Speculation: what could replace the rail franchising system?

I am still very cynical about TfN being divide and rule.
Claim to be trying to devolve power and then lump together the northern city regions so they inevitably argue and achieve little.
Just devolve to the city regions and treat TPE as DfT specced Intercity (in consultation with city regions). Anything needing to go end to end between city regions where the parties can’t agree to merge their commuter routes gets allocated by DfT to TPE or other Intercity franchise.

64% eh? 64% of Independent readers are the British public? perhaps you ought to reset your calculator slightly, as barely 64% of the British public can be bothered with General Elections or the Brexit vote I can hardly see them being concerned about rail nationalisation, unless somebody tells them enough lies about what they'll get for nothing of course

Click to expand...

64% of people polled by yougov.

ExRes said:

64% eh? 64% of Independent readers are the British public? perhaps you ought to reset your calculator slightly, as barely 64% of the British public can be bothered with General Elections or the Brexit vote I can hardly see them being concerned about rail nationalisation, unless somebody tells them enough lies about what they'll get for nothing of course

Click to expand...

It was REPORTED in the Independent not carried out by them. Yes I do know how polls work actually
, quite similar to referendums really (and yes arguably it might be referenda)

Meerkat said:

I am still very cynical about TfN being divide and rule.
Claim to be trying to devolve power and then lump together the northern city regions so they inevitably argue and achieve little.
Just devolve to the city regions and treat TPE as DfT specced Intercity (in consultation with city regions). Anything needing to go end to end between city regions where the parties can’t agree to merge their commuter routes gets allocated by DfT to TPE or other Intercity franchise.

Click to expand...

I think that's a reasonable way of doing it. Certainly I think devolving local services to control of local authorities would be more beneficial than having them remain in full control of central government and giving regions a say in InterCity services would hopefully enable a compromise to be found between all parties involved.

Regional transit authorities could be the way forward. There are loads in the US, some even cross state lines.

You could, say, have a North West Rail Authority with Merseytravel, TfGM and county/unitary authorities. This would have input into the service specs for the North West locals, perhaps with a specific brand like Network North West. Board voting would be weighted to the size of the network within each member's area. The costs would be divvied up in the same way.

Gareth said:

Regional transit authorities could be the way forward. There are loads in the US, some even cross state lines.

You could, say, have a North West Rail Authority with Merseytravel, TfGM and county/unitary authorities. This would have input into the service specs for the North West locals, perhaps with a specific brand like Network North West. Board voting would be weighted to the size of the network within each member's area. The costs would be divvied up in the same way.

Click to expand...

But then who runs TPE? It used to be RRNE but that was fairly arbitrary.

TPE would be more of an InterCity-type venture. In my model it'd probably be a joint run thing between the relevent BR regions, probably with the TPE name remaining.

markydh said:

64% of people polled by yougov.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that, like most polls though they really don't mean much without the number of people actually polled

ExRes said:

Thanks for that, like most polls though they really don't mean much without the number of people actually polled

Click to expand...

Not really, as the polling is- generally- spread well across most demographics, so it is representative.

Anecdote =/= data, but I don't know many people who think what we have now is working or that the bosses deserve their money for old rope.

People would, of course, also complain if the railway was nationalised.

And it's not a solution to all the ills- look at LNER, they kept VTEC's management team despute their long track record of failure, so LNER remains a car wreck. But at least we're not paying these failing managers to take a cut of the takings.

ExRes said:

Thanks for that, like most polls though they really don't mean much without the number of people actually polled

Click to expand...

Well this one dated Jan 2019 by yougov polled 3, 975, which I would consider way more than sufficient to be valid. Would you like me to find academic references to support this?

Would you support or oppose the railways being re-nationalised?

Strongly support29%

Somewhat support27%

Somewhat oppose8%

Strongly oppose7%

Don’t know29%

Nationalisation is unquestionably popular amongst voters, even many Tories apparently, if anything 64percent seems on the low side.

The

ExRes said:

Now you really are confusing me, first of all you say Independent 2018 64% now you're quoting Jan 2019 56%, obviously support for nationalisation must be falling

Click to expand...

I am not sure whether you are simply being awkward or you just don't get it.

There are multiple recent polls out there carried out scientifically by reputable companies that shows public opinion about rail nationalisation. I have quoted two.

You can clearly argue that the Great British public don't know what they are talking about but what cannot be asserted is that rail nationalisation is the view exclusively of a small political group.

Djgr said:

The


I am not sure whether you are simply being awkward or you just don't get it.

There are multiple recent polls out there carried out scientifically by reputable companies that shows public opinion about rail nationalisation. I have quoted two.

You can clearly argue that the Great British public don't know what they are talking about but what cannot be asserted is that rail nationalisation is the view exclusively of a small political group.

Click to expand...

I fail to see why I'm being either awkward or 'not getting it', as of December 2017 this country had an eligible voting population of 46,148,000 which has, undoubtedly, risen since then, the polling companies have repeatedly shown their inability to predict correct results, yougov themselves showed a clear lead for Remain in the last days before and on the day of the Brexit poll, if you choose to believe that three or four thousand yougov volunteers represent the 'Great British public' and give 'scientific' results showing true public opinion then that is your choice, I for one have no confidence in any results from polling companies and, as I have just as much right to my opinion as you have to yours, I don't expect to have people attempting to insult me for not agreeing with them

Djgr said:

Except this is not a minority political view. The last poll that I saw (Independent, 2018) showed 64% of the British public in favour of rail nationalisation, which is ,accordingly to my calculator, a much higher percentage than BoJo, his circus and his plans command.

Click to expand...

I'm sure that's roughly correct in terms of opinion poll responses, but I'd caution against choosing how to run the railways based on that: Most of the public know basically nothing about the railways and are not even remotely in a position to know what the best structure for the industry might look like.

I'd also be very surprised if that meant 64% of the public have turned into socialists as far as the railway is concerned. I would imagine it's more of a case of, 'We think our trains are being run badly. Let's do something to change it'. And since nationalisation is the only something has been proposed by many politicians, people will say 'yes' to that when asked in a poll. If the railways were nationalised but didn't massively improve after nationalisation (which is what I'd expect because most of the railway's problems are not caused by the fact that the trains are run by private companies), then I'd expect much of that support for nationalisation to quickly disappear.

ExRes said:

I fail to see why I'm being either awkward or 'not getting it', as of December 2017 this country had an eligible voting population of 46,148,000 which has, undoubtedly, risen since then, the polling companies have repeatedly shown their inability to predict correct results, yougov themselves showed a clear lead for Remain in the last days before and on the day of the Brexit poll

Click to expand...

The clear lead predicted for Remain by the polls at the time of the referendum wasn't 64%. As I recall, the polls were showing something like between 50 and 54% remain, 46 to 50% for leave (depending which poll you looked at). In terms of voting intentions, the polls actually got very close to the actual result. The problem was that the result was so close that only the smallest of errors was needed to flip the prediction. On those occasions when polls have mis-predicted the results of general elections, it's been pretty much the same thing: The polls correctly predicted voting intentions to within a few percent, but the result was so close that that few percent was enough to completely change the outcome.

In the case of the railways, if the polls are showing 64% for nationalisation, then it may well be they are a bit wrong and support for nationalisation is actually only 60%. But for support for nationalisation to be below 50%, the polls would have to be wrong by a huge margin. And experience shows that polls just aren't normally wrong by that big an amount. So I'd be very confident that most people, when asked, do support nationalisation.

But, as I indicated in my other post, that is really not a good reason for nationalising the railways. How you run the railways needs to be informed by research, understanding of the railways, and the opinions of industry experts, rather than the views of non-expert voters many of whom don't even use the railways.

DynamicSpirit said:

How you run the railways needs to be informed by research, understanding of the railways, and the opinions of industry experts

Click to expand...

The issue is that many industry experts have a vested interest in keeping things in a certain way. There aren't many independent experts. Those who do well out of franchising want to keep franchising, those who think they'd do better with concessions want those, and the likes of Virgin and Stagecoach want no restrictions or obligations at all placed on them but loads placed on everyone else.

It's the same with HS2. The experts demanding it will, by and large, stand to profit from it.

DynamicSpirit said:

I'm sure that's roughly correct in terms of opinion poll responses, but I'd caution against choosing how to run the railways based on that: Most of the public know basically nothing about the railways and are not even remotely in a position to know what the best structure for the industry might look like.

I'd also be very surprised if that meant 64% of the public have turned into socialists as far as the railway is concerned. I would imagine it's more of a case of, 'We think our trains are being run badly. Let's do something to change it'. And since nationalisation is the only something has been proposed by many politicians, people will say 'yes' to that when asked in a poll. If the railways were nationalised but didn't massively improve after nationalisation (which is what I'd expect because most of the railway's problems are not caused by the fact that the trains are run by private companies), then I'd expect much of that support for nationalisation to quickly disappear.

Click to expand...

I don't think that you need to be a socialist to believe in rail nationalisation. To me it seems absolutely obvious that a country should maintain control and ownership over its essential assets.

I just cannot understand those that DONT want to nationalise the railways.
For example, at Plymouth there are 2 operators, GWR and XC. That means a huge duplicity in drivers, TMs, on board staff, backroom staff, management etc . Now imagine if we were all run by one body, a decent number of staff could be done away with ( through natural wastage I hope! ) . Savings to the taxpayer would be enormous when this is replicated around the UK, the staff bill would be absolutely slashed. Not to mention other efficiencies in standardised liveries and rolling stock etc.
From a money point of view, nationalisation makes complete sense .

Djgr said:

I don't think that you need to be a socialist to believe in rail nationalisation. To me it seems absolutely obvious that a country should maintain control and ownership over its essential assets.

Click to expand...

It already has full ownership and control (except freight and rolling stock, and odd bits like the Heathrow branch).
The issue is how it is managed and delivered, not ownership.
Even BR was 4 different operators at the end (IC, NSE, Regional and Freight) and there has been devolution since (Scotland, Wales, Merseyrail/TfL concessions) with more to come, plus HS1/2 which are not part of the "BR" system.
A single integrated BR is not possible any more.

irish_rail said:

I just cannot understand those that DONT want to nationalise the railways.
For example, at Plymouth there are 2 operators, GWR and XC. That means a huge duplicity in drivers, TMs, on board staff, backroom staff, management etc . Now imagine if we were all run by one body, a decent number of staff could be done away with ( through natural wastage I hope! ) . Savings to the taxpayer would be enormous when this is replicated around the UK, the staff bill would be absolutely slashed. Not to mention other efficiencies in standardised liveries and rolling stock etc.
From a money point of view, nationalisation makes complete sense .

Click to expand...

1. Even if everything you said was true, what you've given is an argument for merging TOCs. It says nothing about whether the resultant merged TOC would be better nationalised or run as a private company.
2. Granted, I'm not a railway expert, but I cannot see how merging companies would reduce the numbers of drivers and on-board staff you'd need. I'm pretty sure you'd need precisely one driver for each train that you run, no matter how many different companies run the trains. Maybe you'd need fewer managers, but I'd expect the savings you'd get from that would be an insignificantly small proportion of overall operating costs. And having just one company and so one (larger) team of managers would probably mean you lose some ability to innovate, to try new ideas.
3. How does having a standardised livery make any significant difference? You still need to paint just as many trains. You probably get a tiny, insignificant, cost saving on designing liveries, but no more, surely?
4. Try applying your argument to supermarkets. Why have Sainsburys AND Tescos AND ASDA AND Morrisons? Surely you'd save a huge amount of money if you merged them all into one supermarket chain, and then needed only one set of management etc. Maybe thinking that through would give some clues as to the flaws in the 'only have one company to avoid duplication' argument

Oh, and I think you mean, duplication, not duplicity!

irish_rail said:

I just cannot understand those that DONT want to nationalise the railways.
For example, at Plymouth there are 2 operators, GWR and XC. That means a huge duplicity in drivers, TMs, on board staff, backroom staff, management etc . Now imagine if we were all run by one body, a decent number of staff could be done away with ( through natural wastage I hope! ) . Savings to the taxpayer would be enormous when this is replicated around the UK, the staff bill would be absolutely slashed. Not to mention other efficiencies in standardised liveries and rolling stock etc.
From a money point of view, nationalisation makes complete sense .

Click to expand...

But ‘nationalisation’ and ‘unification’ (or ‘standardisation’) are not the same thing. Even in BR’s day there were huge variations in staffing arrangements, traction policy, liveries and commercial strategies between different regions, PTE areas and sectors. The ‘devolution’ ship has sailed on much further over the past 25 years. Can anyone imagine Scotland, Wales, London and Merseyside, etc. giving back all the control either to a largely unaccountable ‘industry’ or to a single ministry in London?

DynamicSpirit said:

1. Even if everything you said was true, what you've given is an argument for merging TOCs. It says nothing about whether the resultant merged TOC would be better nationalised or run as a private company.
2. Granted, I'm not a railway expert, but I cannot see how merging companies would reduce the numbers of drivers and on-board staff you'd need. I'm pretty sure you'd need precisely one driver for each train that you run, no matter how many different companies run the trains. Maybe you'd need fewer managers, but I'd expect the savings you'd get from that would be an insignificantly small proportion of overall operating costs. And having just one company and so one (larger) team of managers would probably mean you lose some ability to innovate, to try new ideas.
3. How does having a standardised livery make any significant difference? You still need to paint just as many trains. You probably get a tiny, insignificant, cost saving on designing liveries, but no more, surely?
4. Try applying your argument to supermarkets. Why have Sainsburys AND Tescos AND ASDA AND Morrisons? Surely you'd save a huge amount of money if you merged them all into one supermarket chain, and then needed only one set of management etc. Maybe thinking that through would give some clues as to the flaws in the 'only have one company to avoid duplication' argument

Oh, and I think you mean, duplication, not duplicity!

Click to expand...

Ok it is not quite as simple as one driver for one train. There are calculations done for how many drivers are needed per depot per train and it's something ridiculous like 4 drivers for each driver diagram. This needs to take into account spares, sickness , leave etc. With one big pool of drivers, there is less need for this type of excessive redundancy. And that goes for all other railway staff as well. With each driver earning 60 odd k, multiplied around the UK you would be looking at significant savings, and that's just on drivers. One HR department. One customer service department etc etc. Ok they would need to be bigger, but far smaller than 20 odd duplicates as we have at present. Similarly, far far fewer managers would be needed across the ball.
And instead of 20 odd blokes drawing massive managing director salaries, there would just be one.
As far as I can see it, most advocates of privatisation love it because it has made the railway more diverse and interesting.

irish_rail said:

Ok it is not quite as simple as one driver for one train. There are calculations done for how many drivers are needed per depot per train and it's something ridiculous like 4 drivers for each driver diagram. This needs to take into account spares, sickness , leave etc. With one big pool of drivers, there is less need for this type of excessive redundancy. And that goes for all other railway staff as well. With each driver earning 60 odd k, multiplied around the UK you would be looking at significant savings, and that's just on drivers.

Click to expand...

Sure, the point really is that, if drivers are more flexible in which trains they can drive, you can get away with fewer spare staff to cover absences etc. I'm sure that's true to some extent, but I find it hard to believe it would make much of a dent in railway costs. A quick check reveals staff costs form 25% of rail costs. At best I'd guess you might save 5-10% of staff through these kinds of efficiencies. That's not a huge difference. And there are other problems. For example, to take your example, I'm guessing right now that XC drivers in the West Country are trained only to drive Voyagers - because those are the only units XC uses there. If you want them to be more flexible, you'll need to train them to drive IETs too. Plus whatever trains GWR uses there for local routes. And you'll still be restricted to which routes drivers sign. Those training costs will add up. By the time you've taken all that into account, your savings are going to be a pretty small % of the railway's costs. And to gain those savings, you've potentially sacrificed any efficiencies that might come from competition, and from smaller companies being able to innovate more (although I'd concede it would be very hard to quantify those efficiencies, and they also may well be small).

irish_rail said:

One HR department. One customer service department etc etc. Ok they would need to be bigger, but far smaller than 20 odd duplicates as we have at present. Similarly, far far fewer managers would be needed across the ball.

Click to expand...

Again I think you're being over-optimistic. I would imagine the prime determinant of how many customer service staff you need is: How many customers do you have, and how often do those customers raise complaints etc. That number is not going to change just because you have fewer TOCs. Again, you may reduce the numbers of managers you need, but how significant will that be?

irish_rail said:

As far as I can see it, most advocates of privatisation love it because it has made the railway more diverse and interesting.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's true. My own view is based on a recognition that there are both benefits and dis-benefits of privatisation, combined with a sense that change works best when done gradually. We saw when the railways were privatised how damaging it is to suddenly inflict an enormous change to how an industry is structured, and I think there's a real risk that nationalisation would repeat that mistake. It's pretty clear that the current franchise model is no longer fit for purpose, and needs significant improvement, but I'm pretty sure that needs to come via gradual change, being guided by what is shown in practice to work and not to work. I'm also somewhat concerned that many of those politicians arguing for nationalisation are doing so for ideological reasons (they instinctively feel that public ownership is how society ought to be organised), rather than based on any pragmatic assessment of how best to run the railways (just as the Tories privatised the railways for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons 25 years ago).

irish_rail said:

Ok it is not quite as simple as one driver for one train. There are calculations done for how many drivers are needed per depot per train and it's something ridiculous like 4 drivers for each driver diagram. This needs to take into account spares, sickness , leave etc. With one big pool of drivers, there is less need for this type of excessive redundancy. And that goes for all other railway staff as well. With each driver earning 60 odd k, multiplied around the UK you would be looking at significant savings, and that's just on drivers. One HR department. One customer service department etc etc. Ok they would need to be bigger, but far smaller than 20 odd duplicates as we have at present. Similarly, far far fewer managers would be needed across the ball.
And instead of 20 odd blokes drawing massive managing director salaries, there would just be one.
As far as I can see it, most advocates of privatisation love it because it has made the railway more diverse and interesting.

Click to expand...

Noting the regular stories about how 'unitary' and 'publicly owned' bodies such as Network Rail, Transport for London, Crossrail and HS2 seem to employ more than one person each with a 'massive salary' do you have any real evidence to support your contention?

Also, from many threads over the years I have seen little evidence that there are regularly messsrooms ridiculously and excessively full of 'other TOCs'' drivers sitting twiddling their thumbs whilst some trains are cancelled. Almost every operator, it seems, has their staff rostered and diagrammed up to the hilt, with regular training backlogs, minimum turnarounds, need to work rest days, having to jump into taxis, fatigue issues, etc.

The ‘simpler’ structure would be adding extra top levels above the current ones wouldn’t it?
And take the money out of delay attribution and why bother reducing delays any more?

DynamicSpirit said:

Sure, the point really is that, if drivers are more flexible in which trains they can drive, you can get away with fewer spare staff to cover absences etc. I'm sure that's true to some extent, but I find it hard to believe it would make much of a dent in railway costs. A quick check reveals staff costs form 25% of rail costs. At best I'd guess you might save 5-10% of staff through these kinds of efficiencies. That's not a huge difference. And there are other problems. For example, to take your example, I'm guessing right now that XC drivers in the West Country are trained only to drive Voyagers - because those are the only units XC uses there. If you want them to be more flexible, you'll need to train them to drive IETs too. Plus whatever trains GWR uses there for local routes. And you'll still be restricted to which routes drivers sign. Those training costs will add up. By the time you've taken all that into account, your savings are going to be a pretty small % of the railway's costs. And to gain those savings, you've potentially sacrificed any efficiencies that might come from competition, and from smaller companies being able to innovate more (although I'd concede it would be very hard to quantify those efficiencies, and they also may well be small).



Again I think you're being over-optimistic. I would imagine the prime determinant of how many customer service staff you need is: How many customers do you have, and how often do those customers raise complaints etc. That number is not going to change just because you have fewer TOCs. Again, you may reduce the numbers of managers you need, but how significant will that be?



I'm not sure that's true. My own view is based on a recognition that there are both benefits and dis-benefits of privatisation, combined with a sense that change works best when done gradually. We saw when the railways were privatised how damaging it is to suddenly inflict an enormous change to how an industry is structured, and I think there's a real risk that nationalisation would repeat that mistake. It's pretty clear that the current franchise model is no longer fit for purpose, and needs significant improvement, but I'm pretty sure that needs to come via gradual change, being guided by what is shown in practice to work and not to work. I'm also somewhat concerned that many of those politicians arguing for nationalisation are doing so for ideological reasons (they instinctively feel that public ownership is how society ought to be organised), rather than based on any pragmatic assessment of how best to run the railways (just as the Tories privatised the railways for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons 25 years ago).

Click to expand...

I think the whole point is the 2 main benefits of privatisation as sold to us by proponents of it i.e the Tories were more innovation and more competition. I have to concede that there has been more innovation in some places as companies prepared for a massive increase in passenger numbers. However, on the vast majority of routes,there has been no competition between comparable services. For example,using the example that Irishrail brought up,between Exeter and Plymouth,there's GWR and XC. And are there lower fares or a better service because of competition?No,because they're set by the DfT and even in a totally unregulated market,there wouldn't be better service levels or prices because the typical passenger wants both good service and a low price,which any private company cannot draw profit from,so it's always going to be high prices and a good service (e.g GWR Reading to London Paddington) or low prices and a **** service(e.g Northern Sheffield to Manchester) if the railways are run by the private sector. That's why nationalisation would work economically long-term,because the state is such a big entity that it can borrow so much for a much longer term at a reasonable rate,more than any business can, to pay for stock,infrastructure improvements,perennial running costs like maintenance and staff and subsidised fares to attract passengers(the investment would have to be proportional to the size of the target market) Passengers will be attracted to the railways by the low fares and better service than other modes of transport and,with the government effectively being in charge of all modes of transport , they can make changes that disincentivise other more dangerous and polluting forms of transport like cars and buses (e.g through tolls on the vehicles themselves or on the roads they travel on),which incidentally also then generates some money for improvements for an ancillary network of subsidised integrated public transport services to provide even more incentive to push people away from other forms of transport. The end result is the government gets to pay off the loan used to increase service and lower fares by the increased passenger volumes and the passengers get a better service. In essence,the railways would be operating like a not-for-profit business with the loan being paid off using the overheads above staff costs. The Government would have to look for alternative forms of taxation than pulling money out of franchises to put in the general coffers because that's why franchising has failed. The railway should be run for the benefit of its passengers,not the Government's coffers.

AlastairFraser said:

The railway should be run for the benefit of its passengers,not the Government's coffers.

Click to expand...

Taxpayers would disagree.
In fact the government (all types) has a policy that passengers should fund 2/3 of the cost of the railway, the taxpayers 1/3.
The "RPI+x%" formula for annual fares increases is designed with that in mind.
No railway, publicly owned or not, can afford to ignore its revenue targets or cost base.
The franchise specifications and fares are controlled by government anyway, even under the current ownership setup.

AlastairFraser said:

However, on the vast majority of routes,there has been no competition between comparable services.

Click to expand...

In practice, the competition is between prospective TOCs at the franchise bidding stage, and their customer is the awarding authority.

AlastairFraser said:

That's why nationalisation would work economically long-term,because the state is such a big entity that it can borrow so much for a much longer term at a reasonable rate,more than any business can, to pay for stock,infrastructure improvements,perennial running costs like maintenance and staff and subsidised fares to attract passengers(the investment would have to be proportional to the size of the target market)

Click to expand...

I think the problem with that argument is that the low rates that the Government pays depends on the lenders having confidence that the Government isn't borrowing too much, and on the money being available to lend. If the Government starts borrowing more to pay for nationalised railway investment, then, sure, it may secure lower rates than a private company would. But the fact of that additional Government borrowing will tend to slightly push up the rates the Government pays - not just for railway borrowing, but for all Government borrowing. So stuff that the Government is doing that has nothing to do with the railways will cost more because of the Government borrowing for the railways. That's not to say we shouldn't borrow to invest - clearly we should if the investment has a good case. But the case for borrowing being cheaper if done by the Government rather than privately isn't so clear cut.

AlastairFraser said:

Passengers will be attracted to the railways by the low fares and better service than other modes of transport and,with the government effectively being in charge of all modes of transport , they can make changes that disincentivise other more dangerous and polluting forms of transport like cars and buses (e.g through tolls on the vehicles themselves or on the roads they travel on),which incidentally also then generates some money for improvements for an ancillary network of subsidised integrated public transport services to provide even more incentive to push people away from other forms of transport.

Click to expand...

You don't need to nationalise the railways for the Government to dis-incentivise other forms of transport. The Government could do that tomorrow if it was so inclined. The problem is that, under the Tories, the Government isn't inclined to do that.

DynamicSpirit said:

I think the problem with that argument is that the low rates that the Government pays depends on the lenders having confidence that the Government isn't borrowing too much, and on the money being available to lend. If the Government starts borrowing more to pay for nationalised railway investment, then, sure, it may secure lower rates than a private company would. But the fact of that additional Government borrowing will tend to slightly push up the rates the Government pays - not just for railway borrowing, but for all Government borrowing.

Click to expand...

With even struggling economies like Italy seeing extremely low 10 and 30 year bonds the govt borrowing directly for rolling stock, for example, won't make much of a dent if any. Particularly with the Bank of England underwriting.