But would renationalisation be a bad thing?
BR has 1.5 billion in subsidy and in some ways was the most efficient railway in the world. Bear in mind some of the current rail franchises are run by state owned railways, i.e netherlands, france and germany. So is state owned such a bad thing after all? The current privately run (not owned) franchises need 4bn in subsidy and there are 25 firms creaming off a 3% profit margin per franchise. But the private railways cannot adapt or change the service as the franchises are very prescriptive. Look at the oft quoted government line regarding trains "its up to the operator" yet whenever the operator wants more trains they have to go to the government to ask, and they say no!
Take another angle, the "big 6" energy firms. Each one of those 6 firms are claiming a £300million profit, EACH. Yet they complain its not enough and they want more. Now 6 lots of 300million adds up to 2 Billion pounds. Profits. If energy was nationalised thats 2 billion that could be going to the treasury. Instead its going to shareholders. So they can have more caviar and champagne breakfasts in their non-dom dormitory villas and pay no tax....
What we will see is a massive decline in service as the franchises end as the private companies seek to claw as much profit as possible and spend little to no money in running the firms they will soon lose control of, and with absolutely no incentive otherwise to keep running them.
Privatisation has taught the railway a lot of things when it comes to running the service and how to look after the passengers, but with the right subsidy level and the right people in charge, BR could have done as good a job for a lot less, and would have been far more reactive in providing the railway service especially with provision of rolling stock etc. The public want a 24/7 railway. BR did provide this as mail and newspaper trains often ran with a passenger carriage or two attached. Drivers and guards had wide route and traction knowledge which meant flexibility in what they were able to work. Disruption therefore was far better handled as trains were still able to keep moving and the issues of traincrew timing out or not being able to work a route was mitigated (it still happened but far less were situations caused when staff of one firm were sitting idle while another firm was cancelling trains due to no train crew)
Still think renationalisation is a bad thing?
BR had its faults, but it did a good job with what it was given, but there is no doubt it could have done things better. However government owned does generally mean wasteful overprocurement and excessive spends. Excessive time talking and not much doing which leads to cost over runs, poor planning and cuts and cancellations which inevitably cost more money (A1 Leeming bar being a classic. Cut after contracts were let, only for contracts to be re-let just 2 years later meaning all the planning applications etc had to be resubmitted) and this also had to be one of BR's biggest faults.
