Why is there now an obsession with re-nationalisation?

[quantinghome]

There's a paradox in the way the railways are structured at present. There is simultaneously too much and too little government control.

We have a situation where the DfT, removed from the sharp end of the industry, (in)effectively micro-manages the rail network. It shouldn't be doing that; it should be setting the high-level strategy and then getting out of the way.

Meanwhile, responsibility for running the railway falls to a myriad different organisations. The railway needs to be an integrated entity, with funding and investment decisions devolved. As the government (national or regional) will always have to fund the railway, it ultimately carries the risk and the ownership should reflect that. The actual services could be contracted out much like TfL rail or London buses, but there needs to be a single guiding entity that is responsible and accountable.

 

[Ianno87]

good bits.... like the trains actually ran? I'm sure those trying to get to work on TL at the moment would prefer a situation where they were spoken rudely to but manage to get to work on time rather than the current situation where they are politely told the system is in meltdown and the TOC is using a calendar rather than a timetable!

-Not wishing to trivialise/excuse the TL issues for a second, but BR was running the network to nowhere near the level of intensity and complexity of use it sees today
-I recall the days of all day, national strikes on BR too

 

[matt_world2004]

Why do people want the railways to be re-nationalised? Because most people don't know or are in denial at just how bad B.R. often was. (Mostly) rude and indifferent staff, (mostly) grotty stations, (mostly) clapped out rolling stock. Sure, there were good bits, but they were far outweighed by the bad bits.

Sounds like now

 

[thenorthern]

Looking back during the Blair years one reason I suppose that Re-nationalisation never came up was because Labour MPs/Voters/Members knew it wasn't going to happen under Blair so there was no point in discussing it. Ironically though Blair and the Labour party pledged to bring the railways back into public ownership if they ever did win power which never happened.

Under Ed Milliband there were some calls for it particularly around the time of the Virgin Trains franchise fiasco but by the time of the 2015 election Labour made it clear a full scale re-nationalisation wasn't going to happen if they won power. After Corbyn came in its been one of his main pledges.

I watched that too – dreadful episode – bringing Oakshot onto the programme and not asking her about being at the centre of one of the biggest stories of the week was shameful.

At least some people trust the Conservatives more than someone from the "Tabloids" or something along those lines according to a member of the audience.

 

[billio]

The problem is that after a generation of privatisation, the evidence doesn't all lie on one side.

The railway is carrying more passengers than ever before, so privatisation has been a huge success.

The railway is costing the government far more than ever before, so privatisation has been a calamity.

You pays your money, and you takes your choice....

Actually the recent statistics show rail travel is falling with a particularly marked fall in season ticket based commuting. This aspect of the fall might be due to strikes, the ever rising cost of season tickets and a poorer service. Whether nationalisation can address these issues is not clear.

 

[Robertj21a]

Any suggestion for re-nationalisation suggests to me that we are simply going through the usual 'boredom' phase. We get bored of governments, so want a change. We get bored of the EU, so want a change. We get bored of rail problems and want a change. I can only guess that most of the interest in re-nationalisation of the railways must be coming from people who were too young to understand how dire and inefficient BR was.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Any suggestion for re-nationalisation suggests to me that we are simply going through the usual 'boredom' phase. We get bored of governments, so want a change. We get bored of the EU, so want a change. We get bored of rail problems and want a change. I can only guess that most of the interest in re-nationalisation of the railways must be coming from people who were too young to understand how dire and inefficient BR was.

or those who can see how dire and over-priced the railways are now?

 

[FQTV]

While I was watching Question Time last night the Labour MP John Mann was going on about bringing the railways back into public ownership and last week Alan Johnson on BBC This Week was going on about the same thing which is odd because I don't recall them pushing for it when their party was in power for 13 years.

It made me wonder though why is there an obsession with it at the moment? I know part of it is down to Jeremy Corbyn but even now Labour MPs to the right of the party are calling for the railways to be brought back into public ownership. This is a stark contrast from 10/15 years ago when it was mostly only people like Bob Crowe calling for re-nationalisation.

I think part of it is also down to the fact that many millennials who are calling for re-nationalisation don't remember the days of British Rail and how British Rail wasn't as amazing as they think it was.

Interactions with private companies by consumers are thought to be driven by discretion and choice based on desire, inclination, availability, pricing, quality, frequency etc.

Interactions with private rail companies are, for at least a very significant proportion of its customer base, driven by necessity and for the most part there is little or no choice, and the non-choice also suffers from a lack of capacity and/or availability.

In the latter circumstances, the consumer feels disempowered; they cannot 'vote with their wallet' as they would in most other business to consumer relationships, and spend their money elsewhere.

Conversely, when the provider of a monopoly/necessity service is nationalised, the consumer feels that they understand more clearly the accountability and responsibility structure, and they can 'vote with their ballot.'

Arguably and unusually, a very significant proportion of those who feel disempowered by the prevailing situation are, so legend has it, traditional supporters of the political flavour that first visited this situation upon them.

Nationalisation of the railways is therefore a more generally, and perhaps electorally, popular notion than it might otherwise be.

In my opinion.

 

[The_Engineer]

Any suggestion for re-nationalisation suggests to me that we are simply going through the usual 'boredom' phase. We get bored of governments, so want a change. We get bored of the EU, so want a change. We get bored of rail problems and want a change. I can only guess that most of the interest in re-nationalisation of the railways must be coming from people who were too young to understand how dire and inefficient BR was.

Unfortunately, like many thing in life, we go through cycle of change often having forgotten lessons from the past. Railways are not exempt from this effect....

 

[Furryanimal]

Striking would be different, in that they would impact the whole country/region rather than just one franchise. Making it more effective at making a point but upsetting more people. Which would likely result in a lot less public support.

This is precisely why I don't want the railways renationalised.I do think that here in Wales Arriva should not have been allowed to only offer Anytime tickets on routes where they have a monopoly or be allowed to extend the morning peak and introduce an afternoon one between 4 and 6.30 where off peak tickets are available(Newport to Cardiff for instance).But better that than regular service disruptions caused by national strikes over disputes in the south east and north.

 

[Ianno87]

or those who can see how dire and over-priced the railways are now?

The result of 10+ years government policy to push more of the cost of railways onto the farepayer, not of privatisation in itself.

And define "dire". Not in terms of number of trains timetabled on the network, I'd argue.

 

[yorksrob]

It's clear on social media that the Corbyn Labour supporters and Momentum groupies are all in favour. They've never known what BR was like. They're likely all too young.

It's probably why you now have so many far right groups getting support and older people seeing similarities to the rise of Hitler. Nobody would think it possible for history to repeat itself, but it can when people haven't experienced something and believe what they want to believe.

I don't have fond memories of BR from my travels in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Of course new technology would have come to the railway regardless, but I'm certain each Government (especially Tory) would have reduced funding to the bare minimum.

What an amusing, if somewhat hysterical ramble.

 

[yorksrob]

Any suggestion for re-nationalisation suggests to me that we are simply going through the usual 'boredom' phase. We get bored of governments, so want a change. We get bored of the EU, so want a change. We get bored of rail problems and want a change. I can only guess that most of the interest in re-nationalisation of the railways must be coming from people who were too young to understand how dire and inefficient BR was.

I´ve learnt from history not to trust the agenda of anyone who describes BR as "inefficient".

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

The result of 10+ years government policy to push more of the cost of railways onto the farepayer, not of privatisation in itself.

And define "dire". Not in terms of number of trains timetabled on the network, I'd argue.

lmao... well if you wish to have the measure as number of trains timetabled.... let's introduce a timetable on the Bedford- Brighton Thameslink of 1 train every minute... then we will have the best rail service ever.... of course the fact that over 90% would be cancelled would be immaterial.... it'd still be the best service ever wouldn't it?

 

[route:oxford]

It made me wonder though why is there an obsession with it at the moment? I know part of it is down to Jeremy Corbyn but even now Labour MPs to the right of the party are calling for the railways to be brought back into public ownership.

Why the Railways though?

Mobile phones are used by almost every person in the country. Surely the communications infrastructure is far more important to the country?

 

[EM2]

Interactions with private rail companies are, for at least a very significant proportion of its customer base, driven by necessity and for the most part there is little or no choice, and the non-choice also suffers from a lack of capacity and/or availability.

In the latter circumstances, the consumer feels disempowered; they cannot 'vote with their wallet' as they would in most other business to consumer relationships, and spend their money elsewhere.

Why is it a non-choice? What compels someone to use a train, rather than (for example) learn to drive and buy a car, learn to ride and buy a motorbike, use a coach service, club together with others and privately hire a minibus or coach, not elect to work in a career where they feel that they have to commute, not elect to move much further from where they work?
I have a very good friend who is in a very, very well-paid job. He travels to work by coach, it takes him about two hours each way door-to-door. He gets a guaranteed seat, free WiFi, a table to work at, free hot drinks and it costs him per week what a day return would on the train.
As he put it to me, 'To be honest, **** your trains'.

 

[The_Engineer]

I have a very good friend who is in a very, very well-paid job. He travels to work by coach, it takes him about two hours each way door-to-door. He gets a guaranteed seat, free WiFi, a table to work at, free hot drinks and it costs him per week what a day return would on the train.
As he put it to me, 'To be honest, **** your trains'.

And, to be honest, it's hard to argue against that.....

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Why is it a non-choice? What compels someone to use a train, rather than (for example) learn to drive and buy a car, learn to ride and buy a motorbike, use a coach service, club together with others and privately hire a minibus or coach, not elect to work in a career where they feel that they have to commute, not elect to move much further from where they work?
I have a very good friend who is in a very, very well-paid job. He travels to work by coach, it takes him about two hours each way door-to-door. He gets a guaranteed seat, free WiFi, a table to work at, free hot drinks and it costs him per week what a day return would on the train.
As he put it to me, 'To be honest, **** your trains'.

Your friend is lucky. Not many people have that kind of choice - or for example when I was commuting to school, I either had the choice of taking the train, or biking 30 odd miles each way!

 

[mike57]

Maybe the problem with privatisation isn't that its privatised, but the way that its privatised, at the moment there is too much scope for buck passing, splitting infrastructure from the running of the trains, too many operators, meddling from the DfT, its a recipe for a shambles.

Bearing in mind large parts of the network are subsidised taxpayers see there money being distributed to shareholders of the TOC's and don't like it.

Having been born in 1957 and been using trains all my life I have lived through quite a few changes of direction, and the current system is messy and not delivering value for money. Nationalisation is seen as a simple way of getting back to a co-ordinated system. The reality may be different but thats what people see, I lived through the 3 day week, strikes etc during the 70's and Nationalisation wasnt working then, and probably would land us back in the same place now.

If complete routes/areas were sold off, track, stations, trains with perhaps 5 or 6 companies covering the whole of the UK, and agreed service levels and agreements on things like inter-regional services in return for taxpayer subsidies then things might work better. Also build in safegaurds to ensure that open access operators can remain. The DfT should then be limited to providing support for non profitable services and perhaps financing major infrastructure improvements, with no involvement in rolling stock or other micromanaging, the companies running the trains are responsible everything. Also and this may be seen as protectionist, but a limit of 40% foreign ownership of companies running the railways. And its not a franchise, if they run it into the ground then its their asset they devaluing. If they go bust no bailout, just take back the infrastructure, run it like the east coast route and leave the shareholders with worthless shares.

Just my twopennorth...

 

[sbt]

to be fair, I used to commute short distance on TL when the railways were still nationalised, and have since used railways once privatised... and can honestly say I have only once ever suffered a train cancellation... and I'd say, at a rough guess, approx 90% of the trains I have been on have been no more than 5 minutes late... maybe I have a guardian angel when travelling?

You have indeed been lucky. This is not my experience.

 

[sbt]

Your friend is lucky. Not many people have that kind of choice - or for example when I was commuting to school, I either had the choice of taking the train, or biking 30 odd miles each way!

My choice is take the train or give up my career. I live where I am and don't drive for (different) health reasons and because I couldn't aford to live near work. I work where I do because the MOD decided that that is where I will work and if I don't like it I can leave the only place that employs my specilisation.

 

[tbtc]

The government daren't challenge Stagecoach? I think you should read a bit about the history of Stagecoach.... it hasn't had a very happy of history with the MMC during periods of Tory rule!

Yes - the Government daren't challenge Stagecoach. The international transport group can't be bullied - though the Government can (and has) ride roughshod over millions of public sector workers.

The fact that the Government did stand up to Stagecoach when they were a significantly smaller UK bus operator twenty/thirty years ago is immaterial - the Government are too scared to pick a fight with a (lawyered-up) multinational megabucks organisation like Stagecoach.

Put it this way - BR didn't have to commit to ten year plans for services (i.e. anything comparable to a modern TOC), so they were able to rob Peter to pay Paul, they were able to cut services back, there was no "benchmark" level of service, they could (and did!) reduce services. At the moment, passengers have the certainty of knowing the improvements guaranteed over the next decade or so, because the Government aren't going to tell Stagecoach there's no more money left to subsidise unprofitable services n rural Lincolnshire etc.

At least some people trust the Conservatives more than someone from the "Tabloids" or something along those lines according to a member of the audience.

My favourite bit was the bloke who said "we're not stupid; we're Welsh"

Any suggestion for re-nationalisation suggests to me that we are simply going through the usual 'boredom' phase. We get bored of governments, so want a change. We get bored of the EU, so want a change. We get bored of rail problems and want a change. I can only guess that most of the interest in re-nationalisation of the railways must be coming from people who were too young to understand how dire and inefficient BR was.

Good points.

I think that, for Corbynites, rail nationalisation is a handy touchstone for something that sounds anti-capitalist - its a nice middle class way of taking on "the man" without being too scary - its a simplistic issue that can easily be twisted to look more appealing than the status quo - and, like Brexit, you can paint a thousand different flavours of "alternative" to make the status quo look poor in comparison (e.g. are you going to nationalise the M&S Simply Food at the station? nationalise the Rail Replacment Buses?).

Simple answers for people who want bitesized "solutions" that you can condense into a tweet.

 

[EM2]

Your friend is lucky. Not many people have that kind of choice - or for example when I was commuting to school, I either had the choice of taking the train, or biking 30 odd miles each way!

My choice is take the train or give up my career.

Which are both good reasons as to why you take a train. But many of the hordes that flow into the cities every day have plenty of other choices.

 

[Ianno87]

lmao... well if you wish to have the measure as number of trains timetabled.... let's introduce a timetable on the Bedford- Brighton Thameslink of 1 train every minute... then we will have the best rail service ever.... of course the fact that over 90% would be cancelled would be immaterial.... it'd still be the best service ever wouldn't it?

Sorry, I don't understand your point? There are only 2 trains per hour scheduled between Bedford and Brighton, not sixty.

Far, far more to the rail network than Thameslink...

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Sorry, I don't understand your point? There are only 2 trains per hour scheduled between Bedford and Brighton, not sixty.

Far, far more to the rail network than Thameslink...

my point being that you measure "success" by the number of trains timetabled... you can timetable as many trains as you wish... that doesn't make a successful railway. My point was that by your measure a timetable of 60 trains/hr is a success.... but if only 1 or 2 of those timetabled trains actually run then surely that would be a dire disastrous service?

 

[Essan]

I always assumed the main benefit of nationalisation was that we could have a complete countrywide rail strike every week, instead of ones just affecting a small part of the network

 

[Matt P]

First post, so I thought I'd step in to a hot topic!

The debate in this country seems to essentially be a binary one between nationalisation and privatisation, as if no other options existing.

Many on the Left (on other more political forums I have been on) generally bring up the nationalised rail systems of Europe as they way forward. However whilst it is true that many European countries maintain national operators, it is not universally true that European countries maintain national monopolies. Deutsche Bahn is legally a private company as is Netherlands Spoorwegen, albeit with the respective governments holding 100% of the shares, as opposed to them being state corporations. DB is by far an away the largest rail operator in Germany, but it has no automatic right to run regional services, which are tendered by state governments or transport authorities owned by local governments. The regional division of the Polish national operators was separated out and handed over the provincial governments. Sweden's regional network is entirely franchised and its long distance network is entirely open access. Italy has Europes only open access high speed operator.

Private rail operators are common in most European countries, wither by securing tenders or open access. The big difference is the generally more pragmatic approach taken than the one taken in the UK. State owned operators remain in existence rather than being abolished as in the UK. However increasingly their monopoly positions are being ended/challenged. Where franchising occurs, the tendering authority has the option of awarding the contract to a state owned or private company. All of this could have happened in the UK. The 1992 Conservative Manifesto said nothing about the outright abolition of BR, rather it committed to the ending of BR's monopoly. That commitment could have been kept without smashing BR into 1000's of pieces.

Network Southeast and Regional Railways could have been required to procure services (i.e. tender) from third parties rather than in-house, whilst keeping a corporate brand and a degree of central/strategic planning. In an era of devolution, the two sectors could have been handed over to groupings of local authorities, allowing different areas to experiment with different types and lengths of contracts. Intercity could have been sold off entirely, or kept as a government owned Limited company and open access operators allowed to compete with it. The same with freight. BR could have set up a subsidiary to manage infrastructure - or at least key strategic infrastructure, with regional routes handed over to the devolved NSE and RR. BE could also have established a subsidiary to bid for RR and NSE tenders, competing with private companies for them. Rolling stock could have been owned by the sectors, any private open access operators as well as leading companies, allowing operators to own a core fleet and lease additional stock if appropriate.

We currently have a government committed to an entirely privately delivered system and an opposition to a nationalised one. Both for political reasons rather than on the grounds that one model is superior. In reality some parts of BR performed well, but there are examples of good franchised operators as well. The more pragmatic option would be to try to put together a 21st century version of what I outlined above - a kind of halfway house between the both that allows different parts of the country to try out new ideas.

 

[Ianno87]

my point being that you measure "success" by the number of trains timetabled... you can timetable as many trains as you wish... that doesn't make a successful railway. My point was that by your measure a timetable of 60 trains/hr is a success.... but if only 1 or 2 of those timetabled trains actually run then surely that would be a dire disastrous service?

Please tell me where on the network where the number of trains timetabled is so significantly in excess of what the network infrastructure can handle.

Point is, the privatised era railway is squeezing a quart out of a pint pot in the way BR never had to.

 

[Teflon Lettuce]

Please tell me where on the network where the number of trains timetabled is so significantly in excess of what the network infrastructure can handle.

Point is, the privatised era railway is squeezing a quart out of a pint pot in the way BR never had to.

I never said it was... but my point being that number of trains timetabled is not a valid measure of success which is what you implied in your original post

 

[Robertj21a]

I´ve learnt from history not to trust the agenda of anyone who describes BR as "inefficient".

Clearly you saw a different BR to the one I saw.