Renationalisation of the railways?

[Peter]

There seems to be a lot of people who would like to see the railways renationalised, lets have a vote.

 

[Ascot]

Yes, no stupid fares and the left hand will what the right hands doing. Then again, no rail tours.

 

[Kris]

I voted yes - although without privatisation I wouldn't have got my driver's job and the pay has more than doubled.

On the minus side - under B.R. we always had staff and spare stock. Remember relief trains? The TCS (supervisor) would say - 4 car in the bay - run it up behind the Fast - same stops. No excessive track charges from Notwork Rile - because we owned the tracks.

Probably had a few more breakdowns but never had the speed restrictions we have now and track falling apart.

 

[Tom C]

Whilst what you are saying makes very good sense I would like to put a counter arguement in for some of your points...............

Passenger KM growth:

1. UK

This is very true however the growth of passenger numbers has been taken advantage of by the private companys who have increased fares by a huge margin and they have made the system very difficult to understand. Travelling by train on the day has become hugely expensive and unless your company is going to pay for it, it has become almost prohibitive which strangles the growth. Under BR Saver tickets were reasonably priced and if we returned to this kind of system with the same BR special priced advance tickets like APEX and Super Advance then I would put money on growth going up even further and at a higher rate. Whilst it is unlikely that returning to BR would make a difference now the damage has been done, you have to ask whether we would have got to this point had BR still been in existance.

The other factor of growth is people working further away and the cost of driving going up and up, particularly if you work in London. For instance if you live in St Albans and work in London then you left with two options. Take the train or drive. If you want to drive you are left with the prospect of a long and unpleasent journey littered with traffic, high parking charges, the congestion charge and the high costs associated with running a car. If you take the train then you get from point to point. However, again the private companys have taken note of this and have put prices of season tickets up by a huge margin compared to BR but it is still better value than the car. With just two options and with more people moving further out of London and more people commuting it leaves people with no choice other than to take the train, whether they like it or not. So whilst the passenger growth looks very impressive, many people just don't have any other choice.

BR achieved a simular level of growth in the 1980's only to fall back in the 1990's with problems with the economy. The current level of growth in the railway industry is on par with the levels from the 1950's which was of course under BR. As the economy is pretty stable and the last major growth was under BR you could argue that people would now be spending more money at the ticket office under BR because people have more money on the hip, only the fares would have far easier to understand and the cost of travelling on the day would be far less.

Freight growth Ton KM

1. UK

Once again, quite correct. However the Freight sector has have a simular story to the passenger sector. With roads becoming more and more congested, many companies have few other options than to use the rail network. Whilst this is a good thing, can you really say that the Freight sector has grown by such a margin because of privatisation or simply because its only real viable option for companies and that really the growth in this sector would have come under BR anyway?

Its customer service left a lot to be desired (remember the jokes about sandwiches?).

BR passengers service could be pretty woeful, however it is only in the past 5 years that passengers have expected more than just a train. I personally don't think there are many TOC's which offer a golden level of customer service, in some cases the service they provide is woeful. If we had been under BR the policy of customer service may have been reviewed as times changed and today we could have had a system that we could be proud of, trouble is we will now never know so its harsh to say that TOC's provide a better level of service compared to BR as expectations from the rail industry has changed so much. Also long distance rail now has a far bigger threat from the airline industry which has slashed its prices for domestic flights and rail has had to change its image to try and compete with the airlines which is why you see rail staff dressed like cabin crew, posh nosh instead of asbestos pie and modern shops instead of the traditional buffet.

Under privatisation the costs of track renewal were quadrupled and the companies involved were filling each others pockets with huge, unjustifiable sums of money which was coming out of tax payers money. Now of course its going back in house with Network Rail as it should be.

Would renationalising the railway be prohibitively expensive? Well no, not as much as you would believe. Network Rail are effectively in the public sector, if you took the contracts back in house then the savings would be enormous in the long term. Train operating companys operate franchises which could simply be awarded to British Rail, the SRA, Network Rail or whatever you want to call them. As for rolling stock, well the government would have enormous power if the system was one and the ROSCO's would have little business unless it lowered the leasing charges. If the ROSCO's had noone to stripe up then they would be quite eager to get rid of the stuff they already have so you simply buy back the stock, the banks roll around in the money they have already made and you would save billions in needless leasing costs.

Its unlikely that this country will ever turn back the hands of what, in my eyes at least, was a complete sham but I genuinely think that in the long term a return to nationalisation is a real and perhaps only right option for the future.

 

[Peter]

I originally intended for the poll to have loads of permutations because I consider the curren situation to be a halfway house compramise that dosn't work, what was the idea behind the monopoly track and franchaised tocs, rather than just rather than selling each individual railway as a whole entity to return the system to the way it was before government meddling?

 

[Tom C]

paying off the TOCs

Why do you need to pay off the TOC's? Its not a matter of taking over everything next Tuesday at 16:00 so simply award the franchises to BR. Thank to the bus companies for doing such a great job and get on with the job, nothing to pay out.

don’t think the ROSCOs would take kindly to the government manipulating the market, I certainly can’t see them reducing costs, possibly raising them.

The ROSCO's have made an enormous amount of money out of the government already with the quite laughable leasing scheme. If the whole system is operated by one company then the ROSCO's have a slight problem. They have loads of trains, no competition and no way of doing what banks do i.e take anyone for as much as you can so I personally this gives the government the advantage to make a deal with the ROSCO's to buy back the stock which then will save the tax payer an enormous amount of money.

Funny you should mention airlines: In actually fact airline competition is nothing new, and has been around since the 1930s. They have gone to other way, with ‘pile em on’ policies and fares. Ryan air and Easy Jet have been voted the worst airlines on numerous occasions, so the incentive is actually to go no frills and lower prices. But are they really a threat? Well no, not really. The average train journey is in fact 40 miles. And the railways have constantly clawed back market share under the 3 hour threshold. VLM has just reduced its service, equal to just 100 seats per day between Liverpool and London. BA connect has just effectively gone bust, and had to be given away to Flybe for £138 million – yes BA paid them to take it as domestic routes were constantly loss making. Airlines can never maintain point-to-point frequencies over set routes as rail, as they do not call at intermediate points and therefore market penetration is limited. The only real competition is on London-Scotland routes, and even in BR days they had the upper hand over London-Edinburgh..but that doesn’t mean trains are empty because they call at intermediate points.

Never said it wasn't a threat in the past however in my living memory I cannot remember a time when the plane was seen as a real alternative to taking the train within the UK unless your name was Loadsa Money. If Richard Branson would go onto National television and say that the domestic flights in the UK were a threat to railways then Im afraid he gets the nod over statistics

That said credit where credit is due. Take the Chiltern line; under BR it was generally a run down single track line, under threat of closure. Today it is an intensive high speed service with impressive growth figures that have benefited the economies en-route.

Well no, I won't give them full credit. Yes Chiltern Railways have been an undoubted success story of Privatisation with no frills, cheap seats and all the bells and whistles. That said who actually started the rejuvination of the Chiltern main line? It wasn't Chiltern Railways but Network Southeast who redecorated every station in its administration, purchased new class 165 Turbo's which saw off the 1st gens, lowered fares to attract people to the line and it was BR who started the resignalling project. Whilst the service to Birmingham is very welcomed and whilst they have an excellent reputation they simply didn't take over a closure threatned, derelict line as you mention.

 

[Mojo]

Well no, I won't give them full credit. Yes Chiltern Railways have been an undoubted success story of Privatisation with no frills, cheap seats and all the bells and whistles.

When compared to my current 'local' TOC, Chiltern Railways are miles better than FGW, but I used to live in Aylesbury, and was a regular traveller on Chiltern Railways, and found the situation very different.

The Aylesbury branch was classed as 'second rate' to the Birmingham line, trains were often cancelled or shortened to send the stock onto the other line. Trains were only announced at the last minute at Marylebone causing a rush down the platform to get on the train, resulting in a late departure and confrontations between staff and customers.

Fares are also higher than journeys of similar distances on other TOCs. When I fancied a "change of scenery," I went to Tring or Cheddington to get Silverlink, I can't remember the distance, but for a group of us going to London returning the same day, it made sense to drive there. In addition, c2c are cheaper going into London (are they the cheapest NSE TOC?), though I'm not sure if mileages compare.

All over the route, by their own admission, ticket office staff were poorly trained, not able to issue tickets such as All-line rovers, and I've had trouble getting 'PlusBus' at Birmingham Moor Street in the past.

However, their investment - additional platforms at London Marylebone, signalling to improve capacity and the like is certaintly a success. But could the public sector, given adequate funding do the same, at a lesser cost?

 

[Tom C]

The Aylesbury branch was classed as 'second rate' to the Birmingham line, trains were often cancelled or shortened to send the stock onto the other line. Trains were only announced at the last minute at Marylebone causing a rush down the platform to get on the train, resulting in a late departure and confrontations between staff and customers.

The Aylesbury branch is still very much the poor relation and before the bubble came back, Monks Risborough and Little Kimble had the most appauling service with the excuse being the train was needed to run a service out of Marylebone.

The Birmingham service is very much welcomed however the rest of the line suffered as a result, in particular the Aylesbury branch, the London area suburban stations and the Monks Risborough branch which as I am sure you can guess is everything other than Birmingham.

 

[WessexWarrior]

There's a lot of very well articulated thoughts here, but I can't see the point of renationalising the railways.

Things would still be expensive regardless, because simply put, things in this country are just expensive. Also, the government would be at a loss to invest the huge amount of money that the privately-owned ROSCO's are putting in in order to get the contracts.

 

[Tom C]

Things would still be expensive regardless, because simply put, things in this country are just expensive. Also, the government would be at a loss to invest the huge amount of money that the privately-owned ROSCO's are putting in in order to get the contracts.

The TOC's have encouraged advance purchase to make train travel seem ridiculously cheap however they have tipped the balance by putting more and more restrictions on regulated fares like Savers and are putting the prices up by enormous amounts.

BR also had advance purchase which was very reasonable but crutially the Saver fares were reasonable as well which ment that even if you didn't have the opportunity to get a APEX or Super Advance ticket it wouldn't be expensive to simply turn up and buy a ticket on the day. Network Southeast also bought in tickets like AwayBreak and Stayaway which offered period any train returns at bargain prices but the TOC's have all but done away with Awaybreak and changed Stayaway to the Saver with prices going up.

If the government didn't have to pay the insane leasing costs to the ROSCO's then the money that would be saved could be piled into new trains to replace trains like the Pacer which are still infesting the railways and are costing us inordinate amounts of money.

 

[Mojo]

Private investment is a false sense of economy. It's just Short-term thinking.
In the Long-term you'll have spent more money than it would have cost to do a project outright in the first place.

 

[darrel]

taking the franchises back would be cheap to do just dont renew them when they expire.
taking back the roscos would be very expensive especially when the were sold off at such low prices