Indeed.

When everyone lived in t'same t'road and worked down t'same t'pit, mass transport worked well.
When the alternative was horse drawn coach, the railways worked well.
The world turns.

Now they should kill the subsidy and see what is still worth doing that way. My guess is that only inter city and profitable commuter misery will survive. But at least we won't all be paying over the odds for an oversized toy train set.

Per passenger mile is a poor measure as it doesn't change the fixed costs, and more importantly I can't find any figures corrected for that. The railways seem to be delivering about twice the passenger miles and about twice the passenger journeys that BR were in 1994 for 3x the passenger revenue. They are receiving about £4bn in subsidy compared to BR average over the period 90-94 of £1.1bn; according to BoE rates that's equivalent to £1.57bn now. Even if you're generous and link the subsidy to passenger miles alone, they are coining it in. The tracklength in the UK hasn't gone up much in 18 years(320km laid since 1994) and the level of rolling stock was 11,000 in 1994 and 12,100 in 2011, implying an increase in longterm fixed costs of ~8%.

The ease with which the DOR caretaker on the ECML has exceeded the performance of the TOC which abandoned its obligations, or the previous incumbent that went bust might be dismissed as a one off, but South Eastern Trains, the DOR which replaced the impressively shonky Connex South Eastern, managed to run a better service at a modest profit. The private sector has no more monopoly on good management than the state sector has on bad management.

Surely the cost per passenger mile is the best way to measure it in terms of comparison, as it is the actual cost of the railways for doing the job?

By the time the railways were privatised in 1994 the £1.1bn was clearly too little as the infrastructure was left in a very poor state and that underspend is still being rectified today. Publicly owned infrastructure always has massive underspend (I see millions of ££'s of backlog maintenance on hospitals etc), so I dont see that using the 1994 figure is a fair comparison.

I agree about private sector not having a monopoly on bad management but public sector they have no real profit incentive so will rarely be efficient with spending and govermnment control always means that it would be a very was place to cut costs for political expediaency.

I work with the public sector and see the above traits everywhere, I also work with the private sector and those issues are much less pronounced.

Nationalisation would bring back all of the old habits and old problems and by 2050 we will have infrastructure that has seen no material improvement over the present infrastructure

The thing is, IMO its not individuals, its culture that affects the way things are done. The difference is culture between the various train companies is very evident. Generally in my experience Virgin = friendly and helpful (excpet customers services), FGW = friendly train staff, surly station staff, Cross Country = Couldn't give a damn.

I'm new to this thread. I can't see a single benefit of privatised railways, there are certain things that any developed, civilised country should provide it's people without anyone else profiting from it - basic transport (trains, buses), water and power. Having lived and worked abroad where most of this is usually state-run, I can see how backwards we are in the UK, we seem to have a headling charge into flogging stuff off regardless of the consequences. How can it be right that someone profits from supplying me with water ? I don't mind paying for it, I do mind someone profiting from it, it's a basic human right, surely ?!

An interesting period piece called "railwatch" from 1990.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBvUT5VFOAU

You deicde if the railways have got better or worse in the 22 (!) years since this was filmed.

(extra points awarded for counting the number of ski jackets and shell suits worn...)

you take a week to recover from driving London to Manchester? Lightweight

My point being - could that continue in a nationalised situation?

yes. And even amongst the PW crew, the wages aren't bad (or not as bad as elsewhere (I know most are now subbied out)), then you have the station staff, low pay, but that pension still. And the hours, in safety critical roles, are very heavily restricted....

as for could that continue in a nationalised railway.... it's where we got them from