England's Railways - Mucking them up again

[Aber]

What benefits are you thinking of?

 

[The Don]

What benefits are you thinking of?

Given British Rail's previous ability to operate a faster service for a lower (in real terms) cost for the customer AND a lower cost (in real and absolute terms) to the taxpayer in subsidy, IMO it's likely that a similar situation would arise under public ownership.

At least some "padding" in current timetables will be due to the various Train Operating Companies trying to avoid penalties and the rail company being likewise conservative. It is possible we could see journey times reverting to pre-privatisation duration.

British Rail used to have an excellent engineering function which developed many of the power units and rolling stock still in use on the nation's railways. That expertise was also successfully exported. With the break up of the railways that centralised engineering function was no longer required which has meant that at best the UK is now just assembling trains to foreign designs and at worst actually just buying them in. A return to nationalisation could see a return to the need for an engineering function which could then develop the kinds power cars, multiple units and rolling stock the UK needs and if there is commonality, this will further bring down costs.

Having a single monolithic organisation in charge of the railways is a risk but back before privatisation there was pretty decent inter-working between the various functions. That has been lost and there's reportedly (from acquaintances in the industry - used to share an office building with Railtrack back in the day) much more of a silo mentality.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Given British Rail's previous ability to operate a faster service for a lower (in real terms) cost for the customer AND a lower cost (in real and absolute terms) to the taxpayer in subsidy, IMO it's likely that a similar situation would arise under public ownership.

At least some "padding" in current timetables will be due to the various Train Operating Companies trying to avoid penalties and the rail company being likewise conservative. It is possible we could see journey times reverting to pre-privatisation duration.

British Rail used to have an excellent engineering function which developed many of the power units and rolling stock still in use on the nation's railways. That expertise was also successfully exported. With the break up of the railways that centralised engineering function was no longer required which has meant that at best the UK is now just assembling trains to foreign designs and at worst actually just buying them in. A return to nationalisation could see a return to the need for an engineering function which could then develop the kinds power cars, multiple units and rolling stock the UK needs and if there is commonality, this will further bring down costs.

Having a single monolithic organisation in charge of the railways is a risk but back before privatisation there was pretty decent inter-working between the various functions. That has been lost and there's reportedly (from acquaintances in the industry - used to share an office building with Railtrack back in the day) much more of a silo mentality.

Isn't Network Rail still the central engineering function for the whole railway system? I doubt manufacturing of trains is going to expand in any great way that's all going low-cost to India and China I would imagine.

 

[newyorkguy]

...Having a single monolithic organisation in charge of the railways is a risk but back before privatisation there was pretty decent inter-working between the various functions. That has been lost and there's reportedly (from acquaintances in the industry - used to share an office building with Railtrack back in the day) much more of a silo mentality.

I am a bit of a rail buff and I heard about an example of the problem referred to. This was a derailment, not a super serious one but with a lot of property and equipment damage, that was caused by a track defect. It had been reported by several train drivers. They reported it to their supervisor. Their supervisor then reported it to his manager. His manager then put the report in the system to notify the company that is responsible for track maintenance. Once that company received the report it was filtered down to the person responsible for the stretch of track in question. It took a day or two, however, for the report to get to that person and the derailment took place before they could do an inspection.

One of the old timers said, in the British Rail days, the drivers' supervisor would have picked up the phone, called his counterpart in track maintenance and told him, "That track at such-and-such is getting kind of rough, you better have someone check it." The track supervisor would have then called the foreman in charge of the track and told him, "Can you check the track at such-and-such, the lads are complaining it's rough." From the initial report from the driver to someone out on the railway physically checking the track would have been a few hours. In the case cited, that would have probably avoided the derailment.

The point they made was, this was not a 'one-of' example, that similar incidents were happening system-wide.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I am a bit of a rail buff and I heard about an example of the problem referred to. This was a derailment, not a super serious one but with a lot of property and equipment damage, that was caused by a track defect. It had been reported by several train drivers. They reported it to their supervisor. Their supervisor then reported it to his manager. His manager then put the report in the system to notify the company that is responsible for track maintenance. Once that company received the report it was filtered down to the person responsible for the stretch of track in question. It took a day or two, however, for the report to get to that person and the derailment took place before they could do an inspection.

One of the old timers said, in the British Rail days, the drivers' supervisor would have picked up the phone, called his counterpart in track maintenance and told him, "That track at such-and-such is getting kind of rough, you better have someone check it." The track supervisor would have then called the foreman in charge of the track and told him, "Can you check the track at such-and-such, the lads are complaining it's rough." From the initial report from the driver to someone out on the railway physically checking the track would have been a few hours. In the case cited, that would have probably avoided the derailment.

The point they made was, this was not a 'one-of' example, that similar incidents were happening system-wide.

I'm not sure these kind of 'just so stories' are helpful. Nobody knows what would have happened.

Research suggests that the railways are safer under privatisation than previously. Again hard to say definitively though

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/6607991.stm

 

[The Don]

Isn't Network Rail still the central engineering function for the whole railway system?

AFAIK, yes for things that don't move. I was thinking more about things that move.

I doubt manufacturing of trains is going to expand in any great way that's all going low-cost to India and China I would imagine.

At the moment we're getting our trains from Italy, Japan, France and so on so it's not going to India and China at the moment.

 

[Aber]

AFAIK, yes for things that don't move. I was thinking more about things that move.
At the moment we're getting our trains from Italy, Japan, France and so on so it's not going to India and China at the moment.

BREL was privatised and is now part of Bombardier, so the expertise for building trains did not disappear., but it did lose its dominant position.

 

[The Don]

BREL was privatised and is now part of Bombardier, so the expertise for building trains did not disappear., but it did lose its dominant position.

Thanks for the info.

 

[newyorkguy]

I'm not sure these kind of 'just so stories' are helpful. Nobody knows what would have happened...

It's not that someone knows what would have happened, it was a problem that had been identified. The derailment was the tip of the iceberg. I read about the derailment, and the added time it took to get even emergency repairs (or semi-emergency in the case cited; I don't think anyone expected a derailment) done because of the extra layer of responsibility. That there were different companies responsible for operating the trains and maintaining the tracks they run on. I read about it in the Times of London (at the NY Public Library) and on a British train-spotters message board. On the message board they had access to (and linked or copied) company and government documents discussing the problem.

At the time this comment was made by Chris Grayling who is now Britain's Transport Secretary:

Mr Grayling spoke of his desire to give train operators control over the track when he was Tory front-bench transport spokesman a decade ago...He said then: “Too many people and organisations are now involved in getting things done - so nothing happens.” Link to The Telegraph

The divided responsibility slowed down even routine repairs, tended to make them more expensive and affected the train operators' ability to run trains on-time. Three weeks ago it was reported in The Telegraph that responsibility for track and signal maintenance will be finally handed over to the operating companies.

Network Rail will be stripped of its control over Britain’s train tracks and power will be handed to operators in the biggest shake-up of the railways for decades, the Government is to announce...It means that rail companies such as Virgin and Southern would become responsible for repairs and maintenance for the first time, ending Network Rail's monopoly.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's not that someone knows what would have happened, it was a problem that had been identified.

No, it's this 'in the good old days we'd have dealt with that' line that bugs me.
It's based on nothing more than rose tinted memory in a lot of cases.

The derailment was the tip of the iceberg. I read about the derailment, and the added time it took to get even emergency repairs (or semi-emergency in the case cited; I don't think anyone expected a derailment) done because of the extra layer of responsibility. That there were different companies responsible for operating the trains and maintaining the tracks they run on. I read about it in the Times of London (at the NY Public Library) and on a British train-spotters message board. On the message board they had access to (and linked or copied) company and government documents discussing the problem.

At the time this comment was made by Chris Grayling who is now Britain's Transport Secretary:


The divided responsibility slowed down even routine repairs, tended to make them more expensive and affected the train operators' ability to run trains on-time. Three weeks ago it was reported in The Telegraph that responsibility for track and signal maintenance will be finally handed over to the operating companies.

And the report that I quoted claims that safety was better and lives were saved under the new system.

 

[newyorkguy]

No, it's this 'in the good old days we'd have dealt with that' line that bugs me. It's based on nothing more than rose tinted memory in a lot of cases.

But the fact is, the track problem probably would have been dealt with much faster if a single organization -- regardless of which organization it was -- had been both operating the trains and maintaining the tracks. Many rail professionals see separating the function into two different companies as flawed. In fact in the report you linked they also state that.

But [rail analyst Christian] Wolmer said the effects of rail privatisation contributed to the Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield crashes. "The most obvious one is Hatfield where it really was a lack of communication between the engineering company and Railtrack which led to the rail not being repaired and indeed the judge in the subsequent case commented on that," he noted.

And the report that I quoted claims that safety was better and lives were saved under the new system.

I don't think anyone has expressed concerns about safety, it's about style of management. As an American football coach once put it, "If I'm going to cook the dinner I should be the one to buy the groceries."

The trend under British Rail was a steady decline in the rate of fatal accidents and now you seem to be arguing the rate would have been slightly higher in recent years if British Rail had continued operating. Yet previously you stated, "Nobody knows what would have happened." Actually, I agree it's possible the rate may have been slightly higher had BR continued on (as the projected figures show in your link) but that a) I think we're talking more about the quality of service and b) the best management configuration.

 

[CapelDodger]

A related point is that a nationalised state owned company would probably be 'wasting' money on overpaid (or underworked) staff etc rather than bravely maintaining pay and staffing levels to pay directors and shareholder dividends. Like in the bad old days when my mother was paid a living wage and full NHS employee benefits as a hospital cleaner before the brave new world of external tenders, minimum wages and MRSI.

You're taking a rosy view of the bad old days of socialist Keynesianism and a dismal view of entrepreneurial Chicago Schoolism. For good reason, on the evidence.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

But the fact is

No the opinion is. And that is what I am saying. These opinions are often based on memories of the positives of how it used to be rather than reality.

I'm not opposed to a national railway system. I'm quite open to it. It strikes me as the kind of thing a government could do quite well.

And I'm not putting my weight behind the report I quoted either. I don't know enough to comment. But if the report suggests that fewer people died because the railways were private then that's worth considering and looking at. There must be some things to be learned from that.

 

[ceptimus]

Safety has always tended to improve. Doubtless they were safer after nationalistation than before.

So if they've become even safer following (Re-) privatisation we somehow need to tease the ownership effect apart from the other effects on safety.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Safety has always tended to improve. Doubtless they were safer after nationalistation than before.

So if they've become even safer following (Re-) privatisation we somehow need to tease the ownership effect apart from the other effects on safety.

Which I think they did. Basically they extrapolated the rate of safety improvement from pre-privatisation and looked for improvement over and above that.

As I said impossible to know really but I think it's interesting anyway.

 

[The Don]

Which I think they did. Basically they extrapolated the rate of safety improvement from pre-privatisation and looked for improvement over and above that.

As I said impossible to know really but I think it's interesting anyway.

I agree about both, impossible to know really and interesting.

Another thing to consider is the "damage" caused by the increased journey times which have resulted from lower running speeds introduced to improve safety. Is the "cost" of a handful of extra deaths per year greater or less than the "cost" of billions of passenger journeys being 10 minutes longer ?

 

[Tolls]

I read about it in the Times of London (at the NY Public Library) ...

It's just The Times. Not Times of London.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I agree about both, impossible to know really and interesting.

Another thing to consider is the "damage" caused by the increased journey times which have resulted from lower running speeds introduced to improve safety. Is the "cost" of a handful of extra deaths per year greater or less than the "cost" of billions of passenger journeys being 10 minutes longer ?

Better late than dead. For me anyway.

 

[The Don]

Better late than dead. For me anyway.

For an individual but for the economy as a whole - who knows.

If safety was the sole criterion the all trains would run at 5 mph.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

You're taking a rosy view of the bad old days of socialist Keynesianism and a dismal view of entrepreneurial Chicago Schoolism. For good reason, on the evidence.

I find it really frustrating that the entire post war consensus period seems to be discussed in terms of the "Winter of Discontent" while the boom and bust cycle that has characterised the economy from the Regan/Thatcher years onward and have caused three recessions are seen as minor bugs that just have to be lived with and massive inequality as just the way things are.

I'm not claiming that a wholesale return to Keynesianism would magically solve everything, I just think the discussion has become terribly skewed.