BR vs privatisation
Discussion
hifihigh said:
As I understand it, we pay more in subs to the train operators than we paid to BR
I can believe that. However, it does not mean that we would have a better rail service than today if we had simply continued with the old BR + extra subsidy.hifihigh said:
but we get a worse service in return.
I guess different people have different experiences. As a result of a new job I have spent more time travelling by train in the last 6 months than I have in the previous 15 years and I haven't had any problems or complaints about the service.It would be interesting to see what the actual subsidy figures are for pre and post-privatisation and also compare them to the number of passenger journies (up from 735 million in 1994 to 1,258 million in 2009).
A double edged sword.
Whilst I was fully in support of railway privatisation because it ended the perpetual underinvestment caused by railway infrasrtucture projects being counted as Public Sector borrowing, what we ended up with is nationalisation in all but name, where the civil servants control everything.
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
Whilst I was fully in support of railway privatisation because it ended the perpetual underinvestment caused by railway infrasrtucture projects being counted as Public Sector borrowing, what we ended up with is nationalisation in all but name, where the civil servants control everything.
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
hifihigh said:
As I understand it, we pay more in subs to the train operators than we paid to BR but we get a worse service in return.
Whilst no fan of the railways today they are many times better and busier than in the BR days, anyone who harks back to BR either wasn't there or has a very poor memoryIts a bloody good job we aren't in BR days, old worn out infrastructure being maintained and faulted by lads that have just done the shift change in the local boozer.....
NR is about to make a massive investment in the renewals department, an absolute s
t load of us have gone over from maintenance to be part of this....
Start tomorrow, April 1st - how apt.
NR is about to make a massive investment in the renewals department, an absolute s
t load of us have gone over from maintenance to be part of this....Start tomorrow, April 1st - how apt.
GarryA said:
Its a bloody good job we aren't in BR days, old worn out infrastructure being maintained and faulted by lads that have just done the shift change in the local boozer.....
A different age of the world, but somehow the railway kept running anyway.The local boozer between Bath Road depot and the former St Phillips Marsh depot in Bristol was unoficially known as the "Enginemen's Arms"
If things were as bad then as the current Health & Safety nazis would have us believe, trains would have been flying off the road for one reason or another all day every day. But they didn't
But perhaps I'm being nostalgic
Podie said:
rs1952 said:
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
The TOCs run the railway and make the money. Network Rail have the handcuffs on them. Magog said:
Podie said:
rs1952 said:
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
The TOCs run the railway and make the money. Network Rail have the handcuffs on them. Podie said:
rs1952 said:
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
The TOCs run the railway and make the money. Network Rail have the handcuffs on them. V8mate said:
Podie said:
rs1952 said:
As somebody once said "Train Operating Companies have to get permission to breathe in, and they don't always get permission to breathe back out again."
The TOCs run the railway and make the money. Network Rail have the handcuffs on them. A train is late, the TOC is at fault. They pay the compensation on ThAT train. NR pay all subsequent delays.
A train is late due to track issues. NR pay all compensation, for all late trains.
Fundamentally, the railway was badly privatised. (I was actually in a Conservative Party only televised debate with Steve Norris in 1992 where I accused him of having a poor plan, but he carried on anyway and that's not important right now)
The privatisation was devised by lawyers rather than operators. This gave rise to the bizarre anomalies like the train delay compensation system. In the late 90s/early 00s some TOCs made all of their profit this way, for example. And, of course, that isn't right.
But on a 'we are where we are' basis, I disagree that TOCs have the easy life. Having worked with both TOCs and NR the latter is riddled with incompetence and bizarrely over-staffed. The former are so hand-cuffed through their contracts I'm really not sure why they bother. No ability to cease Union recognition, no ability to vary rolling stock lease contracts set by their predecessors are just a couple of examples. Essentially, the only flexibility is in the wage bill and that's exactly where the shareholders put the pressure and the customers notice it first.
Railways are a mug's game at the moment; I just wished potential operators would stop bidding for concessions for a while, forcing a review of the whole contractual setup.
The privatisation was devised by lawyers rather than operators. This gave rise to the bizarre anomalies like the train delay compensation system. In the late 90s/early 00s some TOCs made all of their profit this way, for example. And, of course, that isn't right.
But on a 'we are where we are' basis, I disagree that TOCs have the easy life. Having worked with both TOCs and NR the latter is riddled with incompetence and bizarrely over-staffed. The former are so hand-cuffed through their contracts I'm really not sure why they bother. No ability to cease Union recognition, no ability to vary rolling stock lease contracts set by their predecessors are just a couple of examples. Essentially, the only flexibility is in the wage bill and that's exactly where the shareholders put the pressure and the customers notice it first.
Railways are a mug's game at the moment; I just wished potential operators would stop bidding for concessions for a while, forcing a review of the whole contractual setup.
V8mate said:
Fundamentally, the railway was badly privatised. (I was actually in a Conservative Party only televised debate with Steve Norris in 1992 where I accused him of having a poor plan, but he carried on anyway and that's not important right now)
The privatisation was devised by lawyers rather than operators. This gave rise to the bizarre anomalies like the train delay compensation system. In the late 90s/early 00s some TOCs made all of their profit this way, for example. And, of course, that isn't right.
But on a 'we are where we are' basis, I disagree that TOCs have the easy life. Having worked with both TOCs and NR the latter is riddled with incompetence and bizarrely over-staffed. The former are so hand-cuffed through their contracts I'm really not sure why they bother. No ability to cease Union recognition, no ability to vary rolling stock lease contracts set by their predecessors are just a couple of examples. Essentially, the only flexibility is in the wage bill and that's exactly where the shareholders put the pressure and the customers notice it first.
Railways are a mug's game at the moment; I just wished potential operators would stop bidding for concessions for a while, forcing a review of the whole contractual setup.
That's the biggest load of sense I've seen written on PH for some time The privatisation was devised by lawyers rather than operators. This gave rise to the bizarre anomalies like the train delay compensation system. In the late 90s/early 00s some TOCs made all of their profit this way, for example. And, of course, that isn't right.
But on a 'we are where we are' basis, I disagree that TOCs have the easy life. Having worked with both TOCs and NR the latter is riddled with incompetence and bizarrely over-staffed. The former are so hand-cuffed through their contracts I'm really not sure why they bother. No ability to cease Union recognition, no ability to vary rolling stock lease contracts set by their predecessors are just a couple of examples. Essentially, the only flexibility is in the wage bill and that's exactly where the shareholders put the pressure and the customers notice it first.
Railways are a mug's game at the moment; I just wished potential operators would stop bidding for concessions for a while, forcing a review of the whole contractual setup.
So, currently not fit for purpose?
At least for a nation that considers itself "First World".
Which might mean the Nation should reconsider it's status.
Easy, affordable, mass transit, interconnected across the Nation, too much to ask?
That's what Government is for, is it not?
Wherever you look it's problems.
At least for a nation that considers itself "First World".
Which might mean the Nation should reconsider it's status.
Easy, affordable, mass transit, interconnected across the Nation, too much to ask?
That's what Government is for, is it not?
Wherever you look it's problems.
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