Should the railways be nationalised?

[sparks85]

I think people are getting a little confused with the term re-nationalisation.

These proposals are aimed at the TOC's who operate the existing limited duration franchises, which Labour are proposing to run in a public sector fashion rather than a private sector manner (i.e reletting the franchises).

This has already been done recently with success by Directly Operated Railways on the East Coast franchise.

Nationalising the TOC's carries its own risks but in essence there is already £260m per annum which is taken out of the industry as dividends/profit by the TOC's annually which could otherwise be reinvested in the railways. Public subsidy for the railway (via tax) is already around the 70% figure and with the cost of running and operating the railway growing, alternatives need to be tried to help reduce this level of subsidy.

No-one is proposing a blanket change, rather a staged process as the franchises for each Route run out. At worst, what do we have to lose by trialling this on a few routes initially? It's hardly like it could get any worse - and those fearing an old BR attitude only have to look at TfL's success, which for all their self trumpeting PR is a resounding success in a not-for-profit model. Existing staff setups and operating methods would simply be TUPE'd across.

The infrastructure network is owned and operated by Network Rail, who are effectively a public sector company (a not for dividend company limited by guarantee that manages it's own profits - but basically any profit is reinvested) and no changes are currently proposed to this arrangement. It is in effect already nationalised. NR was born of the Railtrack failure, which in itself was responsible for a number of high profile, fatal rail accidents. Having seen the railway from the inside I would not want a return to a profit driven infrastructure owner/maintainer.

The railway is a complex technical beast, the general public really have no idea of the effort, costs and complexity of running and maintaining it, let alone upgrading it. They just see whether their train is full and/or on time and react accordingly. The simple matter of the fact is that the railways will continue to get busier as ridership levels increase in line with population and economic growth. With no feasible alternative people cannot choose any other way to commute (social journeys may be more feasible by car). The network is old, and has suffered from decades of under investment - this doesn't just disappear by throwing a few billion pounds a year at it. It's also why construction of brand new lines to add greater capacity are important - though this isn't the time for a HS2 debate.

I've said it before on other threads but I work in the rail industry, have worked for NR, and have seen how many of the different parts of the railway operate. If anyone has any questions I would be happy to help answer them.

[XM5ER]

Atmospheric said:

Seriously. Trains will become even more vital. Driverless cars are the answer to the millions of commuters in London? I think you're miles off.

A train of computer controlled cars doing 120mph?

Do you know much about transport works and its role in society?

Let's see what happens in 20 years. I'm sure if someone told you in 1985 that you would have a computer in your pocket that you could use to watch movies on, use as a video phone to talk to your business partners in Australia for free, record your lap time performance on - stop connect wirelessly to your car and remap your engine before going out for another lap, you would have called them insane and deluded. If they'd told you the same in 1995, you'd have called them fanciful. If they'd told you that in 2005, you'd have called them Steve Jobs. 20 years is a long time in technology.

What do you know about transport works and its role in society? Tell all.

[RichB]

Atmospheric said:

XM5ER said:

I'm going to come at this from a very different angle.

I believe that within 20 years travel will change beyond recognition. With the rise of self driving cars, the need for train travel will diminish so the British government could be left holding a worthless asset attached to a huge debt.

To elaborate, imagine hopping in your comfortable Ikea car, hooking up your tablet and starting your first meeting of the day via video conference as you leave the house. The car itself pops on onto the M6 and joins the high speed convoy in the outside lane and quickly joins onto a fuel efficient "train" of cars traveling at 120mph+ and this gets you down to London in a little over an hour. You hop out of you car in central London and it goes off and parks itself in a car stack and recharges for the journey home. Whilst in London you use Uber's driverless cabs to ferry you around from meeting to meeting and at your final meeting your own car picks you up again and off you pop home, maybe getting a bit of shuteye or finishing off with conference calls to the US.

Now compare that to freezing your arse of at Crewe station to get on an overcrowded train where once again "we cannot take cards at the buffet cab due to a network problem". Etc.

The only value I see long term for the railways is as a freight network linking to various hubs where the freight is removed and transferred to driverless trucks for short journeys.

It will happen, it's just a question of when.

Seriously. Trains will become even more vital. Driverless cars are the answer to the millions of commuters in London? I think you're miles off.

A train of computer controlled cars doing 120mph?

Do you know much about transport works and its role in society?

Don't be such a sceptic. I grew up in the 60's and for certain by the year 2000 we were all going to be flying around the sky in our own personalised levitation machines - the highways of the sky was the way ahead. Roads would be redundant within the next generation. What could possibly go wrong!

[Atmospheric]

XM5ER said:

Atmospheric said:

Seriously. Trains will become even more vital. Driverless cars are the answer to the millions of commuters in London? I think you're miles off.

A train of computer controlled cars doing 120mph?

Do you know much about transport works and its role in society?

Let's see what happens in 20 years. I'm sure if someone told you in 1985 that you would have a computer in your pocket that you could use to watch movies on, use as a video phone to talk to your business partners in Australia for free, record your lap time performance on - stop connect wirelessly to your car and remap your engine before going out for another lap, you would have called them insane and deluded. If they'd told you the same in 1995, you'd have called them fanciful. If they'd told you that in 2005, you'd have called them Steve Jobs. 20 years is a long time in technology.

What do you know about transport works and its role in society? Tell all.

I know enough to know that your suggestion will require our infrastructure and our concept of day to day life to be completely changed. I put it to you that your examples are communication, not transport. Communication was always going to improve and in 1985 the basic technologies were being used and not in its infancy as you might think.


What will happen is everywhere will get busier and more crowded, hence the huge amount of billion pound rail projects (Thameslink, Liv-Manchester electrification, HS2, GWR electrification) to secure the current way of life for many people and families. If this was a country built from a Greenfield then your suggestion would have some viable points (except the car train at 120mph).

Things never go as predicted with technological advancements - world wars and shifts in attitudes, political agendas and prospective governments see to that. All we can predict is "what will be possible,".

In my opinion, the current system should remain privatised, but I would reduce the amount of sectors to 4 or 5.

There is so much foreign investment and job creation it would be foolish to dismantle it. There is a chap on here who works for one of the train leasing companies, he would know more!

[Rick101]

Not too far off this date now.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/jan/...
Won't bother with trains anymore, I'll just whizz to work on my hoverboard.

[Atmospheric]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I

Could it be the fact that there will be so much disruption that temporary routes and various local authority fees / contractors??

Paddington line is under the wires until Hayes, so I would have thought that was a good start! Are the Class 801s included in that figure too?

[mph1977]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

which global standard would that be ? as 9'6" high ISO boxes are a later addition ...

nevermind IKB , the great central was built to continental clearance standards with all island stations making increasing loading gauge easier ... but BR shut it in favour of keeping the MML becasue the MML didn't belong to the 'wrong' pre nationalisation company for MR management

[XM5ER]

Atmospheric said:

I know enough to know that your suggestion will require our infrastructure and our concept of day to day life to be completely changed. I put it to you that your examples are communication, not transport. Communication was always going to improve and in 1985 the basic technologies were being used and not in its infancy as you might think.


What will happen is everywhere will get busier and more crowded, hence the huge amount of billion pound rail projects (Thameslink, Liv-Manchester electrification, HS2, GWR electrification) to secure the current way of life for many people and families. If this was a country built from a Greenfield then your suggestion would have some viable points (except the car train at 120mph).

Things never go as predicted with technological advancements - world wars and shifts in attitudes, political agendas and prospective governments see to that. All we can predict is "what will be possible,".

In my opinion, the current system should remain privatised, but I would reduce the amount of sectors to 4 or 5.

There is so much foreign investment and job creation it would be foolish to dismantle it. There is a chap on here who works for one of the train leasing companies, he would know more!

I think you will be surprised by the pace of change that will happen, particularly in the automotive sector. I'm well aware of the "over promise - under deliver" nature of the tech sector but once driverless cars become fully viable, there will be a tipping point driven by a generational change that will change attitude to car ownership and usage beyond recognition. Once driverless becomes the norm, it will be a few short steps towards compulsory (not something I would not be happy about from a libertarian perspective, I must admit). As a thought experiment, think about some of the problems you outlined above, many of those could be solved by a driverless system (road space being the biggest problem).

[JB!]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

if only there was a line built away from urban centres that was capable of easy gauge widening....

[AJS-]

I see it a bit like the NHS. In principle I would much rather it was done privately without subsidy or a high degree of government control, and I believe in practice that this would work better in the long run.

Conversely I can see advantages in just having a straight forward national monopoly who are responsible for making sure the trains run on time, and dispense with the balik salmon sandwiches and the elaborate guessing game of trying to get a sensibly priced ticket.

Having this sort of weird mish-mash of heavily regulated operators running on a nationalised network with what seems like a feeding frenzy of ticket touts inventing whatever crackpot pricing schemes they feel like seems to have made the worst of all worlds in some ways.

That said, on paper at least it seems to be working and rail use is increasing. How much this is down to the absurd war on private cars and general lack of viable alternatives is a matter of speculation.

[blueg33]

I work with NHS management. If ever there was an argument against Nationalisation the NHS comparison is it.

I also remember BR. trains were not on time, clean, well maintained etc. Unions had too much power, the customer was an inconvenience.

Nationalisation will bring all those things back.

[anonymous-user]

blueg33 said:

I work with NHS management. If ever there was an argument against Nationalisation the NHS comparison is it.

I also remember BR. trains were not on time, clean, well maintained etc. Unions had too much power, the customer was an inconvenience.

Nationalisation will bring all those things back.

I doubt many people who remember the 70s would want the railways nationalised.

[Hol]

el stovey said:

blueg33 said:

I work with NHS management. If ever there was an argument against Nationalisation the NHS comparison is it.

I also remember BR. trains were not on time, clean, well maintained etc. Unions had too much power, the customer was an inconvenience.

Nationalisation will bring all those things back.

I doubt many people who remember the 70s would want the railways nationalised.

The last 30years worth of university lecturers will have told students it was all fairy clean and always on time though.
They did a right number on my sister in law. History and fiction seemed to have merged for them,

[anonymous-user]

Hol said:

el stovey said:

blueg33 said:

I work with NHS management. If ever there was an argument against Nationalisation the NHS comparison is it.

I also remember BR. trains were not on time, clean, well maintained etc. Unions had too much power, the customer was an inconvenience.

Nationalisation will bring all those things back.

I doubt many people who remember the 70s would want the railways nationalised.

The last 30years worth of university lecturers will have told students it was all fairy clean and always on time though.
They did a right number on my sister in law. History and fiction seemed to have merged for them,

I was talking about this with an older colleague yesterday. He described using candles at university in the 70s due to electricity cuts and the three day week. He was in no doubt denationalisation of the railways would be a bad move.

If we forget history. .

[PRTVR]

el stovey said:

Hol said:

el stovey said:

blueg33 said:

I work with NHS management. If ever there was an argument against Nationalisation the NHS comparison is it.

I also remember BR. trains were not on time, clean, well maintained etc. Unions had too much power, the customer was an inconvenience.

Nationalisation will bring all those things back.

I doubt many people who remember the 70s would want the railways nationalised.

The last 30years worth of university lecturers will have told students it was all fairy clean and always on time though.
They did a right number on my sister in law. History and fiction seemed to have merged for them,

I was talking about this with an older colleague yesterday. He described using candles at university in the 70s due to electricity cuts and the three day week. He was in no doubt denationalisation of the railways would be a bad move.

If we forget history. .

History cannot be taken in isolation, there is no need to go back to the old model of nationalisation, I remember traveling on one of the first HST 125 trains in the 70s, a cheer went up when the tanoy announced we were traveling at 125,
some thing were a big improvement, but some things on the railways were bad,
but they were better than the 60s,

on the subject of power cuts we could be heading for them again under private ownership, lack of investment has cut the spare power producing capacity, it is not as easy to say private good public bad.

[AJS-]

PRTVR
I think the problem with power supply this time is still to do with government action. It just takes the form of insane carbon targets and a massive over reliance on technology that hasn't been invented or proven yet, rather than a lack of viable demand for electricity.

The fundamental problem with trains as I see it is that the technology has progressed beyond their usefulness. Cars are better for short and medium journeys, buses for local mass transit, planes for longer journeys. Trucks are better at delivering goods. Trains require extraordinary investment in both infrastructure and the trains themselves, and the demand at anything like a realistic price isn't there. It was in 1890. Railways were more efficient than horses.

The exceptions are probably some freight, where for example you need to regularly get huge shipments from a factory to a port, and regular commuter runs which are packed every morning and night. Even then I'm not convinced it wouldn't be better to simply pave over the railways and create express ways and bus routes.

So we're left with a choice of having companies hoovering up subsidies, gouging prices and cutting corners as tonker mentions above, or basically accepting that it's a money pit but quite a nice way to travel from say York to Edinburgh, and the social good is worth the financial cost.

[KarlMac]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Not all of this is comoletely on the nail. As previously mentioned I have worked as a consultant on the overhaul of the Class 321 vehicles, where the task was to extend the life of the vehicle but offer passengers a new train experience, with the addition of sealed windows, modern A/C, WiFi, better lighting, better heating, more ergonomic seats and full compliance with modern regs as well as future proofing for upcoming train management systems.

The seating layout discussion was always one where had heated discussions with TOC/leasing company as the TOC invariably wanted more seats (as apparently each seat is worth £1m in revenue over the life of the vehicle), the leasing company wanted a premier passenger experience (to help them sell to more TOCs) and the legislation has certain stipulations regarding PRM standards.

As with any project, the end result was a victim of compromise. So to answer your original post all of the things you mention are considered, but normally the most sensible financial choice is the one they go for.

Btw linking of vehicles is either down to incompatible systems (mainly Call To Aid) but more commonly because the platforms on the intended route isn't big enough.

Edit - the switch to EMU from DMU is purely because power is included in line rent. TOCs want Electric because they're already paying for l it, running diesel means paying twice for power. Iirc diesels are a bit heavier too which affects the line access charges. EMU also allows you to spread weight across a vehicle which helps with bogie wear and tear. Just don't sit in the PMS car!

Edited by KarlMac on Wednesday 23 September 10:08

[ecs]

blueg33 said:

the customer was an inconvenience.

Still seems to be the case on London Midland trains.

[AJS-]

KarlMac said:

The seating layout discussion was always one where had heated discussions with TOC/leasing company as the TOC invariably wanted more seats (as apparently each seat is worth £1m in revenue over the life of the vehicle), the leasing company wanted a premier passenger experience (to help them sell to more TOCs) and the legislation has certain stipulations regarding PRM standards.

As with any project, the end result was a victim of compromise. So to answer your original post all of the things you mention are considered, but normally the most sensible financial choice is the one they go for.

From a theoretical standpoint I think this highlights the difference between privatisation and proper private enterprise. The latter needs to evolve, the former is imposed.

Realistically the only reason anyone would build a railway is to run trains on it and make a massive profit from the monopoly this would give them. This would evolve over time and you might get leasing companies, operators and railway owners. But the terms and the structure of this would evolve over time.

It seems as though our approach to railways has been a bit like our approach to the middle east whereby to move away from central control we drew up a load of arbitrary divisions which seemed to work in theory, then reacted to problems and crises as they arose. It has given us this series of compromises which don't really work for anyone.

[AJS-]

Plus of course no one seems to have really asked passengers if they care about sealed windows and bleeping toilets as compared to having an efficient and cost effective rail service.