England's Railways - Mucking them up again

The Don

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The Don
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For most of my career, I have been a regular user of Britain's railways and in particular the line from Bristol and South Wales to London. Over the last 30 years I have seen prices rise far more quickly than inflation, levels of customer service fall and journey times increase.

Back in the late 80's I could still get a direct train from Bristol Parkway to London Paddington which would take an hour, now the quickest service is scheduled to take 1 hour 30 minutes and when I was last using it regularly, the timetable was merely there for decoration :mad:

A lot of the problems associated with the railways in the UK are, IMO, due to the fact that they were privatised. If British Rail had received anything like the subsidy that the private rail companies have enjoyed then we'd have a better service at a lower cost - both to the taxpayer and rail user.

The worst problems were due to the privatisation of Railtrack, the cost-cutting and incompetence that resulted and culminated in a series of incidents which resulted in a fistful of money being thrown at the problem and trains running more slowly ever since. The situation was somewhat remedied by bringing ownership of the track back into public hands.

Now the government is proposing that track and trains are run by a joint company but everything changes when the franchise is renewed. I'm not a railway expert, just a user, but even I can see a load of problems with this:

  • Investment will not be on a national basis, instead it will be silo-based with little or no incentive to improve inter-operability
  • There will also be incentive to "sweat the assets" handing the track back in the worst possible state at the end of the franchise period
  • There will be no incentive to invest in the the rail infrastructure across franchise periods - all investments will therefore necessarily short-term
  • We already have a ridiculously complicated railway system with three levels, train operating companies, rolling stock companies and rail infrastructure companies - we're now adding vertical splits too

As the saying goes, "this is no way to operate a railway" :mad:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38212467
 
The Don said:
For most of my career, I have been a regular user of Britain's railways and in particular the line from Bristol and South Wales to London. Over the last 30 years I have seen prices rise far more quickly than inflation, levels of customer service fall and journey times increase.

Back in the late 80's I could still get a direct train from Bristol Parkway to London Paddington which would take an hour, now the quickest service is scheduled to take 1 hour 30 minutes and when I was last using it regularly, the timetable was merely there for decoration :mad:

A lot of the problems associated with the railways in the UK are, IMO, due to the fact that they were privatised. If British Rail had received anything like the subsidy that the private rail companies have enjoyed then we'd have a better service at a lower cost - both to the taxpayer and rail user.

The worst problems were due to the privatisation of Railtrack, the cost-cutting and incompetence that resulted and culminated in a series of incidents which resulted in a fistful of money being thrown at the problem and trains running more slowly ever since. The situation was somewhat remedied by bringing ownership of the track back into public hands.

Now the government is proposing that track and trains are run by a joint company but everything changes when the franchise is renewed. I'm not a railway expert, just a user, but even I can see a load of problems with this:

  • Investment will not be on a national basis, instead it will be silo-based with little or no incentive to improve inter-operability
  • There will also be incentive to "sweat the assets" handing the track back in the worst possible state at the end of the franchise period
  • There will be no incentive to invest in the the rail infrastructure across franchise periods - all investments will therefore necessarily short-term
  • We already have a ridiculously complicated railway system with three levels, train operating companies, rolling stock companies and rail infrastructure companies - we're now adding vertical splits too

As the saying goes, "this is no way to operate a railway" :mad:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38212467
Click to expand...
Agreed. But it was profitable for Conservative party donors and hanger on.
 
Lothian said:
ENGLAND'S railways? I think you will find that rail transport is not devolved and they are [buggering it up/ squeezing till the pips squeak] for the whole of the UK.
Click to expand...

Yes, this move in particular relates to the way in which franchises operate in England.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have completely different systems and Wales is "complicated" by the mainlines.
 
What is proposed is a total fudge. Let's say that, for example, Virgin Trains are "working together" with Network Rail to maintain the track their trains run on. Then Virgin Trains loses its franchise.

It's typical government meddling. Group together anything that's already split up; excuse: "economies of scale". Spit apart anything that's already one big organisation; excuse: "smaller organisations are more nimble and efficient".

Governments do it over and over again - with schools, police, medical services, ... They never learn and nor, it seems, do the voters.
 
Some things require more forethought than simply looking four or eight years ahead, power, transport, water; that sort of thing.

We used to have a system that placed some of the infrastructure management outside of the short term-ism that is generated by the election cycle and by most businesses.

Can we do that again?
 
The state of Victoria in Australia did the same thing. It's has created one godawful mess. Incompatible rolling stock on different lines that all require their own maintenance depots and parts. Train drivers that have to be trained on different hardware. Infrastructure that is way out of date and falling apart.
 
a_unique_person said:
The state of Victoria in Australia did the same thing. It's has created one godawful mess. Incompatible rolling stock on different lines that all require their own maintenance depots and parts. Train drivers that have to be trained on different hardware. Infrastructure that is way out of date and falling apart.
Click to expand...

But does it make a profit for a shareholder somewhere, thereby ensuring that that shareholder only has the best interests of the railway system, and thereby the passenger, at heart?

It can only be efficient if it makes a profit, all else is foolishness.
 
On the face of it this makes no sense whatsoever but I haven't looked into the proposals enough to have a view. My usual reaction to these things is to say 'that can't be right, that would be just stupid' followed by 'oh dear, it is right' when I investigate further.

Reminds me of the plan to make Royal Mail better and stem its losses by opening up all the profitable bits to competition and leaving the unprofitable stuff solely in RM's hands.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Reminds me of the plan to make Royal Mail better and stem its losses by opening up all the profitable bits to competition and leaving the unprofitable stuff solely in RM's hands.
Click to expand...

I think that's a fairly standard tactic, one that will probably be employed at the NHS soon.


Step one - Remove all the profitable bits and leave only loss making activities in the public domain.

Step two - Compare the privatised bits - which have cherry picked the profitable activities - to the public bits - which are left with all the unprofitable stuff.

Step three - Publish the above results to an uncritical electorate with no context and proclaim that privatisation works.



EDIT:

Step four - retire from parliment and take up 'non-executive directorship'...
 
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3point14 said:
Some things require more forethought than simply looking four or eight years ahead, power, transport, water; that sort of thing.

We used to have a system that placed some of the infrastructure management outside of the short term-ism that is generated by the election cycle and by most businesses.

Can we do that again?
Click to expand...

The railways would probably be the easiest of all the sell offs to reverse, if there was the political will, just wait until the individual contracts expire and don't re-tender. There's a lot of public support and the East Coast Mainline showed how well it could be done. But of course it's about ideology not results.
 
The Don said:
Back in the late 80's I could still get a direct train from Bristol Parkway to London Paddington which would take an hour, now the quickest service is scheduled to take 1 hour 30 minutes and when I was last using it regularly, the timetable was merely there for decoration :mad:
Click to expand...

I took the same line in the 80's and when I did it again in around 2008 I was surprised how long it took. I am glad i was not being too nostalgic.

I wrote this once - a bit London Centric perhaps


Train

Dog boxes
On the last train
Nobody eating
No burger stains

No voices screaming
About your bags
Or slippery platforms
In case of rain

The Milk Train
Charring Cross
Slipped a fiver
To the driver

To Dover
With my girl
All lights out
Sparks from tracks
Lit our night


The lovely clunk
Of slamming doors
Which could be opened
Before your stop
Skipping off
The moving bulk
Like a hero

Oh happy days

Now?

Electronic doors
Often stuck
Metro readers
Kindle lovers
Candy crush
Hoping to beat
The laborious rush
In broken seats
With no repair

Crazy prices
Missed Devizes?
Pay a fine
You should have known
To feed their gain
To play the game
To get a train
 
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Belgian thought said:
I took the same line in the 80's and when I did it again in around 2008 I was surprised how long it took. I am glad i was not being too nostalgic.

I wrote this once - a bit London Centric perhaps
[Snipped]
Click to expand...

I enjoyed your poem. Those aren't words I say very often, and never previously to an Internet 'poet'.
 
There are about nine different train companies that operate on the east coast line from London up to Edinburgh and Inverness. How are they all going to share the track maintenance work with each other and with Network Rail?
 
ceptimus said:
There are about nine different train companies that operate on the east coast line from London up to Edinburgh and Inverness. How are they all going to share the track maintenance work with each other and with Network Rail?
Click to expand...

....through the magic of the free market and free enterprise :rolleyes:

IMO it's yet another sop to the travelling public while in the background plans are being made to privatise Network Rail again (with predictable consequences).

The whole problem with the franchise system is that the timescales involved are fundamentally incompatible with the timescales for infrastructure planning and investment :mad:
 
ceptimus said:
There are about nine different train companies that operate on the east coast line from London up to Edinburgh and Inverness. How are they all going to share the track maintenance work with each other and with Network Rail?
Click to expand...

<Pedant on>
Network Rail schedule the works to be done and then put the work out to tender. So although they are responsible for the track, they seldom do the work.
<pedant off>
 
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