Why are foreign nationalised railways seen in a better light than British Rail?

[Railsigns]

I never said it was.

I never said you said it was.

Erm, inflation?

Rail fares have consistently risen at a level higher than inflation.

The published data shows the subsidy per passenger (which is what really matters) was £4.30 per passenger journey in 1997 and was £2.10 by 2014 (inflation adjusted). Not sure where the 'three times as much' is coming from. Oh, wait. Inflation.

No, what really matters is overall government support to the railways, not this 'subsidy per passenger' nonsense. "Inflation" you say (again)?...

Annual subsidy to BR (at today's prices): £2 billion (and no borrowing)
Annual subsidy to the privatised railways: £6 billion (and £40 billion of public borrowing).

 

[najaB]

My main gripe (And feel free to correct me on anything that I get wrong) is the way we privatised.

Indeed. There was no requirement for it to be done the way it was - the only requirement was to have a logical separation between below the infrastructure and service operators.

 

[najaB]

Rail fares have consistently risen at a level higher than inflation.

Yes. Deliberately so in order to reduce the subsidy-per journey.

No, what really matters is overall government support to the railways, not this 'subsidy per passenger' nonsense.

The cost per unit is what matters. If the cost of the ingredients to make 100 cakes is £50 and the cost of ingredients to make 200 cakes is £75 which cake costs the most to make. Yes, I spend more to make 200 cakes, but I make more profit on each cake that I sell.

Annual subsidy to BR (at today's prices): £2 billion (and no borrowing)
Annual subsidy to the privatised railways: £6 billion (and £40 billion of public borrowing).

Do you really think that BR cost £2B a year to run and the railway costs £46B a year to run today?

 

[Railsigns]

3/4 of the population are in favor of re-nationalisation of the railways. Until it's explained what that actually means.

Are you going to explain to us all what it actually means?

It's clear that a section of the public opposes renationalisation because they foolishly believe that the privatised railways receive no subsidies from taxpayers. If a few truths about the privatised railways were explained to these people, the percentage in favour of renationalisation could actually rise.

 

[Agent_Squash]

I needn't worry about my views on the railways being labelled as dogma when they're shared by three quarters of the population. Those with opposing minority views, on the other hand...

Polls can only be so accurate. I certainly wasn’t asked about how I felt about nationalisation - you probably weren’t either.

That, and hardly anyone outside the railway has much awareness of the structure.

 

[Railsigns]

Yes. Deliberately so in order to reduce the subsidy-per journey.
The cost per unit is what matters. If the cost of the ingredients to make 100 cakes is £50 and the cost of ingredients to make 200 cakes is £75 which cake costs the most to make. Yes, I spend more to make 200 cakes, but I make more profit on each cake that I sell.

I addressed that point in another recent thread:

Okay, so let's suppose that someone comes up to you and says "I never travel by train but I'm a taxpayer and I'm not happy that taxpayer subsidies to the railways are three times higher now than under British Rail." If you then say to him "Ah, but subsidy per passenger journey is now lower than it was under British Rail", do you think his response will be "Well, when you put it like that, I'm absolutely fine with it and I hereby withdraw my complaint."?

Do you really think that BR cost £2B a year to run

Yes.

and the railway costs £46B a year to run today?

No, of course not. That amazing £40+ billion debt was accumulated over the course of the last twenty years. And it's still rising.

 

[Railsigns]

Polls can only be so accurate. I certainly wasn’t asked about how I felt about nationalisation - you probably weren’t either.

As I've said before:

A typical response to an opinion poll that's contrary to one's own viewpoint is to discredit all opinion polls and play down their usefulness. The fact that organisations keep funding these opinion polls must mean that they count for something.

Polls consistently show majority support for renationalising the railways.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Polls consistently show majority support for renationalising the railways.

Many opinion polls also suggested a majority Tory government in the last election by a significant margin.

You’ve also chosen to ignore my point regarding the general lack of knowledge about the railways. People will genuinely support any option that they feel will improve their situation without looking at the facts.

 

[Railsigns]

Many opinion polls also suggested a majority Tory government in the last election by a significant margin.

Cherry-picking opinion polls that help your argument.

You’ve also chosen to ignore my point regarding the general lack of knowledge about the railways.

On the contrary, I made specific reference to this in post #64.

 

[cuccir]

I've become fairly convinced that Lord Adonis, for all of his annoying ways, essentially has the best solution: DOR apply for all franchises. Private companies have to better their offer if they want to run it. We have a state run or at least owned railway which uses private enterprise where it makes sense. I'd also add a more flexible approach to Open Access on top of this.

Of course, another point often overlooked when comparing countries is differing urban geography. France has ~40 cities of over 100,00 spread across a sort of hexagon shape. The UK has ~70 such cities, roughly in a rectangle and roughly at twice the density. But the two countries have roughly the same number of cities in that 100,000-200,000 size group, so where we differ is in our greater number of larger cities (Manchester (2) is bigger than Paris; Liverpool (6) is bigger than Marseille (2); Leicester (13) is bigger than Lyon (3) etc...) The UK needs a ladder-like network, facilitating travel between middle sized cities (Southampton to Leeds or whatever), around dense agglomerations, as well as along mainlines. By contrast, France has focused on its TGV network to connect fewer and less densely spaced cities. These differences must shape how you can run a network.

 

[D60]

"Why are foreign nationalised railways seen in a better light than British Rail?"

Such a lot to unpack here..!

With reference to the state-owned British Rail... by the 70s and 80s it had become a national past-time amongst the popular press and media to comprehensively rubbish and denigrate BR... whereas I've seen it said that by the 70s and 80s, BR was actually one of, if nit the most, efficient railways in Europe in terms of traffic carried in return for subsidy/investment received... So a gap there between widespread perception, and reality...

So moving forward to now, and the nationalised/privatised aspect of the question, and to what degree are the UK's, and continental 'state' railways actually 'nationalised', or 'privatised'..?

As LNW/GW Joint and Bletchleyite have pointed towards, DB for example is said to be a 'private company 100% owned by the state' (NS also..? Any others..?)
In what way is that not an oxymoron, at least in terms of what most of us would perceive as state-owned vs private..?
And I gather SNCF has at least been 'sectorised'..? And parts of it's operations hived off or devolved in some way..?
And continental state railways are obliged to allow at least some degree of open access/competition in accordance with Single Market 'competition rules' and Railway Directives.. though I gather certain state operators or their national govts have been periodically fined by the EU Commission for failing to adequately comply with the requirement for their state railways to be 'opened up to competition'...

Bringing us back to the UK and our 'privatised' railway... Well, what is the status of Network Rail now? What was it ever? A private company fully underwritten and guaranteed by the state..? Well, following a relaxation of EU rules over govt debt levels (see 'convergence criteria'), NR's debts of around £36bn were taken fully onto the Treasury's books on 1 Sept 2014, leading some observers to suggest that our railway infrastructure was effectively renationalised on that date...
And of course we have quite a few state-owned operators running much of our 'privatised' railway, it's just that they're owned by continental states... So much for ideology-driven 'privatisation'...

So, is it all the fault of 'the Tories'..?
Well, 'the requirement' (as alluded to by najaB).. the Single Market requirement.. is for infrastructure to be separated from operations.. And for state railways to be 'opened up to competition'...
So no requirement for BR to be broken up into 126 separate businesses/profit centres... And nothing about the actual ownership model, public vs private...

But what of 'the requirement' in the first place..? Can we blame 'the Tories' for that..?
Well.. it's a requirement of the EU Single Market, the product of the Single European Act of 1986 as signed up to and fully endorsed by M.Thatcher, a piece of Thatcherite free market ideology imposed across a continent... so yep.. possibly...

And what of India..? Well hopefully they are free to run their railways however they want in their own national interest..

 

[Failed Unit]

From the political point of view didnt Labour have the chance to renegotiate/ reissue every single franchise during their time in government? The fact they didn’t says a lot.

I don’t think any of our 3 main political parties are clean when it comes to the state of the railways. A lot happened between 1997 and 2010 some good - some bad. (The reorganisation of CT lost a lot of good through journeys such as Lincoln & Loughborough- Birmingham). Can’t please everyone but didn’t John Prescott say he would renationalise?

 

[Railsigns]

From the political point of view didnt Labour have the chance to renegotiate/ reissue every single franchise during their time in government? The fact they didn’t says a lot.

What it says is that Tony Blair's policies were closer to those of Thatcher than traditional Labour values. That unfortunate period in the Labour Party's history is now firmly in the past.

 

[Failed Unit]

What it says is that Tony Blair's policies were closer to those of Thatcher than traditional Labour values. That unfortunate period in the Labour Party's history is now firmly in the past.

Maybe - but it was still a Labour government. Voted for by the same people that are firmly putting the blame on all things bad on the Tories. The RMT took action and stopped supporting them. The party faithful could have done the same, so they can’t have felt that strongly about the policy at the time. As I said all parties are accountable for the state of or railways today.

If I look at my life - the best improvements I have seen in the railways were during Thatchers time. IC125 introduced in my area and the sprinters. Decent service levels and year on year improvements to quality. Major’s government for the worse cuts in history to prepare us for privatisation and giving us central trains (rock bottom). Blair’s made a bad situation worse. The lastest mob have done nothing either way... so a mixed bad of good and bad whichever party is in charge.

 

[43096]

What it says is that Tony Blair's policies were closer to those of Thatcher than traditional Labour values. That unfortunate period in the Labour Party's history is now firmly in the past.

The unfortunate period when Labour won three successive elections....

 

[yorksrob]

i think the general consensus is that its not value for money here and it should be cheaper. If it was made cheaper there wouldnt be any improvements, but at least you wont being ripped off for a poor service.

I personally would freeze peak ticket prices for a number of years, raise some off peak fares but also freeze projects that are not capacity-specific. Make good with what we have got.

In my experience, it's the off-peak fares which require more regulation as TOC's seem to be able to hike these prices with impunity.

And too often 'making good with what we've got' is just an excuse for procrastination.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In my experience, it's the off-peak fares which require more regulation as TOC's seem to be able to hike these prices with impunity.

Off peak walk up fares are (on long distance operators[1]) regulated. It's the Anytimes that have gone through the roof.

[1] Not on regional/commuter operators, but this makes some sense, as with huge amounts of spare off peak capacity those TOCs aren't hiking those fares as they want "bums on seats".

 

[al78]

As I've said before:



Polls consistently show majority support for renationalising the railways.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've become fairly convinced that Lord Adonis, for all of his annoying ways, essentially has the best solution: DOR apply for all franchises. Private companies have to better their offer if they want to run it. We have a state run or at least owned railway which uses private enterprise where it makes sense.

This is sort of how it is in Germany for regional services.

 

[Failed Unit]

Off peak walk up fares are (on long distance operators[1]) regulated. It's the Anytimes that have gone through the roof.

[1] Not on regional/commuter operators, but this makes some sense, as with huge amounts of spare off peak capacity those TOCs aren't hiking those fares as they want "bums on seats".

The other thing that has hit customers hard is the change in peak restrictions times. AKA northern. But “Simplification” hiked a lot of prices as off peak boundary’s get increased.

 

[Raul_Duke]

View attachment 42718

A poll voted ‘Mrs Browns Boys,’ as the best sitcom of all time. At the risk of invoking Godwin’s law, a famous German chancellor did well in the polls. People can’t be trusted.

 

[yorksrob]

Off peak walk up fares are (on long distance operators[1]) regulated. It's the Anytimes that have gone through the roof.

[1] Not on regional/commuter operators, but this makes some sense, as with huge amounts of spare off peak capacity those TOCs aren't hiking those fares as they want "bums on seats".

Certainly up here, off peak fares have been hit quite heavily - my Huddersfield to Wakefield single has just gone up from somewhere around £3.60 to £4, which must amount to around 10% in one go.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Cherry-picking opinion polls that help your argument.



On the contrary, I made specific reference to this in post #64.

Your statement was that opinion polls are accurate. I’ve provided an example that goes against your point and you accuse me of cherry picking.

The railway today is very much fragmented and could do with making better efforts to promote itself and how it works. You speak to most Virgin WC customers and ask them if they’d prefer BR...

 

[Railsigns]

View attachment 42718

You're saying my position would be strengthened by having a majority of people taking an opposing view? No, I think I can safely file that under "ballcocks" (or something similar).

 

[Railsigns]

Your statement was that opinion polls are accurate.

I said no such thing.

 

[Failed Unit]

Your statement was that opinion polls are accurate. I’ve provided an example that goes against your point and you accuse me of cherry picking.

The railway today is very much fragmented and could do with making better efforts to promote itself and how it works. You speak to most Virgin WC customers and ask them if they’d prefer BR...

Opinion polls also depends on the way the question is asked.

A couple of example.
“Would you object to getting complementary refreshments with your 1st class ticket?” Got the answer east coast wanted for the current catering offer on ECML. However if they had asked “Are you satisfied with the current offer?” They may not have got the answer they wanted.

VTEC have asked various question about the proposed new interiors for Azuma. No option for neither and no questions about how important comfort is etc.

Finally the GTR Thameslink timetables consultation. Options of strongly for - strongly against with no-opinion. Result a lot of controversial changes were implemented because no-option was the top option. Had they had “I am not impacted by this proposal” this would have won and then discarded these answers. However they needed to manipulate the opinion poll to get the answer the wanted.

I have little trust in opinion polls for that reason. Get irritated when GTR quote the consultation poll when it was designed in a way to get the outcome they wanted. It wasnt really a view of the users just a good box ticking exercise.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The other thing that has hit customers hard is the change in peak restrictions times. AKA northern. But “Simplification” hiked a lot of prices as off peak boundary’s get increased.

While that may seem like an act of the "grasping private companies", it was invented by BR and encouraged over the years by the DfT.
Some call it "pricing people off the trains", others call it "maximising revenue", both of which are true.
It's also a way of spreading peak loadings and putting off the need to acquire more stock/paths/infrastructure.
The "cliff edge" of fares at Euston is as much a product of government policy as it is of Virgin's swinging peak fares.
Nationalisation wouldn't change that particular dilemma.

 

[Failed Unit]

While that may seem like an act of the "grasping private companies", it was invented by BR and encouraged over the years by the DfT.
Some call it "pricing people off the trains", others call it "maximising revenue", both of which are true.
It's also a way of spreading peak loadings and putting off the need to acquire more stock/paths/infrastructure.
The "cliff edge" of fares at Euston is as much a product of government policy as it is of Virgin's swinging peak fares.
Nationalisation wouldn't change that particular dilemma.

Agree BR used to do it. Thameslink for example would have had demand dampened rather than move to a 12 coach railway. However it does actually cause another peak.

We can all think of seriously overcrowded trains before / after peak tickets kick in and extremely quiet ones when they do.

 

[furnessvale]

Not at all, because two and half times more passengers (no thanks to privatisation, by the way) means two and a half times more revenue (actually more, since the fares are much higher since privatisation), so there ought not to be a need for three times as much public subsidies or tens of billions of pounds of public borrowing. Plus, the privatised rail freight companies are haemorrhaging business.

I don't know where you get that idea from. Perhaps your view is clouded by the recent loss of coal which was caused by a very sudden political decision to remove coal from the mix of power generation. Other than that, freight is doing well.

If you want to study loss of freight traffic I suggest that you look at BR in the years preceding privatisation.

In the late 1960s, BR had an edict that if a private siding didn't see 500 wagons annually it had to go. I attended a site meeting where such a siding was attached to a goods yard and saw just under 500 wagons pa, more than any one of the BR goods yard sidings.

The owner was told, "your siding has to close". He said, "close this one and you can close my other siding" (in another city). This siding saw 5000 wagons pa. After checking back we were told the siding had to close, that is the rule. Not only did that siding close, the 5000 wagons pa siding closed AND not long after, the goods yard closed due to the loss of its busiest traffic.

THAT is dogma and haemorrhaging of traffic!

 

[yorksrob]

I don't know where you get that idea from. Perhaps your view is clouded by the recent loss of coal which was caused by a very sudden political decision to remove coal from the mix of power generation. Other than that, freight is doing well.

If you want to study loss of freight traffic I suggest that you look at BR in the years preceding privatisation.

In the late 1960s, BR had an edict that if a private siding didn't see 500 wagons annually it had to go. I attended a site meeting where such a siding was attached to a goods yard and saw just under 500 wagons pa, more than any one of the BR goods yard sidings.

The owner was told, "your siding has to close". He said, "close this one and you can close my other siding" (in another city). This siding saw 5000 wagons pa. After checking back we were told the siding had to close, that is the rule. Not only did that siding close, the 5000 wagons pa siding closed AND not long after, the goods yard closed due to the loss of its busiest traffic.

THAT is dogma and haemorrhaging of traffic!

It's interesting to see an example of Beeching era dogma around reducing track mileage at any cost, damaging the freight business as well as passenger services (I know Beeching had gone by that time, but his management techniques and ideologies would have lingered on afterwards).

I wonder if, as with the passenger service, sectorisation had brought about an improvement in management during the 1980's.