decades later they are applauded. Will anyone in the UK be as radical?

Anna Holligan of the BBC did a mini BBC News doc about just that roughly 4 years ago … we may’ve discussed it? Widespread cycling wasn’t the Dutch thing, in 1950 Amsterdam was an incredibly dangerous place to be a cyclist, they may’ve mentioned death stats. Then the revolution you describe.

 

[Weststander]

I’m not so sure:

“The aviation industry is one of the most undertaxed and overly subsidised sections of the UK economy.

There’s no VAT on plane tickets, and there’s no tax on aviation fuel.

A 2019 government briefing paper said the lack of an aviation fuel tax was seen by many as “an indefensible anomaly” – but nothing has changed.

Instead, the aviation industry receives £7 billionin annual subsidies, according to the New Economics Foundation. In fact, eight days after the COP26 climate conference ended in November 2021, the government added £4.3mto this total.”

There’s also no VAT on train, bus or coach tickets (sadly I know such things).

 

[de la zouch]

I’m not so sure:

“The aviation industry is one of the most undertaxed and overly subsidised sections of the UK economy.

There’s no VAT on plane tickets, and there’s no tax on aviation fuel.

A 2019 government briefing paper said the lack of an aviation fuel tax was seen by many as “an indefensible anomaly” – but nothing has changed.

Instead, the aviation industry receives £7 billionin annual subsidies, according to the New Economics Foundation. In fact, eight days after the COP26 climate conference ended in November 2021, the government added £4.3mto this total.”

Thats alot lower than UK train subsidies, alot:

total rail subsidy for 2022-23 will be £11 billion, down from the first two years of COVID (£17.6 billion and £13.3 billion for 2020-21, 2021-22 respectively) but up from before the pandemic (£4.7 billion and £6.8 billion for 2018-19 and 2019-20)

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

There’s also no VAT on train, bus or coach tickets (sadly I know such things).

Fair enough.

 

[Weststander]

Fair enough.

And it’s right that they are zero rated.

Air travel … you’re probably right, but it would cost me. It requires nations to work in unison, otherwise you’d get UK residents flying to Dublin, Frankfurt or Amsterdam to then take a further flight. I’ve done that, but for existing cost grounds.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Thats alot lower than UK train subsidies, alot:

total rail subsidy for 2022-23 will be £11 billion, down from the first two years of COVID (£17.6 billion and £13.3 billion for 2020-21, 2021-22 respectively) but up from before the pandemic (£4.7 billion and £6.8 billion for 2018-19 and 2019-20)

In absolute terms it is but you cannot compare without context in such terms. What are the subsidies say per mile travelled? The subsidy per mile must be more for air travel?

 

[Scoffers]

Sadly this is the root of the problem, a decent public transport service needs subsidy and Brits don’t like paying taxes. You get what you pay for. Same with the NHS, council run services etc etc.

So on that basis, renationalisation wouldn't necessarily make things better?

 

[Bodian]

So on that basis, renationalisation wouldn't necessarily make things better?

It would stop all the differing companies bickering with each other over who was to blame for something. It would also stop this ridiculous situation where you can't catch some trains running on the same route because the trains are run by different companies.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Thats alot lower than UK train subsidies, alot:

total rail subsidy for 2022-23 will be £11 billion, down from the first two years of COVID (£17.6 billion and £13.3 billion for 2020-21, 2021-22 respectively) but up from before the pandemic (£4.7 billion and £6.8 billion for 2018-19 and 2019-20)

Something else to consider is that cities with small regional airports subsidise airlines to use their airports as it generates business. Ryanair received 660m in aid and relief from this allegedly.

Ryanair subsidies are just business

Air industry commentators say there is nothing unusual about airport's payments to budget airline

www.connexionfrance.com

 

[Guinness Boy]

It would stop all the differing companies bickering with each other over who was to blame for something. It would also stop this ridiculous situation where you can't catch some trains running on the same route because the trains are run by different companies.

And stop split ticketing, delay repay denial, arguments between TOC and Network Rail as to whose fault a crash or delay is and stop rogue TOCs like LNER changing well established pricing structures or Avanti deliberately not recruiting enough drivers and then cutting services to Manchester in half.

In general I'm not for going backwards. Change is very often good. But bad change is terrible. Nationalisation would be good change, rather than retrograde. Having simple Peak / Off Peak tickets ONLY with discounts for booking more than six weeks in advance or for a group of (say) four or eight, one hand to shake / one throat to choke in terms of performance and subsidising community routes that might not be profitable in and of themselves, but bring people to places to spend money should all be doable in a modern, digital world. Also allows them to run the correct staffing levels, to the point made by @de la zouch where a balance is struck between safety, cost, efficiency and a good timetable.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

So on that basis, renationalisation wouldn't necessarily make things better?

It will not solve all the problems. In short, I would renationalise and increase taxes to pay for a decent service. The main reason for renationalisation is to stop money diverting from reinvestment into shareholders pockets. You can run it like a business if you want, DB operate as a business with the governemt ownng the one share the company has.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

It will not solve all the problems. In short, I would renationalise and increase taxes to pay for a decent service. The main reason for renationalisation is to stop money diverting from reinvestment into shareholders pockets. You can run it like a business if you want, DB operate as a business with the governemt ownng the one share the company has.

You'd also hope that if you ran a decent service you might have more passengers which would mean selling more tickets.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

And stop split ticketing, delay repay denial, arguments between TOC and Network Rail as to whose fault a crash or delay is and stop rogue TOCs like LNER changing well established pricing structures or Avanti deliberately not recruiting enough drivers and then cutting services to Manchester in half.

In general I'm not for going backwards. Change is very often good. But bad change is terrible. Nationalisation would be good change, rather than retrograde. Having simple Peak / Off Peak tickets ONLY with discounts for booking more than six weeks in advance or for a group of (say) four or eight, one hand to shake / one throat to choke in terms of performance and subsidising community routes that might not be profitable in and of themselves, but bring people to places to spend money should all be doable in a modern, digital world. Also allows them to run the correct staffing levels, to the point made by @de la zouch where a balance is struck between safety, cost, efficiency and a good timetable.

The ticketing thing is bonkers. Hove to Gatwick was not far enough for a day return when I once asked. Fair enough. Then I was told I could buy a return from Worthng to Gatwick which was cheaper than the two singles from Hove to Gatwick and back. That's just nonsense.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I have the answers. Tubthumper Railways, it will be great. I promise you.