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England's Railways - Mucking them up again

Greebo said:
Not sure which is worse, no rail service or this
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I had the "fun", many years ago, of commuting from Brockley in South East London to a data centre in Turnham Green.

I'm so glad that I either work from home these days or drive to the clients' offices.

OTOH I commuted from Bristol Parkway to Swindon for nearly 10 years, the first 6 by rail and it was a comparative pleasure. A 10 minute drive to the station, 25 minutes reading on the train, a 2 minute walk the other end - so much better than dealing with Swindon traffic.

Not sure if I'd want to do the same commute now, trains slower and packed, prices no doubt sky high.
 
3point14 said:
Genuine question:

What evidence is there that a nationalised, state-owned company would be more likely to waste money than a private, for profit company?
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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.
 
3point14 said:
Genuine question:

What evidence is there that a nationalised, state-owned company would be more likely to waste money than a private, for profit company?
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I don't think there is any evidence - it was just Tory dogma that everything would run better if it were privatized due to "the magic of the market".

All the things they did privatize don't seem any better now - and they all cost the customer more. These privatized companies might save money by cutting real wages and working conditions for their lowest paid staff, but what they save is more than wasted in ludicrously high pay for the Chief Executive and other senior managers - plus payments to shareholders of course.

The most ludicrous aspect of the British railway privatization is that large sections of it are now owned by FOREIGN states - or sometimes technically they are owned by foreign companies that are largely foreign-state-supported.

http://actionforrail.org/three-quarters-of-uk-rail-owned-by-foreign-states-research-reveals/
 
P.J. Denyer said:
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.
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Sounds about right.....
 
So...

A state owned company is more likely to waste money on wages for UK residents who will spend that money in the UK economy whereas an, efficient, private sector company, supported by a foreign government is going to send the money to a different country's economy?

How did we ever fall for this ******
 
3point14 said:
So...

A state owned company is more likely to waste money on wages for UK residents who will spend that money in the UK economy whereas an, efficient, private sector company, supported by a foreign government is going to send the money to a different country's economy?

How did we ever fall for this ******
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Very rich people bought newspapers to repeatedly tell us that everything bad that happened in the 1970's was the fault of unions, councils and public sector workers (no talking about the 'Long Boom' now). And of course, the big one, that privatising publicly owned assets puts the public in control by giving them 'ownership'......
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Very rich people bought newspapers to repeatedly tell us that everything bad that happened in the 1970's was the fault of unions, councils and public sector workers (no talking about the 'Long Boom' now). And of course, the big one, that privatising publicly owned assets puts the public in control by giving them 'ownership'......
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Those times brought the ones and noughts big time.

Many suffered then, and many are suffering now - and will do so.

A binary world is born, critique no longer the norm, and me in my 50 plus years accept it as part of my living death.

The world is for the young, and me at my expiry date cannot blame the past and those evil holders of "news" for they were the purveyors of parchment - more important, who is the paper master now?

I hope no one
 
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P.J. Denyer said:
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.
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Nitpick, MSRA. But otherwise I agree fully.
 
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:
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Are you sure?

From the 1990 timetable, there's one scheduled in the morning peak with no stops taking 1 hr 11 mins.

From the current timetable the fastest seems to be 1hr 22 mins with a stop at Swindon.

For comparison in 1990 the 0732 arrived in London at 0900; now the 0732 arrives at 0854 (allegedly :)).

Things were always better in our youth.
 
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Aber said:
Are you sure?

From the 1990 timetable, there's one scheduled in the morning peak with no stops taking 1 hr 11 mins.

From the current timetable the fastest seems to be 1hr 22 mins with a stop at Swindon.

For comparison in 1990 the 0732 arrived in London at 0900; now the 0732 arrives at 0854 (allegedly :)).

Things were always better in our youth.
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No, not sure :o

I thought the 1:11 was quicker and last time I commuted regularly in 2008 I thought the quickest was 1:30 but it was usually 10-20 minutes late on arrival
 
The Don said:
As much as I dislike Murdoch and am concerned about his reach increasing - I'm not sure how this relates to railways :confused:
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It relates to the extensive discussion of the role of the media in promoting the ideology of privatisation of public services. I admit it may be off topic but given that no-one actually seems to arguing that the proposed changes will be better (in any objective way, lower costs, greater efficiency etc) the thread has tended to wander into associated territories.
 
Here in New York we have done it the opposite way. The suburban passenger line I'm most familiar with is Metro-North operating rail lines that were formerly the property of the New York Central and the New Haven Railroad, which were private companies.

Even indexed for inflation, fares are much higher than under private ownership but the service is much better. There is more frequent service, newer cars, the stations have been upgraded. Ridership has more than doubled since Metro-North took over in 1983. The on-time performance has risen. The service loses money, requiring a cash subsidy from New York State of about $200 million per year on about 85 million trips. That's about a $2.50 subsidy per trip. The average fare paid is probably in the $10 range. Of course those are just figures for operating costs. Capital investment is budgeted separately. If you include the cap costs the subsidy per trip is of course much higher, probably two or three times higher.

All in all it seems to be working fairly well.
 
I think the British railways would be better nationalized.

The only downside I see is that when the unions decide to call strike action (usually in the run up to Christmas) it would be the entire rail network grinding to a halt - not just one region.

But that's the one downside - and I think it's a price worth paying for the other benefits that would result.
 
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