Alternatives to UK Nationalisation

[ollyexe2808]

Posting but feel free to delete thread if there is one like this elsewhere.

I have noticed a fair amount of negativity from many about the upcoming creation of GBR and the wider nationalisation programme. I am in favour of the changes but would like to know more about the models that others would like to see the railway adopt if they are not in favour of Nationalisation.

I want to avoid this thread becoming mired in things like civil servant criticism etc. Instead I want those who oppose nationalisation to set out their view on what the alternative looks like and how it might operate.

For example, I wonder whether people on this forum prefer the original concept of GBR under the Johnson government as a concession model. There are other options available like full privatisation of track and train, keeping integration but independent of Government subsidy and interference. Or indeed would the halcyon days of post-1997 privatisation with full franchise contracts be preferred? Given some of the negativity around the GBR changes, I am curious for those who dislike the direction of travel to share their own view on what our railway could look like.

 

[Mike Machin]

Posting but feel free to delete thread if there is one like this elsewhere.

I have noticed a fair amount of negativity from many about the upcoming creation of GBR and the wider nationalisation programme. I am in favour of the changes but would like to know more about the models that others would like to see the railway adopt if they are not in favour of Nationalisation.

I want to avoid this thread becoming mired in things like civil servant criticism etc. Instead I want those who oppose nationalisation to set out their view on what the alternative looks like and how it might operate.

For example, I wonder whether people on this forum prefer the original concept of GBR under the Johnson government as a concession model. There are other options available like full privatisation of track and train, keeping integration but independent of Government subsidy and interference. Or indeed would the halcyon days of post-1997 privatisation with full franchise contracts be preferred? Given some of the negativity around the GBR changes, I am curious for those who dislike the direction of travel to share their own view on what our railway could look like.

I would favour the present/immediately previous method of having private operators running the contracts.

I feel this has numerous advantages. For example, if a contractor's standards fall below a certain metric, the contract can be terminated and a new contractor can be appointed. The staff employed work for the contractor, not the government, so the staff don't end up on the public sector payroll. It's also more difficult for unions to create a national rail strike.

Private companies have to account for their activities and performance to their shareholders. They also have their reputation and brand to protect, so this almost invariably leads to a more polished performance with helpful satff and clean trains. As someone who regularly travelled by rail in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember so many dismal, filthy trains and poor service and I somehow think we could be heading back into that scenario again.

If anything I would open up long-distance services to more competition and would look at fully privatising Cross-Country as a nationwide open access operator, not only operating their existing services, but taking on other longer-distance regional services and operating Inter-City services in and out of London too if the figures added up.

Public expenditure is always going to be tough and welfare, the NHS, education and increased defence spending will have to be any government's top spending priorities, so the railways will have to be content with any scraps and crumbs of funding, if indeed such funding is available. Going forward, the railways will need as much private sector investment as possible to prevent them from entering a downward spiral of neglect and contraction.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I would favour the present/immediately previous method of having private operators running the contracts.

I feel this has numerous advantages. For example, if a contractor's standards fall below a certain metric, the contract can be terminated and a new contractor can be appointed. The staff employed work for the contractor, not the government, so the staff don't end up on the public sector payroll. It's also more difficult for unions to create a national rail strike.

Private companies have to account for their activities and performance to their shareholders. They also have their reputation and brand to protect, so this almost invariably leads to a more polished performance with helpful satff and clean trains. As someone who regularly travelled by rail in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember so many dismal, filthy trains and poor service and I somehow think we could be heading back into that scenario again.

If anything I would open up long-distance services to more competition and would look at fully privatising Cross-Country as a nationwide open access operator, not only operating their existing services, but taking on other longer-distance regional services and operating Inter-City services in and out of London too if the figures added up.

Public expenditure is always going to be tough and welfare, the NHS, education and increased defence spending will have to be any government's top spending priorities, so the railways will have to be content with any scraps and crumbs of funding, if indeed such funding is available. Going forward, the railways will need as much private sector investment as possible to prevent them from entering a downward spiral of neglect and contraction.

On the other hand though, one could argue that without expenditure on these things the avliable pot of money will get smaller and smaller. We desperately need to make our cities more productive and that means at the very least more trams If not underground metros. Otherwise we’ll simply have an ever tightening budget and ever falling living standards.

To answer the OPs question, I think GBR is broadly the right way, although I’d be tempted to create a fully private GBR PLC. Although the balance sheet for it would be a nightmare.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For the original privatisation I'd have gone for BR plc. Aside from Royal Mail which is by its nature a dying business, most of the big privatisations like that have done well on the domestic and world stage, e.g. British Gas, BT etc. BR plc could have been a world-leading logistics company.

The EU might have made us tender some local operations like they have in Germany, but there'd still have been that rump of a vertically integrated railway.

As for GBR I think it needs to be an arms length company like BR was.

 

[Farigiraf]

If anything I would open up long-distance services to more competition and would look at fully privatising Cross-Country as a nationwide open access operator, not only operating their existing services, but taking on other longer-distance regional services and operating Inter-City services in and out of London too if the figures added up.

Who'll provide train services to Coleshill, Water Orton, Wilnecote, Willington, Hinckley, Narborough, South Wigston, Stamford, Oakham and Melton Mowbray then?
As I highly doubt calling at any of these stations is profitable.


To answer the thread topic, a German or Swiss model would work quite well if it remains free of political meddling. GBR runs the long-distance routes, with the regions contracting out local rail services. That way you can get an actually integrated network (particularly in places that also have bus franchising) as well as a bit of healthy competition. For example, I'd keep WMR and Merseyrail as they are, due to their effective branding and integration with bus & tram.
Would only work though if a national railcard or D-ticket equivalent was introduced, to prevent costs on long-distance routes skyrocketing without introducing intercity OAOs to the mix.

Note that this is completely different to the model where GBR would run regional trains while allowing as many OAOs as possible to operate intercity routes - similar to the French model. I'm guessing a Reform government would favour this model, as it prioritises lowering subsidy and putting most of the profits into private companies' pockets. Not great for transport integration though, as typically only the cities benefit from such a model, while rural rail declines even further.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There's not much point in debating the GBR nationalisation model as it's well on its way to becoming the law of the land (excluding freight, open access, Eurostar etc, and rolling stock ownership).
There is sill a void on how GBR will operate, as one company or several, which might become clear later this year.
I'm against closed-book monopolies like BR, but they were opening up before full privatisation with sectorisation and multiple business models.
That has to continue to maintain the transparency of the railway we achieved under the private model (ie TOC/NR accounts, and periodic contract reviews).

I see the unions want a single employer, but that would be a step too far I think.
Nobody should be able to bring the whole railway to a standstill like the BR unions could.
That means a degree of autonomy in whatever regional/sector model GBR decides to implement.

A future (non-Labour) government might want to move away from a full nationalisation model.
Reform, being the likely alternative, hasn't disclosed its longer term railway policy, but they wouldn't be keen on public ownership.

 

[Sorcerer]

I'm a firm believer that railways are a public service in which competition should be secondary, so I naturally don't favour privatisation. For one thing competition would be cherry-picked on premium InterCity routes because that's where profits are made. Even if capacity were available nobody is gunning to compete with Thameslink or Merseyrail but they're more than happy to try and compete or run alongside the likes of LNER and Avanti.

But if rail privatisation must be a thing, it should follow either the Big Four or Japan Railways model with proper integration and shared ownership of track and train operations. I wouldn't even be against a privatised British Railways having a property market either since Rail Plus Property is a proven model that can reduce subsidies and keep fares affordable. Some have said JR Group is basically a real estate company with rail operations on the side.

 

[eldomtom2]

The problem with the "Big Four" or "BR plc" models, of course, is what happens to the unprofitable lines?

 

[whoosh]

Given some of the negativity around the GBR changes, I am curious for those who dislike the direction of travel to share their own view on what our railway could look like.

I think at least some of the negativity, is that there has been no communication as to what the direction of travel is from the government, beyond a computer generated image of a train in a union jack dress.

"What's happening with the nationalisation of the railways?" People ask me. What with me working on the railway.

"No idea," I say.

""Aren't you all getting the same uniform?"

"No. I am getting a 'uniform refresh' this 'summer', which is the same colours as now, after we transfer to public ownership this month. It isn't a GBR branded or designed uniform."


"So... Don't tell me... It's a rudderless, directionless load of nonsense then...?"

"Er... I can't say for sure...!"

 

[Transilien]

But if rail privatisation must be a thing, it should follow either the Big Four or Japan Railways model with proper integration and shared ownership of track and train operations. I wouldn't even be against a privatised British Railways having a property market either since Rail Plus Property is a proven model that can reduce subsidies and keep fares affordable. Some have said JR Group is basically a real estate company with rail operations on the side.

While the JR model may work in Tokyo, it is not effective in rural areas like Hokkaido. Japan is seeing Beeching scale closures to their rural railways because of the expectation that JR is supposed to make a profit.

 

[Sorcerer]

While the JR model may work in Tokyo, it is not effective in rural areas like Hokkaido. Japan is seeing Beeching scale closures to their rural railways because of the expectation that JR is supposed to make a profit.

That's an inherent drawback with privatisation that made even Margaret Thatcher wary of privatisating the railways. Because private companies with shareholders are profit-driven they would have to cut back on lines that don't make a profit or don't feed into profitable routes, which makes rural lines particularly vulnerable even if they are essential to the communities around them. That's why I'd prefer a nationalised model like the Swiss.

 

[eldomtom2]

I think at least some of the negativity, is that there has been no communication as to what the direction of travel is from the government, beyond a computer generated image of a train in a union jack dress.

"What's happening with the nationalisation of the railways?" People ask me. What with me working on the railway.

"No idea," I say.

""Aren't you all getting the same uniform?"

"No. I am getting a 'uniform refresh' this 'summer', which is the same colours as now, after we transfer to public ownership this month. It isn't a GBR branded or designed uniform."


"So... Don't tell me... It's a rudderless, directionless load of nonsense then...?"

"Er... I can't say for sure...!"

Well, they seem to want to save that until the Railways Bill has been passed, which I suspect is partly because it's closer to the general election.

 

[BayPaul]

GBR looks like being an utter mess. I love the idea of public services being run for the public good, but having politicians and the civil service involved in running or buying anything always seems to end badly run, poorly specified, overly expensive, short term decision making.

I wonder if privatisation could have worked better with on-rail competition.

Private companies do well at innovation, marketing and improving services through competition. The franchise model meant that all of that happened in front of the DfT, who are terrible purchasers. Could having 3 or 4 national operators, with at least 2 operators on each major line have worked? Minor services would probably need to be tendered in a similar way to the franchise system.

I could imagine a system where say Virgin operated services across the country driving a lot of innovation and actually exciting customers onto the railways.

 

[rmHawk765]

Deleted

 

[irish_rail]

I think at least some of the negativity, is that there has been no communication as to what the direction of travel is from the government, beyond a computer generated image of a train in a union jack dress.

"What's happening with the nationalisation of the railways?" People ask me. What with me working on the railway.

"No idea," I say.

""Aren't you all getting the same uniform?"

"No. I am getting a 'uniform refresh' this 'summer', which is the same colours as now, after we transfer to public ownership this month. It isn't a GBR branded or designed uniform."


"So... Don't tell me... It's a rudderless, directionless load of nonsense then...?"

"Er... I can't say for sure...!"

Feel exactly the same. On the face of it it looks like the nationalisation is just going to be more of the same. Same livery and TOC name, same uniform, same restrictions over what traincrew will drive what and to where. Same fragmentation that has blighted the privatised railway.

 

[SynthD]

Could having 3 or 4 national operators, with at least 2 operators on each major line have worked?

When both want to run 100% of the busy trains and 0% of the quiet trains, how do you spread the trains through the day without involving the ‘terrible purchaser’?

 

[Farigiraf]

For one thing competition would be cherry-picked on premium InterCity routes because that's where profits are made.

By who? Certainly not the state - the more OAOs on these lines you have, the less of the profits go to the state. And is it really that important that e.g. FirstGroup makes money?
Profits can be made on any rail route if it's franchised out. The difference being that fully unregulated intercity rail brings huge profits to private operators, while on a franchised route, the state pays the operators for running a quality service.

Is the railway really something that should be treated like the airline market? With flights, everything goes directly from everywhere to everywhere. On a railway - even a high speed railway - trains form a part of an integrated network which doesn't just include high-speed expresses, it also includes regionals, commuter trains, metros, trams and buses. Trying to run intercity rail as a profitable 'airline' aligns with the (in my opinion misguided) view that regional rail is dead and cars are the future for shorter distance transport, as you effectively strip the rail network down to a small amount of profitable high-speed lines while letting regional rail deteriorate - Spain's the best example of this.

That doesn't mean that trains can't be fast and act as short-distance flight replacers, but to properly replace the catchment of an airport you have to serve the towns and villages around the airport, not just the biggest city.
If you start off with the goal of 'how can we make UK rail profitable' purely through ticket sales, ignoring benefits that can't be easily seen - e.g. increased business in areas served by rail, revenue from houses built near rail stations - it'll always eventually end up at a point where the mainlines become packed with trains (typically multiple operators departing at roughly the same time, to compete for the same lots of passengers) while anything that's remotely an inconvenience to the OAO gets its token once a day service or is dropped altogether.

 

[rmHawk765]

Reform, being the likely alternative, hasn't disclosed its longer term railway policy, but they wouldn't be keen on public ownership.

I think we'll just need to see how the GBR model fairs. We don't even fully know how it'll work yet, and once we see it in full force, only then can we make educated guesses as to what other politicians will do with it. Chances are, if it all works out, Reform won't bother doing anything with it.

Note that this is completely different to the model where GBR would run regional trains while allowing as many OAOs as possible to operate intercity routes - similar to the French model.

France has actually begun to also contract out regional routes. One of their south coast regions, Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur, had the operation of its regional trains contracted out to Transdev not too long ago and there were many benefits from this. As SNCF still sets the service levels and timetables, the major routes actually had a significant service uplift (e.g Marseille-Nice). Also, you mention the benefit of bus integration - indeed Transdev also operates the buses in this region now, all under one brand. Previously this region was known as one of the worst in France for delays, cancellations, expensive tickets, and poor service levels - sounds familiar doesn't it?

I could imagine a system where say Virgin operated services across the country driving a lot of innovation and actually exciting customers onto the railways.

To be fair I can see the reasoning behind this. Virgin isn't dependent on politicians that don't know what they're doing, it has a lot of money from other industries, and they actually have a track record of rail innovation. Without them the APT wouldn't've lead to anything at all. And I am sure that there are other companies that have this sort of track record (no pun intended) as well. The Government, to be quite frank, is probably not going to do any of this major experimenting and upgrading, which I see as one of the biggest issues with GBR and the current privatisation model.

 

[Farigiraf]

France has actually begun to also contract out regional routes. One of their south coast regions, Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur, had the operation of its regional trains contracted out to Transdev not too long ago and there were many benefits from this. As SNCF still sets the service levels and timetables, the major routes actually had a significant service uplift (e.g Marseille-Nice). Also, you mention the benefit of bus integration - indeed Transdev also operates the buses in this region now, all under one brand. Previously this region was known as one of the worst in France for delays, cancellations, expensive tickets, and poor service levels - sounds familiar doesn't it?

That is certainly a step in the right direction and I hope that similar results happen throughout the rest of France. There's still the challenge of increasing the amount of money SNCF Réseau spends on maintaining regional rail infrastructure, as private operators aren't (and shouldn't be) responsible for things like double-tracking and electrification. Things like implementing a clockface timetable or increasing capacity can't be easily done without strategic interventions on the line itself, but here's hoping that the positive results from southern France will encourage increased infrastructure spending (on more than just LGVs) as the government realises the potential.

 

[mike57]

I think the issue is that a lot (most?) of routes are taxpayer subsidised to some degree, which means they cannot be organised as profitable businesses without that subsidy. An AI answer puts the overall subsidy at 46% of costs for UK passenger railways, which is probably fairly accurate

Given that the public are paying nearly half of the operation then 'public ownership' looks like the right model, and I think having one 'customer facing' company makes sense, the current mish mash of ToCs results in all sorts of self inflicted problems. So ticketing, disruption handing, enforcement, stations and staffing and general conditions of travel should be organised on a national basis.

The national operation also set things like service level and own and run rolling stock, with central procurement.

However behind the scenes it probably makes sense to contract out a lot of the operations.

The 'ToC' model which is now being phased out has delivered a few improvements, but has also introduced a level of silo mentality which does not help the greater good, which is to have an efficent, reliable and integrated public transport system.

You also need to consider open access operators, if a company think they can create a market and make a profit then that is a good thing, but you then get into the issue of how much access are they allowed on routes which are pretty much at capacity. If you did away with them (which I think would be bad) then how would ensure that the service continues. Places like Hull, which currently benefit would probably be nack to the token 1 through service to KLondon in a couple of years.

The only other model I can see is a return to something like the 'big 4' where the companies have full resposibility for everything, rolling stock, staff, infrastructure, stations. They are given a subsidy and keep all fare box revenue, and a service level requirement is set in return for the subsidy and they told to get on with it. Cross company services used to operate in the days before nationalisation, so no doubt that could be made to work again to replicate Cross Country for example. Responsibility for minor improvements would fall to the company, and maybe each company could bid on government money for larger scale improvements for things like large scale electrification.

 

[BayPaul]

When both want to run 100% of the busy trains and 0% of the quiet trains, how do you spread the trains through the day without involving the ‘terrible purchaser’?

Oh I agree, not easy.
I was thinking something on the lines of operator 1 getting the xx:00 slot, and operator 2 getting the xx:30 slot on a particular service, and having a service level agreement to run them. Obviously DfT is still involved, but using competition to set standards rather than a spec might just be a better way of achieving a decent service.

Or of course it might not!

 

[whoosh]

Personally, I think the way to gain major and also incremental improvements, is to have one organisation being able to coherently make adjustments without infringing on any other organisation's 'rights of access' or 'fare income abstraction'.

Let's call it a 'system'.

The creation of increased connectivity by adding more stops to express trains, with widespread use of of multiple units, and a decrease of splitting and attaching - with more trains running full length all day or for the whole journey, and clockface timetables in many places, has led to a 'metroisation' of the main line railways. A trend that is likely to continue.

The point I'm making is that you don't run a metro - a system - with multiple operators.

 

[172007]

Talk of subsidy. What is never captured is when a transport route is removed then the NHS and other public bodies end up habing to provide exensive transport to get people to appintmenents and school etc.

 

[Farigiraf]

The creation of increased connectivity by adding more stops to express trains, with widespread use of of multiple units, and a decrease of splitting and attaching - with more trains running full length all day or for the whole journey, and clockface timetables in many places, has led to a 'metroisation' of the main line railways. A trend that is likely to continue.

The UK (particularly England) is not a place where there are miles and miles of land where practically no towns can be found - there's generally one every 10-20 miles.
If you want to run a rail network that's like the road network - i.e. everything connected to everything else, rather than just a few profitable corridors between the 10 biggest cities - then 'metroisation' is the correct solution.
We don't call the UK Motorway/A Road network a metro system though - it's just a system that connects everywhere it feasibly can.
So why is metroisation of rail (which doesn't have to mean slow - since high speed railways are always going to be really fast, even if they make a few strategic stops) seen as a bad thing by some people? What's fundamentally wrong with, for example, the Leeds-Liverpool Northern powerhouse corridor - it's not like they're going to build houses and factories all over the forests and Pennines. It simply means a dense and high quality rail system.
So I agree that it's a lot better to call it a system - in the same vein as why calling every cross-city railway a Crossrail is overcomplicating a fairly simple concept.

There are a number of ways to make such a system work without going to either extreme - either full market liberalisation or full state control. For example, the EU's new 'single ticketing' railway package aims to prevent ticketing becoming the mess that it is in numerous countries with various open access operations - shame that it won't apply to the UK, since it'd be quite useful for when Grand Central or Lumo cancel a train service and there's no ticket acceptance on LNER, or when your Eurostar train is late and you miss the connecting Avanti service and get no delay repay.

 

[SynthD]

To be fair I can see the reasoning behind this. Virgin isn't dependent on politicians that don't know what they're doing, it has a lot of money from other industries, and they actually have a track record of rail innovation. Without them the APT wouldn't've lead to anything at all. And I am sure that there are other companies that have this sort of track record (no pun intended) as well.

Virgin's innovation was within tight parameters as a TOC with oversight and regulators, and I'm not sure what you're crediting them with, the Class 390?. Another private company involved in rail was Railtrack, who failed to provide Virgin with 140mph track.

The 'ToC' model which is now being phased out has delivered a few improvements, but has also introduced a level of silo mentality which does not help the greater good, which is to have an efficent, reliable and integrated public transport system.

What would an unsiloed mentality look like? Cross training staff is an anti-union distraction, holding trains for connections already happens roughly as much as it should. We are seeing some small steps into TOC-and-asset single management, such as at Paddington.

I was thinking something on the lines of operator 1 getting the xx:00 slot, and operator 2 getting the xx:30 slot on a particular service, and having a service level agreement to run them. Obviously DfT is still involved, but using competition to set standards rather than a spec might just be a better way of achieving a decent service.

Are there specific meanings here? A set of standards might be the agreement to supply a service at those times.

So why is metroisation of rail (which doesn't have to mean slow - since high speed railways are always going to be really fast, even if they make a few strategic stops) seen as a bad thing by some people? What's fundamentally wrong with, for example, the Leeds-Liverpool Northern powerhouse corridor

In my limited experience, “a few strategic stops” is rarely a few. The train now on its way to Liverpool via Leeds has four stops after Leeds, is that what you had in mind?

 

[BayPaul]

Are there specific meanings here? A set of standards might be the agreement to supply a service at those times

An example would be that TOC1 has the xx:30 service from Paddington to Bristol, with a requirement to serve Reading, Swindon, Chippenham and Bath with 125mph stock with a capacity of at least xxx seats per day.

Other than that, I would see Network Rail managing the negotiations of exact timings to get the overall timetable to work, with the TOC given a large amount of flexibility on how they would manage this service.

Open fares would be set nationally, perhaps using a table based on distance, providing a cap that operators could undercut to compete against each other.

I would like to see the TOC having ownership of this service for a long period of years, to allow them to make investments, but with break points if they failed to meet standards of punctuality, satisfaction etc, benchmarked against their competitor on the same route.

 

[mike57]

What would an unsiloed mentality look like?

One small example from my own experience:

Having been heavily delayed in Manchester I arrived back in York having missed the last connection to Scarborough. No Trans-Pennine staff to be seen. I approached the LNER help desk and was told politely that it was 'not there problem' and I needed to talk to a member of (non existant) TPE staff. I wasn't happy, I didn't kick off but I was tired and fed up, so was quite abrupt. As I walked away thinking that I am going to have to pay for a taxi and fight to get it back from TPE an older LNER employee approached me "Why dont you sit over there and I will see what I can do" He disappeared and about 5 minutes later appeared and said "I've managed to sort something, I shouldn't really be doing this but I have arranged a taxi for you. Dont ask any questions, and just claim your delay repay."

I thanked him, and he said "Ive worked here for years and back in the day things like this would not have happened" No doubt thinking back to BR days

My view is all passenger facing staff should be 'GBR' or whatever you want to call it, and will deal with all issues, not siloed by ToC.

 

[martin butler]

My preferred option would be to bring back the big four type set up, where the company decided what stock they needed to suit their operation, but it would have to include such things as a standard coupling system, that's across all operators,

they would be responsible for track stations etc, across their region, they could be national companies, but would have to be at arm's length from the government of the day, each operator would have a freight arm, and a heritage arm, along with suitable coaching stock, but fully compliant with national requirements, marketing their own range of tours, using hired in traction, including steam links, recruited from preserved railways, on a part time roll,

 

[Farigiraf]

In my limited experience, “a few strategic stops” is rarely a few. The train now on its way to Liverpool via Leeds has four stops after Leeds, is that what you had in mind?

I don't see any problem with the Newcastle-Liverpool TPE service pattern. It does however show an example of a strategic stop - calling at Lea Green to provide outer St Helens 2 trains per hour. Despite it being a fast service, this stop makes a lot of sense given the capacity constraints on the line and isn't inconveniencing anyone really by calling there.

The Cleethorpes-Liverpool TPE is a more interesting example of supposedly express trains making numerous local stops. But again, what's more important: Birchwood, Irlam and Urmston having a usable train service, or everyone else having a 10 minute faster travel time?

I understand the fears about adding lots of extra stops to superfast trains but I don't really agree. If every LNER and Lumo service from London to Edinburgh started calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, Darlington, Durham, Morpeth and Berwick, it'd be at most 35 minutes slower than the current fastest express service. That's 35 minutes extra (which ultimately won't make a huge difference to most people) to give 8 stations an additional 1-2 trains an hour. Those 8 stations all have onward services though, so at the expense of 35 minutes of London-Edinburgh travellers' time, it'd be closer to 100 stations that would be benefited. Plus a bit of capacity would be freed up on the ECML. If your number one goal is to stop domestic aviation through making rail as fast and cheap as possible, then ultimately the solution is to build as much high speed rail as possible in order to be able to run many more fast trains without hurting regional connectivity.

 

[styles]

My criticism of the government's nationalisation strategy isn't what they're doing with GBR; it's what they're not doing.

For example, nationalising the rolling stock companies, which is where a lot of the money disappears.

Also being clearer on the role of open access operators which at the moment seems pretty unclear long-term.

I would arguably like the government to subsidise fares by running a commercial freight operator also.

Basically, I don't think GBR goes far enough.