Privatisation vs nationalisation vs the RoW

[LNW-GW Joint]

One tory politican Bob neil called for Chris grayling to resign when he refused to allow London rail devolution to go ahead. So the idea that commuter belt tories wont rebel is false.

As things stand, if any more DfT franchised services were transferred to TfL they would still be competed for by the private sector (like LO and Crossrail).
TfL would run them as concessions rather than franchises.
That is a reduced TOC scope, but is not nationalisation.

 

[matt_world2004]

As things stand, if any more DfT franchised services were transferred to TfL they would still be competed for by the private sector (like LO and Crossrail).
TfL would run them as concessions rather than franchises.
That is a reduced TOC scope, but is not nationalisation.

I know that but do you really think vulmerable to relection commuter belt mps are not going to rebel on the issue of rail nationalisation when their constituents demand it. The majority of the population afterall supports rail nationalisation

 

[CosherB]

It had to happen. RMT weighs in on the political debate, as reported by BBC News.

Several of the Conservative losses in the election have been blamed on the long-running dispute on Southern Railway.

The Tories lost seats in Croydon, Eastbourne and Brighton, while a number of others have become marginals.

The railway row has been over staffing and the role of conductors. Mick Cash, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, says: "These results prove that the toxic Southern Rail franchise was a game changer in key seats along the routes served."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2017-40171454

 

[matt_world2004]

It had to happen. RMT weighs in on the political debate, as reported by BBC News.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2017-40171454

I can imagine there is an element of truth in this , Gavin Barwell was Graylings attack dog and people literally lost jobs over the southern industrial dispute.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Mods - we need a new thread on Impact of Rail Strikes on election. Maybe someone could dig out the constituency results from Southern Rail served areas?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I know that but do you really think vulmerable to relection commuter belt mps are not going to rebel on the issue of rail nationalisation when their constituents demand it. The majority of the population afterall supports rail nationalisation

I don't know how London voted, but a Con+Dup administration will not have nationalisation on their agenda, as it wasn't in either manifesto.
I also don't think the public knows what rail nationalisation means (as rehearsed more than once on this forum).
Perceptions might be different in GTR-land with its DOO issues, but the DfT already has control of all the levers it needs and public ownership of the franchise would make no difference.

 

[Olaf]

Well, looks like we can put the renationalisation issue back in its box for another 5 years - but only just.
Very hard to work out what the election result means for rail policy, but for sure it won't be high on the national agenda for a while.
I suppose the first thing is, will Chris Grayling stay as SoS for Transport.
The second thing will probably be a resumption of hostilities on DOO.
The franchise timetable will roll on, and the diggers will start in earnest on HS2.

I don not think we can count on the new Government lasting a full five year term; I would expect dissenters within the party could lead to a no confidence vote at some stage - e.g. Heathrow (Goldsmith et al), Ireland boarder, immigration controls, same-sax marriage etc, etc. I would think that there is now the possibility of another election before Christmas this year, or in spring of 2018.

Most things are up in the air, and planning is going to get harder. This result is going to take us into a very dark place.

 

[Olaf]

I would guess not even with a dup coalition all it would take is a feq commuter belt tories to rebel against rail privatisation and nationalisation would be very much back on the agenda.

If anything, NR is going to have to be broken up all the sooner so that it can be sold-off to top-up the coffers; - I think there is a good chance of the UK's credit rating being downgraded after close of Wall Street this evening.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I was talking to an IE driver late last year and he told me about the situation there. A major part of the problem is that the Irish Government introduced a scheme similar to our senior citizen card but applied it to the railways as well. What's more they set it up in such a way that IE got no income at all from the use of the card (ours gives 20p - not much but it helps in several ways). Issue of the card doesn't seem to have been well controlled and a very large number of people not hold one.

That's incorrect.

What actually happens is they get a set fee per issued free travel pass per year.

This applies whether an owner of a pass uses Irish Rail or not

So whilst they do not get paid per journey, they also get paid for people who never use their pass.

 

[Olaf]

P.S.
I think there is a substantially increased chance of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, and with increased difficulty of dealing with the impact of that in a timely fashion.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As an example of how things are going in other countries, Go-Ahead has just won a contract for rail services between Stuttgart and Nuremberg.
Apart from being a (modest) example of the opening up of the German rail market, Go-Ahead are British and maybe not the first name you would think of as expanding its rail operations (they are the majority owner of the Govia GTR franchise which includes the troubled Southern operation).
The local government decision is still open to challenge, which has happened before in Germany.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...r-stuttgart-nuernberg-operating-contract.html

 

[sk688]

To which BR are you referring? The early BTC/RE version? The BTC version? The BRB as epitomised by the Beeching era or the BR of the Sectors?

Just in general about BR, is what I mean

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Just in general about BR, is what I mean

There were at least 5 versions of BR as the organisation evolved.
Initially (1948) all transport was nationalised, including road (most buses and heavy lorries), canals and air services, as well as rail.
All the other modes were re-privatised subsequently, and even BR was stripped of its hotels, ferries and eventually rolling stock manufacturing which were all sold off.
Much railway land was sold for development, including some very large sites in London.
There was always some competitive private manufacturing, mostly locos, as well, which mostly ended up in GEC (which later became Alstom).
There were also Pullman passenger services with a private interest for some of the time.
Just before privatisation, BR was split into infrastructure (Railtrack) and operations (BR sectors) which were then privatised/franchised.
There were a host of support functions which were also sold off (research, testing, maintenance, international etc).
The franchises were only a fraction of the totality of BR.

Most of BR was organised into Regions which were the successors of the Big 4 companies. They were pretty autonomous and did things they way they always had been done.
It took BR a long time to centralise the decision making into one network.
The business sectors (Intercity, NSE, Regional, and the freight sectors) started around 1980 but were initially only marketing teams, with services supplied by the Regions.
In 1993 the Regions were finally abolished and split between the Sectors, but that model didn't have a chance to prove its worth as it was overtaken by privatisation.

A good description of how all this evolved in the early years is in "The Train That Ran Away" by Stewart Joy, a former member of the BRB.
It's worth remembering that in its 180 year existence the railway was in public hands for just 50 years, while prior to that was in private hands for 100+ years.
I'd just say that the Beeching years marked the point when BR lost control of its finances, and since then has always been closely managed by the Treasury.

 

[Billy A]

To go off topic a bit ... and if any members are from the Irish Republic and can add to/correct this please do so.

I was talking to an IE driver late last year and he told me about the situation there. A major part of the problem is that the Irish Government introduced a scheme similar to our senior citizen card but applied it to the railways as well. What's more they set it up in such a way that IE got no income at all from the use of the card (ours gives 20p - not much but it helps in several ways). Issue of the card doesn't seem to have been well controlled and a very large number of people not hold one.

Because of the lack of revenue IE decided not to record the use of a card - with the consequence now that many rural services are jam-packed but since the majority of passengers are card holders they are recorded as being little used.

Interesting illustration of the law of unintended consequences.

There are bound to be a lot of free travel cards around because everyone 66 or over living in the state is entitled to one. One consequence of that is that Expressway long distance bus services are very often patronised by those on the free travel who take a trip for the sake of something to do. Same applies to rail - commuter services excepted many rail services are of little interest to somebody who has to pay to travel as even if you're travelling alone it's often quicker and cheaper to drive.

 

[DT611]

To go off topic a bit ... and if any members are from the Irish Republic and can add to/correct this please do so.

I was talking to an IE driver late last year and he told me about the situation there. A major part of the problem is that the Irish Government introduced a scheme similar to our senior citizen card but applied it to the railways as well. What's more they set it up in such a way that IE got no income at all from the use of the card (ours gives 20p - not much but it helps in several ways). Issue of the card doesn't seem to have been well controlled and a very large number of people not hold one.

Because of the lack of revenue IE decided not to record the use of a card - with the consequence now that many rural services are jam-packed but since the majority of passengers are card holders they are recorded as being little used.

Interesting illustration of the law of unintended consequences.

Ireland has a free travel scheme for disabled, pensioners and i think wellfare dependants are entitled to avail of it as well. It allows free travel on busses and trains and i think the local ferry operations are also part of the scheme. The companies do get money from the government to offset the revenue loss but it doesn't actually cover the cost of the scheme and the revenue lost. While the fact the companies aren't paid in full is an issue, it is made out to be a greater issue then it actually is . The more major issue is that the service offered by the railway is a lot less in terms of onboard quality then it could be, and the fact the service is generally underfunded. IE don't help themselves either in terms of trying to encourage usage and promotion is an issue.
realistically if the free travel scheme was abolished tomorrow then we would see wide scale service cuts. Revenue protection is also an issue generally, with no onboard staff on most trains. The odd traveling ticket checker will turn up from time to time but they aren't consistent in my experience, as a regular user. The revenue protection unit will do spot checks inside the dublin area but again they aren't consistent. So i'm not surprised usership is barely recorded. A lot of things need to change if the railway here is to survive.
I hope i was able to explain your questions.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Listening to Jeremy Corbyn's interview with Andrew Marr yesterday, I thought we got a nugget of what awaits for rail if/when Labour gets re-elected.
He distanced himself from the party clamour to stay in the EU Single Market, because it could "prevent state aid to sectors like rail and steel".
So unlike many in his party he prefers jumping off a cliff on Brexit, because he would have a free hand to follow his renationalisation policy.
I think this is the gist of the RMT position on Brexit too.

It's probably true that the EU promotes the demise or splitting of monopolistic state-owned utilities like rail, though DB, SNCF and the rest seem to find ways of staying publicly-owned (though facing competition).
But I think WTO rules, where we would end up with a hard Brexit, also have anti-monopoly rules which are very similar to the EU's, hence the difficulties with steel on a world-wide basis.
But he really seems determined to push through a programme of public ownership of major utilities, and would favour a hard Brexit to achieve it.
It's not a prospect I look forward too, personally (either hard Brexit or greater public ownership).

 

[Olaf]

I know that but do you really think vulmerable to relection commuter belt mps are not going to rebel on the issue of rail nationalisation when their constituents demand it. The majority of the population afterall supports rail nationalisation

The poll on which that assertion is based was highly questionable.

The crux of the matter is that we can not afford wholesale nationalisation; we can not afford the NHS in its current form or state pensions for that matter and we are rapidly approaching the crunch point on those topics.

 

[Olaf]

Listening to Jeremy Corbyn's interview with Andrew Marr yesterday, I thought we got a nugget of what awaits for rail if/when Labour gets re-elected.
He distanced himself from the party clamour to stay in the EU Single Market, because it could "prevent state aid to sectors like rail and steel".
So unlike many in his party he prefers jumping off a cliff on Brexit, because he would have a free hand to follow his renationalisation policy.
I think this is the gist of the RMT position on Brexit too.

It's probably true that the EU promotes the demise or splitting of monopolistic state-owned utilities like rail, though DB, SNCF and the rest seem to find ways of staying publicly-owned (though facing competition).
But I think WTO rules, where we would end up with a hard Brexit, also have anti-monopoly rules which are very similar to the EU's, hence the difficulties with steel on a world-wide basis.
But he really seems determined to push through a programme of public ownership of major utilities, and would favour a hard Brexit to achieve it.
It's not a prospect I look forward too, personally (either hard Brexit or greater public ownership).

Corbyn is the Pied-Piper; he makes promises that he and his acolytes have no inkling of how their proposals will be paid for - not that that bothers them, they only want to obtain power so that they can impose their authoritarian state on the UK.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm not sure that the 'powers that be' had much inkling of how to pay for the 2008 financial crisis, yet we still ended up coughing up for it. All in the name of our glorious free market panacea.

The free market brigade promise the world and deliver nothing but sell-offs and meaningless waffle.

 

[HH]

As has been mentioned before on these boards, there is absolutely no point in looking back at BR if one wishes to know what re-nationalisation would look like. Whatever the new entity looked like, it wouldn't be BR. Politicians and their civil service lapdogs have a far bigger say on what happens on the railways these days.

I can't see that the nationalisation plans include the building of rolling stock, rather just the operation of trains, with the network already being nationalised. As such, I would expect to see very little change in the short term. In the longer term my worry would be that we would see the paralysis of indecision that we have with DfT & NR spread to the TOCs. The TOCs are a long way from perfect, but at least they can make a decision.

 

[HH]

The free market brigade promise the world and deliver nothing but sell-offs and meaningless waffle.

And the nationalisation brigade? Dogma is always the enemy of clear thinking, whichever side of the fence it sits.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The news about Bombardier and the C-Series being hit by heavy US tariffs for "illegal state support" should indicate that Brexit will not permit the free hand on protectionism that Mr Corbyn wants.
Not that we sell much railway equipment to the US...

 

[Railsigns]

The crux of the matter is that we can not afford wholesale nationalisation

Oh, so we "can't afford" nationalisation, but we can afford to maintain a privatisation model that requires billions of pounds more in subsidies than its publicly owned predecessor while simultaneously generating billions of pounds of public debt?

Talk sense.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Oh, so we "can't afford" nationalisation, but we can afford to maintain a privatisation model that requires billions of pounds more in subsidies than its publicly owned predecessor while simultaneously generating billions of pounds of public debt?
Talk sense.

You can't just turn the clock back 20 years - too much has changed.
In particular, most of the costs sit with Network Rail which is already in public hands.
The TOCs and their profits are small change in the wider picture.
Unless you nationalise the whole supply chain (rolling stock, suppliers, contractors etc) you will not get the integration necessary to bring costs down.
And that is simply not going to happen.
No government is going to allow a single body to run the railway at arm's length from the DfT, and told to "break even, taking one year with the next".

 

[yorksrob]

And the nationalisation brigade? Dogma is always the enemy of clear thinking, whichever side of the fence it sits.

True - I'm inclined towards a mixed economy myself, but that is far from what we have today. The flogging off of the 192 directory enquiries was probably the epitomy of dogmatic self-defeating sell-offs, given that we went from having one, simple number that everyone knew, to several long ones charging what they like.

 

[Railsigns]

You can't just turn the clock back 20 years - too much has changed.

I'm not proposing to turn any clocks back. I want a modern affordable publicly owned railway. So do most people in Britain.

In particular, most of the costs sit with Network Rail which is already in public hands.

Some of those costs constitute indirect subsidies to the TOCs.

The TOCs and their profits are small change in the wider picture.

A stock response from apologists for privatisation, to divert attention away from the inherent inefficiency of the fragmented privatisation model.

Unless you nationalise the whole supply chain (rolling stock, suppliers, contractors etc) you will not get the integration necessary to bring costs down.
And that is simply not going to happen.

Not true. The rail industry has always used private sector suppliers and contractors.

No government is going to allow a single body to run the railway at arm's length from the DfT, and told to "break even, taking one year with the next".

They have done in the past.

 

[mikey9]

We were descending almost to a 5-day railway in many places.

I am intrigued as to where didn't have a decent (and similar to M-F service on Saturdays. Yes Sunday services (like now) were much diminished but having spend most Saturdays over quite a few years between the late 70s and early 90s travelling on extensive services across the network - I suspect this is another of those comments that gets conflated from one service to be applied as if it was all.

Where was this service?

 

[Clip]

True - I'm inclined towards a mixed economy myself, but that is far from what we have today. The flogging off of the 192 directory enquiries was probably the epitomy of dogmatic self-defeating sell-offs, given that we went from having one, simple number that everyone knew, to several long ones charging what they like.

And if anyone uses them in this day and age then theres something wrong with them given the information on the internet

 

[HH]

True - I'm inclined towards a mixed economy myself, but that is far from what we have today. The flogging off of the 192 directory enquiries was probably the epitomy of dogmatic self-defeating sell-offs, given that we went from having one, simple number that everyone knew, to several long ones charging what they like.

I see that as good business in most respects, given that what future is there in such services in the long term?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I am intrigued as to where didn't have a decent (and similar to M-F service on Saturdays. Yes Sunday services (like now) were much diminished but having spend most Saturdays over quite a few years between the late 70s and early 90s travelling on extensive services across the network - I suspect this is another of those comments that gets conflated from one service to be applied as if it was all.
Where was this service?

Talking about my perception in the north-west/Wales really, particularly outside the PTE areas.
On Saturdays, trains started later and finished earlier (with extended engineering work on Sat nights).
Trains normally of minimum length, no attempt to strengthen, even in summer.
Fewer through trains (either split or connect en route).
Out and back journeys which were possible on weekdays couldn't be done on Saturdays.
The trend was also downwards (as BR implemented the last round of imposed cuts, and were sending old stock off to scrap).

You can still see the effects of this in some franchise agreements, with TOCs (and NR particularly) being reluctant to go to a 7-day railway.
Some railway staff contracts also hinder 7-day operation.

Maybe I did overstate the 5-day thing, but it is typical in the USA/Canada and we were heading in that direction.