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Depends what you mean by perfectly good. Sleepers use what would otherwise be dead time - I can, and have, spent the evening in Edinburgh, go to sleep, and wake up the next morning in London. All the other alternatives usually compromise on something (sleep, waking up time, leaving earlier). The...

I, seriously, can't tell if this is satire. The North London Line service under the previous, privatized, Silverlink Metro franchise, for 10 years, wasn't very good. In 2007, TfL took over, and awarded the concession for London Overground to LOROL. Essentially, LOROL are just paid to...

So, your argument is that the infrastrastructure is managed best when run by a not-for-dividends company whose debt counts as part of the national debt. I'd quite happily accept such a structure to replace the current train operating companies! You're not separating what has been caused by...

There are probably some absolute numbers in the public domain too, but for now here's some per-mile data: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile

I don't know enough to comment on value for money. IEP is an interesting beast. The government has given a 27.5 year guarantee on the lease. In theory, this should give better value - the problem with ROSCOs is they have to price-in the risk of carriages going off-lease. With this risk removed...

Roads? People aren't saying this though. The hypothesis is that renationalising will remove various inefficiencies (ToC Profit, ROSCO profit, duplication of roles), which can be put towards investment or lower ticket prices or decreased subsidies or free cake for everyone. You might disagree...

Several good reasons for renationalistion have been given in this thread, as well as some good and interesting arguments in favour of (some form of) privatized system. You're trying to simplify a complex problem into a clear, simple answer.

Can you explain why it's not the point? I thought the discussion was whether the railways could be as/more/less successful under state control. In order to establish this, one needs to establish whether it's the difference between public and private that's the cause of recent growth, or if...

You keep relying on this notion that a company has to have an incentive of profit in order to be motivated to be successful. I'd be interested in proof of this. I'm also curious if you thus believe Network Rail would thus be better off being replaced with a private for-profit company in...

To be fair, Batman does have a point in that targetted schemes can be a good thing, for example, in removing through traffic from a town centre. But care needs to be taken that the scheme doesn't just increase capacity (for example: a scheme bypassing a town centre, so the town centrecan be...

Clearly, any nationalised industry that wouldn't be profitable on it's own can't be defined as profitable in the strictest sense. What I think is being argued is that you need to have some separation between the treasury and BR's books. Most likely, it would be set up so that the...

i think this is the key point, it's not just ToC profits that we're talking about (theoretically they're a payment for the ToC's skills/reward for taking risk, the problem in practice is the ability for a company to walk away and cut their losses). The current artificial structure creates...

Many people have explained to you how the current system allows the government to cut funding for the railways, and how a nationalised system would be no more risky in this respect. Can you provide us with a coherent argument, or some evidence, to support your alternative belief?

That's not all you're doing. No-one has said "nationalisation is the magic cure". They've just said they think it's better than the alternative. I don't see any reason to make such a statement unless you're trying to create a straw man. Ok, I'm out. Nothing will solve all the problems of the...

Why do you keep taking absurd generalisations of the opposite point of view to yours? What people are saying is, yes BR wasn't perfect, and privatization wasn't perfect, but, on balance, a properly structured nationalised railway would be better than the current privatised system. In the...

Having multiple brands in privatized-world has helped. In BR days, a bad experience on the train might cause you to say that BR are rubbish. Now, it's more likely to cause you to say "ToC X is rubbish". This has been replaced by plenty of moaning about certain commuter ToCs, but for other ToCs...

Would just replacing "London Thameslink/Crossrail" with "London Zone 1" be a good idea? Ok, I understand the idea of London Thameslink ticket, it's just a limited bit of extra validity, with no changing trains etc. and is priced accordingly. But isn't it partly price to obtain passengers who...

Hypothetically speaking, assuming Brand is telling the truth, would GA be able to gather enough evidence to prosecute. He seems to have admitted to misusing the barriers, would this be captured on CCTV? I realise that searching a whole day's footage might be a bit difficult, but if they...

They've got a system for having official company reps. I'd be disappointed if they wouldn't let you become a company rep - it would clearly be in the interest of forum users. But, their terms preventing company reps posting without authorisation/verification seem reasonable. There's a real...

I'm also curious why Northern didn't do anything this week. They've got a group of people giving advanced warning of their intention to not pay the fare at a certain time at a certain place. So why not be there ready for their arrival? I guess either practicalities (lack of staff, or higher...