BBC News: Rail nationalisation not a silver bullet, says Labour

[alanbur]

BBC News: Rail nationalisation not a silver bullet, says Labour

Public ownership of the UK's railways is not a "silver bullet" for guaranteeing a better service for passengers, the transport secretary has said.

Heidi Alexander told a gathering of rail industry leaders in Manchester that cancellations on the state-run Northern are at "more than 10%" and many in the "region have been let down for too long".

Alexander also set out her priorities for the year ahead which include "reforming fares and ticketing" to ensure "a best price guarantee" as well as publishing performance data at stations.

But shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon said "quick fixes and hollow announcements will not improve services for passengers or drive economic growth".

Re-nationalising train operating companies was a key part of Labour's manifesto.

Northern was taken into public ownership under the Conservative government in 2020 but its performance has failed to improve.

Alexander said that she and Rail Minister Lord Peter Hendy will hold the Department for Transport Operator's (DfTO) "feet to the fire" to deliver Northern's published improvement plan, although she provided no further detail on how.

 

[Horizon22]

Well I think everyone here knew that it was never going to be a "silver bullet". Improvements can definitely be made sure and there are quick wins, but there are also fundamental structural issues and a shed load of funding needed if there wants to be a step-change in the industry. Changing the face of the operation does not alter 90% of how things work, as Northern passengers have found out.

 

[dk1]

Well I think everyone here knew that it was never going to be a "silver bullet". Improvements can definitely be made sure and there are quick wins, but there are also fundamental structural issues and a shed load of funding needed if there wants to be a step-change in the industry. Changing the face of the operation does not alter 90% of how things work, as Northern passengers have found out.

Hear hear. This one is going to run and run for years. I see no easy answer.

 

[alanbur]

Interesting that Northern Fail in particular are called out. Their stats since 24th December:

Cancellations	3,297
Alterations	3,931
TOTAL	7,228

 

[Llandudno]

Interesting that Northern Fail in particular are called out. Their stats since 24th December:

Cancellations	3,297
Alterations	3,931
TOTAL	7,228

Jeez, is that about 15% of what should actually run?

 

[43066]

Well I think everyone here knew that it was never going to be a "silver bullet". Improvements can definitely be made sure and there are quick wins, but there are also fundamental structural issues and a shed load of funding needed if there wants to be a step-change in the industry. Changing the face of the operation does not alter 90% of how things work, as Northern passengers have found out.

Absolutely.

I’m not at all sure re nationalisation will achieve anything, certainly not without extra funding. I’m not sure there’s any real consensus on what problem nationalisation is supposed to solve, or even what role the railway is supposed to fulfil, in the wider public consciousness.

Irrespective of that, the idea of renationalising the railway is something that for whatever reason seems to resonate with the public, hence the last government proposed it, and this government is continuing with it.

I doubt any more thought or analysis beyond “if we do this it’ll help us in the opinion polls” has gone into it. It’s popular with the unions, of course, but that’s just down to political dogma, as far as I can see.

 

[alanbur]

Jeez, is that about 15% of what should actually run?

I don't know how many were timetabled for that period, or of an easy way to find out automatically - I'm recording cancellations/alterations across all of Northern every 15mins but I haven't got a timetable summary feed, and from the APIs I've seen it looks like quite a bit of work to do. If someone has a pointer...

 

[Horizon22]

I don't know how many were timetabled for that period, or of an easy way to find out automatically - I'm recording cancellations/alterations across all of Northern every 15mins but I haven't got a timetable summary feed, and from the APIs I've seen it looks like quite a bit of work to do. If someone has a pointer...

They do self-publish quite a bit of data of course: https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/about-us/performance

8.7% of services cancelled/part-cancelled
6.1% of planned services pre-cancelled (P-coded)

(8th Dec - 4th Jan, Period 10).

 

[alanbur]

I found Northern's Northern Remedial Plan online - frankly it seems like a load of waffle about what's broken and how hard it's going to be to fix (which we all know already) and precious little detail on what they are actually doing about it. And I have some bad news for them - "AI" isn't going to fix it either.

 

[Andyh82]

This seems to be the first time they’ve openly admitted it, as during the years in opposition, the answer to anything negative regarding the railways (or indeed the buses) was to blame ‘Tory privatisation’ as the sole reason for any issue

 

[alanbur]

They do self-publish quite a bit of data of course: https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/about-us/performance

Thanks, I hadn't found that. Interesting to see "Services removed from the plan’ (also known in the industry as P-coding) are short notice planned changes to a timetable that can be made up to 10 pm the day before departure." because they appear to be P-coding past the 22:00 cutoff.

As I'm tracking the service alterations in near-real-time, I'd like just a list of what's supposed to be running each day in terms of origin/departs & destination/arrives, but I haven't yet figured out where best to get that from...

8.7% of services cancelled/part-cancelled
6.1% of planned services pre-cancelled (P-coded)

So yeah, 15% seems about right, and it was bad even by their abysmal standards over the Xmas / NY period.

 

[SynthD]

This seems to be the first time they’ve openly admitted it, as during the years in opposition, the answer to anything negative regarding the railways (or indeed the buses) was to blame ‘Tory privatisation’ as the sole reason for any issue

Both statements are compatible. We want private companies involved, but not in control, to achieve the best that can be reached in the medium and long term.

 

[jfowkes]

Government: "Rail privatisation not a silver bullet"
Industry: "What about some funding so we can expand and improve the network then?"
Government: "No." (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/sunday-times-report-on-railway-infrastructure-funding.280355/)

 

[JonathanH]

Government: "Rail privatisation not a silver bullet"
Industry: "What about some funding so we can expand and improve the network then?"
Government: "No."

Isn't the point that nationalisation does provide a small amount of additional funding, as less is (in theory) syphoned off to the private sector? I guess it may just be retained by the Treasury instead.

 

[185]

Jeez, is that about 15% of what should actually run?

Which is a little less than the 18% shortfall of staff required to cover all services including Sundays, and remove reliance on overtime.

Hiring those extra 18% is not economically feasible, thus the way forward is for Dafto to look at why, even when big sums of cash were being offered, staff complete their weekly hours and won't volunteer for overtime.

Is it the exec team? is it depot management? the new trains? is it the passengers? Tackle ALL of these and getting staff in would probably be easier, even for a minimal enhancement of time +¼ or +½, minimum nine hours.

 

[Cesarcollie]

Isn't the point that nationalisation does provide a small amount of additional funding, as less is (in theory) syphoned off to the private sector? I guess it may just be retained by the Treasury instead.

The risk, of course, is that the ‘small amount of additional funding’ is eaten up by more government officials (or consultants) in the centre to monitor/manage/interfere in what is going on, or by the RMT and others (as is their role!) ensuring that’s T&C are harmonised - but of course only upwards. Governments - whether local or central - don’t have a great track record of ‘running things’ (see education, NHS, social care for further details). There’s a real risk the money that was paid to the private sector is replaced, and probably exceeded, by all these other factors.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I’m not at all sure re nationalisation will achieve anything, certainly not without extra funding.

There's some things that should be relatively "quick and easy" fixes, I suppose - like a better, more seamless customer experience during disruption etc rather than a "not out train, not our passenger, not our problem" sort of attitude. Maybe a few other bits of joined up thinking along those sorts of lines. Some small financial savings from not paying out the "profit" to the TOCs/shareholders and probably a few top-level director salaries saved. Certainly nothing major, in any case.

I’m not sure there’s any real consensus on what problem nationalisation is supposed to solve, or even what role the railway is supposed to fulfil, in the wider public consciousness.

Being realistic, you've got to be aged about 50+ to have any real, meaningful memory of British Rail. I'm mid-30s and can vaguely remember some childhood trips during the transition years, but nothing anywhere near enough to comment on how good (or bad!) things were. There's some sort of rose-tinted urban myth that "everything was better in BR days" that society has clung onto that even people born post-privatisation believe. People don't really understand how the railways work; they "know" that the government decided to pay the "train drivers" and "let the old people freeze to death" - but simultaneously, everything is expensive and unreliable and overcrowded and dreadful because the "greedy private shareholders" are "stealing" all the profit. So they default back to "everything was better in the old days" and thus nationalisation is the only possible solution to fix the railway. Perhaps they remember being able to get a seat (because there were 50% fewer people travelling then than now), or not being faced with 68483 different fare options for the same journey (because they just went to the booking office, explained their journey and the booking clerk chose the appropriate option for them).

Sorry, bit of a ramble but basically nobody knows what they want. But they do know they don't like what we have now and they "know" things were better in the BR days.

 

[CC 72100]

Absolutely.

I’m not at all sure re nationalisation will achieve anything, certainly not without extra funding. I’m not sure there’s any real consensus on what problem nationalisation is supposed to solve, or even what role the railway is supposed to fulfil, in the wider public consciousness.

Irrespective of that, the idea of renationalising the railway is something that for whatever reason seems to resonate with the public, hence the last government proposed it, and this government is continuing with it.

I doubt any more thought or analysis beyond “if we do this it’ll help us in the opinion polls” has gone into it. It’s popular with the unions, of course, but that’s just down to political dogma, as far as I can see.

Top post - I think this covers all bases.

Anybody involved in the industry could have very easily stated how just changing the name above the door from * insert nasty private company here * to * DfT rail * wouldn't bring about the improvements the public would like.

However the concept of public ownership public transport was very appealing to the electorate.

 

[Mikey C]

Isn't the point that nationalisation does provide a small amount of additional funding, as less is (in theory) syphoned off to the private sector? I guess it may just be retained by the Treasury instead.

Are the train operating companies making much money now anyway? The biggest financial winners from privatisation at the start were the leasing companies who made a fortune out of legacy BR stock, and the future GBR will still continue to lease trains anyway.

 

[michael8]

Both statements are compatible. We want private companies involved, but not in control, to achieve the best that can be reached in the medium and long term.

This is very interesting and has opened up something new in my brain.

 

[styles]

To be honest, I'm more frustrated about graduated TOC nationalisation being referred to as 'nationalising the railways'.

I get that it's not a great public image underwriting the profits of companies operating natural monopolies, but if the central argument is about money for shareholders, it's not TOCs raking it in - it's the ROSCOs.

There's a massive hole in public understanding of how our railways are structured, operated, and financed. The media are complicit in this obsession over nationlising TOCs and the perception it's going to make drastic differences in reliability or fares.

 

[Jim the Jim]

Nationalisation should allow efficiency savings, by reducing overall organisational complexity. But you don't get that if you nationalise an individual TOC and continue to run it as a separate entity, and therefore effectively not that differently from when it was privatised.

 

[SynthD]

Nationalisation should allow efficiency savings, by reducing overall organisational complexity. But you don't get that if you nationalise an individual TOC and continue to run it as a separate entity, and therefore effectively not that differently from when it was privatised.

They have merged some parts, I believe the OLR has a shared delay repay team?

 

[Djgr]

They have merged some parts, I believe the OLR has a shared delay repay team?

That is a tiny sliver of the savings that should result from eliminating the organisational waste from duplicated services and inter-TOC (and similar) transactions.

 

[LMS 4F]

There's some things that should be relatively "quick and easy" fixes, I suppose - like a better, more seamless customer experience during disruption etc rather than a "not out train, not our passenger, not our problem" sort of attitude. Maybe a few other bits of joined up thinking along those sorts of lines. Some small financial savings from not paying out the "profit" to the TOCs/shareholders and probably a few top-level director salaries saved. Certainly nothing major, in any case.


Being realistic, you've got to be aged about 50+ to have any real, meaningful memory of British Rail. I'm mid-30s and can vaguely remember some childhood trips during the transition years, but nothing anywhere near enough to comment on how good (or bad!) things were. There's some sort of rose-tinted urban myth that "everything was better in BR days" that society has clung onto that even people born post-privatisation believe. People don't really understand how the railways work; they "know" that the government decided to pay the "train drivers" and "let the old people freeze to death" - but simultaneously, everything is expensive and unreliable and overcrowded and dreadful because the "greedy private shareholders" are "stealing" all the profit. So they default back to "everything was better in the old days" and thus nationalisation is the only possible solution to fix the railway. Perhaps they remember being able to get a seat (because there were 50% fewer people travelling then than now), or not being faced with 68483 different fare options for the same journey (because they just went to the booking office, explained their journey and the booking clerk chose the appropriate option for them).

Sorry, bit of a ramble but basically nobody knows what they want. But they do know they don't like what we have now and they "know" things were better in the BR days.

I can recall BR days, I am 77, and I regularly used the railway in the 60s and 70s to get to and from my Army postings.
On a Sunday evening I just went to Bedford and waited to see what turned up. The timetable was advisory at best. The trains were slower, dirtier and there were far less of them.
Some things were better such as Tickets but I for one wouldn’t go back to those days.
As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, it may come true.

 

[Carlisle]

We want private companies involved, but not in control,

We already have that under existing National Rail Contracts etc., even if structure, operation & oversight could do with significant improvement.

 

[43066]

I can recall BR days, I am 77, and I regularly used the railway in the 60s and 70s to get to and from my Army postings.
On a Sunday evening I just went to Bedford and waited to see what turned up. The timetable was advisory at best. The trains were slower, dirtier and there were far less of them.
Some things were better such as Tickets but I for one wouldn’t go back to those days.
As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, it may come true.

I’m also too young to properly remember it, and never used it as an adult, but most people I know who can remember it have the same view as you: it was pretty dire.

 

[jamiearmley]

Is it the exec team? is it depot management? the new trains? is it the passengers

It's subjective to each individual.

But for me, standing pressed against the saloon located door control panel on a short formed full and standing new train, with its associated rough riding, harsh lighting, inadequate air conditioning and non working toilet as standard, - while drunken passengers carouse around me - frequently hurling abuse at me for the short forming and the overcrowding - is enough for me to be less enthusiastic about working my Sunday rest day.

Give me a 158, where I can open a window, and I have my own space to work from regardless of the level of crowding, and where the suspension is suitable for spending long periods stood up on the unit, and I'm more likely to come into work when I'm not obliged to do so.

So for me, it's the new trains, and the level of overcrowding that we see on Sundays ( overcrowding that you generally experience while trundling past maintenance Depots that are full of stabled units). So I guess ultimately that comes down to the exec team.

As for depot management, they are in the main pretty awesome and I would do pretty much anything they asked me to do.

 

[talldave]

Nationalisation should allow efficiency savings, by reducing overall organisational complexity. But you don't get that if you nationalise an individual TOC and continue to run it as a separate entity, and therefore effectively not that differently from when it was privatised.

The problem with nationalisation is that nobody cares about waste, despite the surplus of ineffective managers knocking around the system.

It's all political posturing and will achieve nothing - apart from wasting shedloads more of our money in achieving that nothing.

 

[amahy]

Interesting that Northern Fail in particular are called out. Their stats since 24th December:

Cancellations	3,297
Alterations	3,931
TOTAL	7,228

Does anybody know where short formations come in these figures? Or if short formations are included at all? I assume they are not included, or that category would be off the charts!