Jeremy Corbyn pledges rail renationalisation

[Dave1987]

Well, under BR, anything ran, whether it made a profit or not, whereas under privatisation, it'll only run if it makes money, even if the service is required.

As others have said that's blatantly not true as many many services run that make a huge loss because the DFT stipulates they have to run. And as far as "service is required" is concerned why should a service be required if hardly anyone uses it?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Chiltern haven't invested huge amounts, maybe in Chiltern's staff time & cost as NR has made the investment-



http://www.railpro.co.uk/news/business-news/chiltern-to-make-259m-investment-for-oxford-link

Yes so Chiltern are paying a premium for Network Rail to build the chord.....

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

They talk as though interchangeable tickets died with privatisation.
They are still alive and well (alongside TOC-specific tickets).
BR invented route-specific tickets and pricing, and all the paraphernalia around advance and off-peak time restrictions.
All of this is already regulated by the DfT and they could change it overnight if they wished.
But they don't wish (not even Labour), because it would depress revenue and spoil the money-go-round.
Integrated transport policy? John Prescott had a go and failed.
It would only work if all modes were under government control, and that will not happen.

All European railways are struggling with funding, open access, regional devolution, privatisation and cross-border travel.
There is no clear business model which works (except possibly Switzerland, where there is significant private and local involvement).

 

[Dave1987]

On the railways you pay for flexibility. The cheapest tickets tend to be the most restrictive on times. People want to have the cheapest fares but they also want the flexibility to travel when they want to rather than when their advanced fare tells them they can. Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it!

 

[Whistler40145]

As a non railway worker, the impression of British Rail was to run services, whether profitable or not. I understand that many services run by TOCs somehow manage to run, whether profitable or not, but no doubt being heavily subsidised, just to keep them running, even though it's a Parliamentary service, the once a week Stockport to Stalybridge keeps running.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Promising more public control of the railways and the ripping-up of franchising didn't do much for Labour's prospects back in May, so I won't be holding my breath.

To be honest Labours ridiculous proposal of having a public sector body biding for franchises had more holes than a sieve. Putting aside arguments about having a government owned body like DOR biding for franchises from the government is even legal under EU law. The other big issue was the cost to the public sector bidder of making a franchise bid, given it costs around £10million to bid for a franchise that us a lot tax payers money to gamble with. If it failed it would be accused of wasting tax payers money, if it was successfull then it would be undercutting the private sector.

As for Corbyn's plans for re-nationalisation as people have said the easy bit is letting the franchises expire but how do you structure them once they are all back in public ownership? My preferred solution would be to go back to the BR model of Intercity (but allow open access bidders to bid for paths against a state operator); Network South East for commuter services into London; and Regional railways, but with those services managed by groups of local transport bodies similar to Rail North. Eventually there would there would be a Rail South West, a Rail East Anglia, a Rail West Midlands, a Rail East Midlands etc.

 

[najaB]

I'd personally put power generation, water supply and probably telecommunications well ahead of them in the list of priorities for renationalisation.

Between BT and Liberty Global (Virgin Media) over £7B of private money has been committed to high-speed broadband over a decade. This is completely separate to the Government's BDUK program to fund areas where it doesn't make commercial sense to invest.

 

[samuelmorris]

Between BT and Liberty Global (Virgin Media) over £7B of private money has been committed to high-speed broadband over a decade. This is completely separate to the Government's BDUK program to fund areas where it doesn't make commercial sense to invest.

As someone working in a communications-sensitive IT organisation, I won't open that can of worms but suffice to say the railway equivalent to BT would be not operating any railways in London because a fleet of private limos earned more revenue. BT's avoidance of investment includes not just rural unjustifiable areas but also business centres where leased line revenue is king, leaving the government's broadband grants to help small businesses pay the considerable asking price.

In general agreed, privatised railways are not as bad as some other privatised industries but by their very nature, some work well, others do not, as in every industry some corporations give a damn about their customer experience, and others do not, hence the wide range of customer satisfaction scores the current group of TOCs receive.

 

[Chester1]

If Labour wants to nationalise BT, it would need to nationalise Virgin Media and all the mobile networks as well, as they provide a very similiar service. The Virtual home and mobile opperators (Talk Talk, Sky etc) probably too. Its not a viable area to nationalise as home phone and internet, mobile calls and broadband and TV are too heavily interconnected. The cost would be unbelievable and would have very little benefit for the public as its a highly competative market. That said, Corbyn can promise to nationalise whatever he wants. I don't think a country that put the Tories back in power after 5 years ís going to turn socialist 5 years later. Its not like the mid 20th century when the Conservatives were more moderate and the gap was smaller.

Also, isn't a rolling nationalisation program easy to stop in 2020-2025? All the government needs to do is give direct awards prior to the next general election so that no franchises come up for renewal during the next parliament. Labour would need to win 2 connsectutive general elections to avoid the cost of buying out franchises before they finish.

 

[Master29]

I never said you did say it, British Rail was generally awful, hope it never returns.

Then why not give a reason "it was so awful" then instead of just a "The Sun" style headlines.

 

[Johnuk123]

Then why not give a reason "it was so awful" then instead of just a "The Sun" style headlines.

Trains were filthy, slow, late, stations were often disgusting and dangerous places especially at night and particularly in London.

 

[387star]

If railways were renationalised would train drivers be paid less?

 

[WatcherZero]

They would be covered by public sector pay freezes.

 

[najaB]

BT's avoidance of investment includes not just rural unjustifiable areas but also business centres where leased line revenue is king, leaving the government's broadband grants to help small businesses pay the considerable asking price.

As someone who works in the industry, the major reason for the slow pace of infrastructure investment in urban areas is because they're urban! It's almost impossible to dig or drill without hitting an unmapped cable/pipe/duct. Not to mention the fact that it can take quite many months to get traffic management orders in place when the ducts that do exist have been blocked. Not to forget the other ways that councils don't make it easy for infrastructure providers.

 

[sor]

To be honest Labours ridiculous proposal of having a public sector body biding for franchises had more holes than a sieve. Putting aside arguments about having a government owned body like DOR biding for franchises from the government is even legal under EU law. The other big issue was the cost to the public sector bidder of making a franchise bid, given it costs around £10million to bid for a franchise that us a lot tax payers money to gamble with. If it failed it would be accused of wasting tax payers money, if it was successfull then it would be undercutting the private sector.

My concern with it was whether Labour or DOR would even try to put in a good bid - or whether they'd deliberately fumble it and say "well we tried, but the private sector won, sorry guys". Plus the deliberate conflict of interest of having the government bid and the government also deciding the winning bid.

Between BT and Liberty Global (Virgin Media) over £7B of private money has been committed to high-speed broadband over a decade. This is completely separate to the Government's BDUK program to fund areas where it doesn't make commercial sense to invest.

The current BT broadband strategy would be like Network Rail building HS2 as a single track line with a 60mph limit, because there's "no benefit in the short term" and it's "more cost effective", regardless of if the facts state otherwise, or if it'd cost more to upgrade that line to dual or quad track high speed later on. In some parts of the country, it's already like building high-speed quad track branch lines and high speed quad track sections of main line with single line bottlenecks at random locations. (lots of ultra rural fibre to the premises around here, yet the slightly more built up villages get fibre to the cabinet except for random streets that got FTTP - and ducts/roadworks aren't an issue because it was trivial for BT to pull in new copper and put in new poles for new houses)

Virgin Media (and its predecessors) have famously only concentrated on areas that are quick profits - and expansion until recently has been so minimal that your neighbour across the road could have service but not you.

i.e. it's not a good one.

 

[quantinghome]

People on here are also forgetting that Labour now want HS2 to be scrapped, and we all know how crucial that project is.

No they don't. Corbyn was sceptical at the start of the leadership campaign, but came round to it fairly quickly. I suspect it wasn't much on his radar as an MP for Islington, but conversations with the Labour run northern cities (all in favour) made it clear to him where they stood.

 

[90sWereBetter]

Trains were filthy, slow, late

Not much has changed in 20 years then.

 

[Aldaniti]

As someone who has never, to date, voted Labour, I'd be tempted to vote for Corbyn in 2020 just to see Branson nationalised.

 

[Howardh]

Round my parts, I read a headline in the local rag that "local hospitals were competing with each other...." which made my blood boil. Hospitals? Competing?? Every hospital should be the best, which ever I end up in.

Same with the railways. I don't want Northern competing with TPE competing with Arriva....doesn't help me one jot. I want one company running the lines, signalling, trains, staff, stations.

The competition is to make me choose a trip by rail over bus, air, coach, driving etc. It helps if that rail company has an easy to understand, simple, plain ticketing strategy where I can get on at one station, get off at another and know that I got the cheapest possible ticket for my journey without having to have *A* levels in split-ticketing, knowing when peak hours are and leeways for late arrivals/conections.

I'd also like to see local tram lines also brought under the railway umbrella to make ticketing even easier. Maybe even the London Underground.

Renationalise/simplify the railways = 1 vote.

 

[313103]

Trains were filthy, slow, late, stations were often disgusting and dangerous places especially at night and particularly in London.

So tell me what has changed since 1994?

Trains are still filthy,

Station still are often disgusting and dangerous places and violence has spread onto trains especially on DOO operated services in and around the London suburbs.

The only thing ive seen change over the years is the amount of waste on livery, after livery being applied and then changed at a whim.

Main Line stations that were a hive of activity after midnight are closed, passenger trains that ran through the night now do not run unless you want to go to Cornwall or Scotland.

Granted we have got more and more new rolling stock, but most of it is not comfortable, seat are often hard as a brick, if its a diesel unit power comes from every carriage so the din and vibration is felt throughout the whole train, fresh air is a premium because trains have air condition / climate control and when this stops working its unbearable, modern trains also have infuriating and often inaudible / too loud pre recorded announcements.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Renationalisation of rail freight in the UK would mean the end for GBRf, DRS, Colas and Freightliner and with it the end of any on-rail competition for traffic. It would mean a return to the old BR "take-it-or-leave-it" approach when quoting rates to freight customers. Many of them would decide to leave it in favour of cut-throat competition from private road hauliers. The policy would only make any sense if at the same time all the UK road hauliers were nationalised. Eddie Stobart for example would become part of "British Road Services". But that would be contrary to EU rules on open access for Willi Betz and Norbert Dentressangle.

The Corbyn rail renationalisation policy has clearly not been thought-through in any detail beyond passenger franchises.

 

[Barn]

I've said this before so I'll be brief:

Renationalisation = HM Treasury control = annual budgets = included in austerity drives = significant savings demanded each year = reductions in off-peak services and/or staffing costs.

At least using multi-year contracts requires the government to think over the long term.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Renationalisation of rail freight in the UK would mean the end for GBRf, DRS, Colas and Freightliner and with it the end of any on-rail competition for traffic. It would mean a return to the old BR "take-it-or-leave-it" approach when quoting rates to freight customers. Many of them would decide to leave it in favour of cut-throat competition from private road hauliers. The policy would only make any sense if at the same time all the UK road hauliers were nationalised. Eddie Stobart for example would become part of "British Road Services". But that would be contrary to EU rules on open access for Willi Betz and Norbert Dentressangle.

The Corbyn rail renationalisation policy has clearly not been thought-through in any detail beyond passenger franchises.

I don't think anyone has proposed re-nationalising freight though, (or open access operations) only passenger services when franchises expire, so there still will be a degree of competion in the rail network to satisfy the EU rules.

 

[40129]

Remind me 313103 which operator brought in under floor engine DMUs. Pretty sure it was BR

 

[StateOfPlay]

I've said this before so I'll be brief:

Renationalisation = HM Treasury control = annual budgets = included in austerity drives = significant savings demanded each year = reductions in off-peak services and/or staffing costs.

At least using multi-year contracts requires the government to think over the long term.

Yes, this is a valid point. it could lead to a choice between welfare/NHS/Rail/Defence.

 

[Elecman]

Yes, this is a valid point. it could lead to a choice between welfare/NHS/Rail/Defence.

We already have this now with Treadury denanding cuts from NR as Health and Education are ring fence protected.

 

[Haydn1971]

Renationalisation = HM Treasury control = annual budgets = included in austerity drives = significant savings demanded each year = reductions in off-peak services and/or staffing costs.

ah yes, austerity drives - a construct by the conservative government to protect the messes made by the banks and keep the masses subdued whilst the floating gin palace market booms !

 

[ainsworth74]

This thread is for discussing the proposed plans to re-nationalise the passenger TOCs. People who wish to discuss the wider implications of a Corbyn victory in 2020 or the likelihood of that victory should use the existing thread in General Discussion.

Any further off-topic posts will be deleted.

 

[coppercapped]

Remind me 313103 which operator brought in under floor engine DMUs. Pretty sure it was BR

Actually the LMS and the GWR. Before the Second World War.

 

[deltic]

As in all these debates no-one really answers the question what difference would re-nationalisation actually make and what would it look like.

Apart from a single brand covering the whole rail network what else would change?

 

[ainsworth74]

Apart from a single brand covering the whole rail network what else would change?

Would even that be the case! By the end BR had at least four different passenger brands (InterCity, Network SouthEast, Regional Railways and Scotrail).