Could the railways be nationalised and would this avoid the current franchising problems?

[WatcherZero]

The Dft squeezed BR as a source of revenue when it was nationalised starving it of investment funds, we had poor service and poor quality as epitomised by the "British Rail Sandwich". The governments of all stripes similarly underinvested in all the other nationalised industries running them into the ground and bleeding money from massive annual losses. Theres no reason to believe anything will be different this time round.

Just to list some companies that 'flourished' under public ownership:
BNFL, British Coal, British Steel, British Leyland, British Shipbuilders, British Telecom, British Waterways, British Airways, Royal Ordnance Factory, etc...

 

[Mag_seven]

we had poor service and poor quality as epitomised by the "British Rail Sandwich"

I would argue that the BR Business Sectors such as "Intercity" and "Network Southeast" under the leadership of career railwaymen such as Chris Green were much better than the mess we have now. The privatisation brigade have had their chance - time to go back to a single unified network based on the aforementioned.

 

[WatcherZero]

And as with the clue in the name, the Business sectors were being run to emulate private business practises and make a commercial return from passengers, rooting out the inefficiencies such as in supply and working practises from overstaffing and duplicated (internal) suppliers. Under BR between 1979 and 1994 ticket prices rose by 250% the rate of inflation, since privatisation rail fires have only risen by 150% the rate of inflation.

 

[Killingworth]

And as with the clue in the name, the Business sectors were being run to emulate private business practises and make a commercial return from passengers, rooting out the inefficiencies such as in supply and working practises from overstaffing and duplicated (internal) suppliers. Under BR between 1979 and 1994 ticket prices rose by 250% the rate of inflation, since privatisation rail fires have only risen by 150% the rate of inflation.

And despite those rises passenger numbers have increased sharply - although the consequent overcrowding is deterring even more on many lines at peak times! Can't all be bad - but it has to be noted that journeys by car, cycle, cruise ships and aircraft have also increased over the same period. We seem to like travelling, and many of us display masochism by using trains!

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

And as with the clue in the name, the Business sectors were being run to emulate private business practises and make a commercial return from passengers, rooting out the inefficiencies such as in supply and working practises from overstaffing and duplicated (internal) suppliers. Under BR between 1979 and 1994 ticket prices rose by 250% the rate of inflation, since privatisation rail fires have only risen by 150% the rate of inflation.

It's very difficult to make like for like comparisons, however. Passenger numbers have shot up massively since privatisation, meaning that although ticket prices are only moderately higher in real terms than they were at privatisation, the gross volume of passengers has increased total revenue massively.

 

[HH]

Freight is generally profitable - just look at the USA. If passenger railways were as profitable, they would still be running in private hands, or private companies would be developing them without government assistance.

Be careful! Freight in this country is heavily subsidised by passenger services, because they do not pay a fair amount for track access. If there were no passenger transport, there'd be pretty much no freight either. It's not like the US at all - in the US the freight companies own most of the infrastructure!

 

[HH]

It's very difficult to make like for like comparisons, however. Passenger numbers have shot up massively since privatisation, meaning that although ticket prices are only moderately higher in real terms than they were at privatisation, the gross volume of passengers has increased total revenue massively.

Nothing is quite that simple. Some fares have gone down massively in real terms, others (open tickets London-Manchester anyone?) have increased hugely.

Things would have changed under BR anyway!

These arguments are entirely fallacious - WE DO NOT KNOW what would have happened without privatisation. However, based on evidence, we could guess that Tory governments (of which there has been a majority, whatever the alleged colour of the party in power) would have slashed rail budgets as they've always done, apart from the occasional, over-funded vanity project.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I would argue that the BR Business Sectors such as "Intercity" and "Network Southeast" under the leadership of career railwaymen such as Chris Green were much better than the mess we have now. The privatisation brigade have had their chance - time to go back to a single unified network based on the aforementioned.

But it wasn't a single unified network.
Intercity, NSE and Regional Railways had 3 different business models which were heading for separation by the end.
One privatisation model, after BR plc, was to privatise the sectors, but that was rejected too as not radical enough.
The sectors were all improving but not fast enough, and RR in particular was a basket case with all the cost and low revenues.
We never saw how it would have turned out after the old Regional structure (where the big lumps of unstructured cost were) was folded into the sectors in 1993, because privatisation was imposed a year later.

 

[tbtc]

My recollections of BR in the 1990s are rather different. New trains (IC225s, Cl158s, Networkers), rolling programmes of electrification (ECML, NW Leeds), new stations opening all over the place (west Yorkshire station programme, robin hood line), innovative services like Thameslink and plans developing for the future (WCML, Thameslink2000, Crossrail). All this was brought to a crashing halt by a hiatus in investment caused by.... privatisation

This is the problem with nostalgia.

If you want to shower BR in praise for spending so much money on new 158s thirty years ago then surely you have to criticise them for chopping most of the 155s into single coach DMUs at around the same time?

It's odd how BR get the credit for all of the good things that happened in this era but none of the bad - e.g. the 158s are great trains but the decision to buy on a "two for three" basis (i.e. every two coach 158 replacing three carriages of withdrawn stock) was all the fault of the Government... similarly the Government made BR order all of the bad trains like Pacers but BR are great for ordering the good trains like Networkers... it's like this teflon organisation that get all of the decisions right (because all of the wrong decisions were the fault of someone else), like the football manager who takes credit for making good signings but blames the board/ agents for the signings that turned out to be bad.

The Government were bad for closing all of those stations but BR were great because they re-opened some of them. That kind of thing.

"Rolling programmes of electrification" sound great but it wasn't really a rolling programme, was it? It was a commitment to doing the bare minimum on the ECML (plus an extension up the Aire Valley into the marginal constituencies around Shipley) - they didn't even bother to fill in gaps like Neville Hill - Colton Junction - which means we have DMUs running from Newcastle to Morpeth because there wasn't the budget to wire the headshunt there! Ah, but that'll be the Government's fault, I guess. If it was a proper rolling electrification then there'd have been plans made in the 1980s (when work commenced) to do bits like Sunderland - Metro Centre too. It was no more a "rolling programme' than the GWML electrification has been.

Don't get me wrong - BR did a lot of good things (though they were better at style over substance - lots of grand visions for an amazing future whilst making local cuts) -it's just that they get the benefit of the doubt all the time on the Forum - e.g. anything that didn't work was the fault of the Government not giving them enough money or the threat of privatisation in the future stopping it.

I totally agree that simple reversal to a 1980's BR model would not work now. I for one would never call for a solution so simplistic and rose-tinted.

However public sector expenses are not the number one problem here. Don't get me wrong, they are a serious issue and something that needs addressing, but the real problem lies with the decision makers. The pubic sector is in crisis, it is increasingly run by ostriches who at the first sign of trouble either bury their heads or run away. I know from my own experience inside another, non-transport related area that any good decision makers are quickly wooed by the private sector, and those that rise to fill their positions are perfectly capable of making wild promises, but simply incapable of enabling them. Indeed such is the rot, this has now manifested itself not just in the pubic sector halls of power, but the political ones too. One of the early eliminated candidates for the leader of the Conservative party was a perfect example of how to fail in their job, but manage to run away & even get promoted. I'll leave you to guess who that is...

I'm afraid until there are wholesale, sweeping changes in the back rooms and corridors of the public sector, things can & will only get worse. We need experienced, knowledgeable people who understand the areas they are responsible for. Sadly the days of people working their way from bottom to top are long gone, experience means nothing, and talk is cheap. Welcome to UK plc circa 2019, where knowledge is worthless and BS and rhetoric priceless....

P.S. Sorry for the rant, but this I feel is at the heart of the problem with our rail infrastructure, as well as other things.

That sounds a fair rant - I just wish that others would realise that a "nationalised" BR would be more like the rest of the public sector we now see (how are motivation levels of Teachers/ Doctors etc?) and less like the "Island Of Sodor" version that some people seem to imagine would happen (where the Government give a Proper Railway Man a large sum of money every five years and leave him alone to make long term decisions, free of political interference). I exaggerate slightly, sure, but I certainly don't look at Local Government/ Education/ Healthcare/ Civil Service etc in 2019 and think "I wish the railway could be more like these areas". Truth is, everywhere seems failing, and any dreams of magic solutions are more about political dogma than practical improvements.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

One of the last decisions by BR, imposed by government around 1990, was to cut services by 10%, to meet the public sector recession targets of the day.
Early/late trains were cut, frequencies reduced, semi-fasts became stoppers, trains were shortened/withdrawn (particularly on Regional Railways).
Since privatisation there have been no significant cuts to services, the reverse in fact.
That's because the franchise contracts, once signed, are pretty much immutable for their lifetime, regardless of how the country is doing.
How do folk think a nationalised network would have fared in the 2010-15 period when other public sector bodies were subject to 30% austerity cuts?

 

[Indigo Soup]

"Rolling programmes of electrification" sound great but it wasn't really a rolling programme, was it? It was a commitment to doing the bare minimum on the ECML (plus an extension up the Aire Valley into the marginal constituencies around Shipley) - they didn't even bother to fill in gaps like Neville Hill - Colton Junction - which means we have DMUs running from Newcastle to Morpeth because there wasn't the budget to wire the headshunt there! Ah, but that'll be the Government's fault, I guess. If it was a proper rolling electrification then there'd have been plans made in the 1980s (when work commenced) to do bits like Sunderland - Metro Centre too. It was no more a "rolling programme' than the GWML electrification has been.

Wasn't the Aire Valley scheme funded by West Yorkshire PTE?

The rolling electrification was very much something that British Rail wanted, but couldn't get funding for. But it was the 'grand visions for the future' side of the organisation, and there were certainly cuts going on at the same time. The government ultimately decided how much money BR got, amongst all its other priorities. But BR decided how to spend that money.

How do folk think a nationalised network would have fared in the 2010-15 period when other public sector bodies were subject to 30% austerity cuts?

And this, for me, is the clincher. If it's a public sector body, as soon as the budget isn't looking so good, the funding disappears. Any public sector body inevitably hits the 'schools and hospitals' wall eventually; cuts over the last decade or so have actually gone past that point and the schools and hospitals are circling with daggers drawn, each eyeing up the others' purse.

Contracting out to the private sector means that not paying the agreed subsidies becomes breach of contract, and will be more expensive than just coughing up in the first place. The system we've got isn't ideal, but it's at least relatively protected from fluctuations in funding.

 

[quantinghome]

This is the problem with nostalgia.

If you want to shower BR in praise for spending so much money on new 158s thirty years ago then surely you have to criticise them for chopping most of the 155s into single coach DMUs at around the same time?

I come neither to praise nor bury BR. What I want to see is some evidence-based analysis when making comparisons between BR and our current set-up. So when statements like this are made:

Franchising has brought in far more new trains than the Treasury would ever have paid for up front.

I offer a rebuttal - that's not lionising BR, just attempting to make a sensible comparison.

The overwhelming difference between BR and the present is the government's willingness to pump considerably more money into the railways.

 

[quantinghome]

"Rolling programmes of electrification" sound great but it wasn't really a rolling programme, was it? It was a commitment to doing the bare minimum on the ECML (plus an extension up the Aire Valley into the marginal constituencies around Shipley) - they didn't even bother to fill in gaps like Neville Hill - Colton Junction - which means we have DMUs running from Newcastle to Morpeth because there wasn't the budget to wire the headshunt there! Ah, but that'll be the Government's fault, I guess. If it was a proper rolling electrification then there'd have been plans made in the 1980s (when work commenced) to do bits like Sunderland - Metro Centre too. It was no more a "rolling programme' than the GWML electrification has been.

There was a rather more electrification going on than that. The 80s and early 90s saw electrification extended to Norwich, Cambridge, Kings Lynn, Bedford, Paddington-Heathrow and the Birmingham Cross-City line. I'm pretty sure that trend would have continued had BR's sectorisation structure been left intact. I've not read Chris Green's paper "The future of InterCity rail in Britain" from 1993 but I imagine it would contain an interesting alternative history.

 

[edwin_m]

There was a rather more electrification going on than that. The 80s and early 90s saw electrification extended to Norwich, Cambridge, Kings Lynn, Bedford, Paddington-Heathrow and the Birmingham Cross-City line. I'm pretty sure that trend would have continued had BR's sectorisation structure been left intact. I've not read Chris Green's paper "The future of InterCity rail in Britain" from 1993 but I imagine it would contain an interesting alternative history.

But each scheme had to be signed off seprately by DfT or whatever they were called at the time. The essence of a rolling programme is that rather than committing individual schemes piecemeal the decision is made to procure a certain amount of electrification per year for a certain (fairly long) period into the future. In the days of BR this would have allowed them to keep a certain number of electrification teams in steady employment. It's a bit more difficult with private contractors, because someone else may win the next contract, but could perhaps be dealt with by some sort of agreement where a contractor provides a team for a certain period at an agreed price and Network Rail or DfT decides where they are to work.

 

[700007]

Absolutely not. Strongly against this as it implies you want DfT to be controlling more of the railways than they already do. Network Rail also aren't doing the best either (government not throwing enough money at them). I support more devolution from central government or body where possible with franchises or concessions like London Overground, TfL Rail and TfW Rail type of operation. Central government should directly be involved with the intercity franchises, i.e. East Coast, West Coast and CrossCountry.