Three Rail Firms To Be Renationalised Next Year

[naomi24]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqlnrgjr79o

 

For better - or worse?  

[ToraToraTora]

is it possible for dumb and dumber to have a grown up discussion?

[max137]

Trains in Italy are generally good value; frequent, but of mixed reliability. The railway market in Italy has been opened to competition, so on some high speed routes you have the choice between "Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori" or "Italo" (privately owned) and "Trenitalia" (state owned). I have used trains in Italy and find them good perhaps the UK needs to look at there system Milan to Bologna 1hr 9min a distance of 213KM or 132 miles High Speed.

[theshedman]

gulliver wants us to renationalise the railways amoungst others yet he wants us to rejoin the EU who wouldn't allow us to do it when we were in it.  Which do you want gulliver as it seems you can't have both.

[max137]

shedman you are correct not much from your remainers about the state of both the French and German economies.

[New Judge]

“For better - or worse?”  

For worse, far worse. And I’m afraid you’ve started me off.

For those interested in the reality rather than the ideology, the only thing “privatising the railways” will change is the amount of funding the government has to provide to run them.

At present, essentially the only aspect of railway operations that are in private hands and which the government plans to nationalise are the franchised train operations. The infrastructure, together with some of the larger stations, are owned, managed, maintained and developed by Network Rail, which is a governmental organisation.

The Rolling Stock Companies (“Roscos”) own the locomotives, passenger carriages and multiple units and the majority of freight wagons. There are no plans to nationalise these companies because it would cost far too much and sequestration of assets without compensation is, unsurprisingly, not on even this government’s agenda.

So that leaves the train operators (TOCs). At present they pay a franchise fee to the government for the privilege of running their services. Among the important conditions of all franchise agreements: they must run trains to the level of services in their franchise agreement; they cannot make changes to their timetables without the agreement of Network Rail; they must provide suitable rolling stock in accordance with their franchise agreement; they must pay track access charges to Network Rail to run their services; they must meet performance targets laid out in their agreement . There is far more to it than that, of course, and the general franchising terms which apply to all TOCs runs to 352 pages.

In summary, the private TOCs are already heavily regulated and bound by conditions set by the government which are unlikely to change significantly when their franchises expire and are not renewed. The only thing that will change is the franchise fees which TOCs bring to the industry will, of course, be lost. So that means that in order for the railways to simply stay as they are, those franchise fees will have to be replaced by an increase in government grants.

[New Judge]

And now for some historical context which may help understand why I believe this idea will not be in the best interest of rail users.

It is fairly common ground that the finest era of railway travel in Britain was between 1923 and the outbreak of WW2. In 1923 dozens of small railway companies were grouped together to form “The Big Four” (LNWR, LNER, SR and GWR). Each of these was an autonomous private company responsible for all aspects of its services. Through ticketing was available between destinations which crossed their boundaries (via the “Railway Clearing House” scheme).

The Big Four’s progress before the war was phenomenal, but of course was halted when hostilities broke out. At the end of the war the railways were broken, having been neglected for investment but absolutely hammered by the amount of traffic the war required them to carry. So, with he country ravaged by war and financially broke, nationalisation in 1948 was the only realistic way to get them back into order.

Rail privatisation in 1995 was ultimately disastrous not because it was flawed in principle but because of the model used. The operation of trains and the provision of the infrastructure should never have been split and this was the principle cause of its failure to deliver all the benefits that it should have provided.

That model was forced upon the UK by the EU (or rather the EEC as it then was) with directive 91/440. In 1991, the European Commission introduced this directive, which mandated the separation of rail infrastructure from operations, required open access for international companies, and established track access charges. This directive was the blueprint for the privatization of British Rail, which began in 1994.

So, if we’re going to turn back the clock, the way to remedy that is to revert to the model used from 1923, not to go back to 1948 when the railways had been suffering from a decade of neglect.

This privatisation exercise by the Labour government will see no significant improvements, little in the way of change (perhaps the trains might be painted a different colour) and if anything be financially disadvantageous. 

[youngmafbog]

And sandwiches will be raock hard again.

[ynnafymmi]

Aw,but will Mick Lynch still be the foremost leading Brexiteer in Britain if the railways get nationalised?