Should the railways be nationalised?

Should the railways be nationalised?

Poll: Should the railways be nationalised?

Total Members Polled: 471

Yes: 40%
No: 60%
Author
Discussion

KTF

9,788 posts

149 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
WCZ said:
sounds like a great place to work biggrin
Assume the above is true, its just incredible that this sort of thing was allowed to go on and noone seemingly cared.

XM5ER

5,087 posts

247 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
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.

Granfondo

12,241 posts

205 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
KTF said:
WCZ said:
sounds like a great place to work biggrin
Assume the above is true, its just incredible that this sort of thing was allowed to go on and noone seemingly cared.
When it's "nobody's" money then the mice will play!

Moonhawk

10,730 posts

218 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
Welshbeef said:
We run different width track than anyone else in the world so we have to have bespoke trains at higher cost.
I keep seeing that stated - but is it true.

According to Wikipedia - the UK run "standard gauge" 1345mm track - which is the same as the rest of Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, India, China etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gauge

Esseesse

8,969 posts

207 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
Moonhawk said:
Welshbeef said:
We run different width track than anyone else in the world so we have to have bespoke trains at higher cost.
I keep seeing that stated - but is it true.

According to Wikipedia - the UK run "standard gauge" 1345mm track - which is the same as the rest of Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, India, China etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gauge
Is it that the gauge of the track is the same but the sizes of the engines/carriages are different? i.e. Perhaps our stations and tunnels are designed to take smaller engines. IIRC American trains do sometimes have a 'look' about them that the wheels are relatively close together.

Pebbles167

3,417 posts

151 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
We run standard guage. Our companies machines are American built and tested, shipped here to be used and i know we also have several being used in France, Italy and China.

Esseesse said:
Perhaps our stations and tunnels are designed to take smaller engines.
Pretty sure this is also true.

Edited by Pebbles167 on Monday 21st September 12:10

KTF

9,788 posts

149 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
Esseesse said:
Is it that the gauge of the track is the same but the sizes of the engines/carriages are different? i.e. Perhaps our stations and tunnels are designed to take smaller engines. IIRC American trains do sometimes have a 'look' about them that the wheels are relatively close together.
A lot of the bridges on the network are also too low to allow double deck trains to run under then and the cost of changing them is prohibitive. A shame really as trains like that would be an (I assume) easy way to add extra capacity.


Sticks.

8,706 posts

250 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
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.
Except that one of the things which has changed in the last 10/20 years is the amount of freight traffic on the roads. How many times does the motorway you're on have lane 1 - 2 almost solid with lorries? What does this cost in time and what is the cost to the economy?

One advantage of nationalisation, if done properly, is the potential for a strategic approach to the country's transport needs, making available and best use of both rail and road networks. The problem is that this needs investment and a long term view (beyone one parliament), which makes it unlikely.


The Don of Croy

5,975 posts

158 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
All you rail fanbois - does nobody hanker after a modern canal system?

hornet

6,333 posts

249 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
grumbledoak said:
All you can conclude from that is that TfL has a large media budget and spends it justifying it's own existence.

It also has more executives paid six-figure sums than any other branch of the civil service. They're not stupid (see above).
That may well be the case, but it simply not correct to say the services under TfL control haven't improved. They have, and massively. Nobody who used the Silverlink incarnation of the North London Line or the old East London Line tube will have any desire to go back to pre-TfL days, as the creation of the London Overground network has transformed them beyond recognition. They've gone from more or less derelict barely used backwaters to hugely important parts of the network, and are now almost a victim of their own success. I'm sure there are people in other areas of the country who would kill for a similar model.

matsoc

853 posts

131 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
I think that railways to "work" for passenger traffic have to be quick, I saw this happening in Italy, once the trains got quicker between Milan and Rome the airtraffic and car traffic decreased accordingly. Finally in 2016 the 220mph top speed limt will be certified and the 300 miles route from Milan to Rome will take just 2 hours. Considering also the heavy car traffic of the 2 cities and the fact that train station are much positioned within the city compared to the airports the advantage of rail becomes huge.

The issue with Italian rail are the old routes which are simply inadequate and cost a lot to government in sussidies, around 10 € billions a year to keep trains that people simply do not use and do not need.

XM5ER

5,087 posts

247 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
Sticks. 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.
Except that one of the things which has changed in the last 10/20 years is the amount of freight traffic on the roads. How many times does the motorway you're on have lane 1 - 2 almost solid with lorries? What does this cost in time and what is the cost to the economy?

One advantage of nationalisation, if done properly, is the potential for a strategic approach to the country's transport needs, making available and best use of both rail and road networks. The problem is that this needs investment and a long term view (beyone one parliament), which makes it unlikely.

I love it when people people edit a quote to create an apparent conflict. You can see I made the point below in the full post.

XM5ER said:
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.
Is this best done with a nationalised service? I doubt it as we don't have the cash as a nation to do it.

Sticks.

8,706 posts

250 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
XM5ER said:
Sticks. said:
XM5ER said:
I'm going to come at this from a very different angle.


I love it when people people edit a quote to create an apparent conflict. You can see I made the point below in the full post.
More haste etc, skimming, apologies.

oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
syncii said:
What's a train?
Something you pay quite a lot of tax to help run.

Something that, if some people get their way, in the future you will have to pay even more tax to help run.


I'd take an interest if I were you.

PurpleTurtle

6,935 posts

143 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
MajorProblem said:
Seeming as someone's brought up to way people operated in BR, here are some examples of what went on our patch,

Whilst working permanent day shifts - buy a taxi, go taxi driving all night come to work, book on and sleep all day.

One lad had a carpet cleaning business, he used to book on then go carpet cleaning all day, only coming back to book off.

A few lads created a service bay in the workshop so cars can be worked on whilst on afternoon shift.

The electricians would book on and then clear off house bashing all day.

Apprentices were left behind on a Sunday day shift to cook a full Sunday dinner for the returning lads (using only a pot bellied stove and a baby belling) sometimes you had to do fry ups too.

The big "chip vans'" would be used for house removal jobs.

Everyone would be filling cars up off the company.

When tiger tokens where at ESSO they used to leave vans running all the time even with the rear axle off the ground and a brick on the throttle to waste fuel whilst at the depot, the only person to claim all the prizes (I think the top one was a TV) was from our place.

If it was a nice summers day you'd go play football or cricket at the park after a few pints,

Shift changes,

Days would come on at 6am and wake the night shift up to go home.

Afternoons would meet the day shift at the pub to changeover when the day shift has been there since dinner.

Nights would meet the afternoon shift at the working men's club until last orders where the least pissed member of staff would drive the team to the depot for sleeping and await day turn coming on.
Not to mention free rail travel for life!

I've got a mate who works for (the privatised arm of) British Rail IT, has been there since the 80s under the old days of BR, where they seemed to spend most of the day in the pub. He travels the country gratis and will do forever more, being one of these protected workers. 50,000 people still have that perk - unbelievable that it doesn't terminate when employment ends, but hey, that's good old Nationalised Industries for you!



anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
I work for a train maintaince company for virgin train.

Virgin lease the trains off a company. The trains are then maintained by the builder.

The amound of money around is amazing, the virgin dirvers get around 50 - 70k and 100% pension on retirement, working 2 runs up and down. The old BR staff get the best deals, new starters don't get a lot of the benifts.

and everyone is a contractor, admin staff are on about £16 per hour, which considering the agency takes a cut is alot. But the whole system needs improving, too much realiance on contracting and too much money wasted.

Edited by The Spruce goose on Monday 21st September 15:23

Rick101

6,959 posts

149 months

Halb

Original Poster:

53,012 posts

182 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
Indeed, t'was a great shame that Brunel lost the gauge war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railwa...

Atmospheric

5,305 posts

207 months

Monday 21st September 2015
quotequote all
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? laugh

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