ANorthernGuard
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Railsigns, Excellent post btw
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Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?
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Quite so.
The big difference between state owned rail here and abroad is that abroad it gets proper levels of funding.
If you think UK government could simply have upped the BR subsidy to levels the railway enjoys today via the private sector, you don't understand politics.
Similar critcisms apply to your other points.
'Simplistic rot' puts it rather well, I think.
So how does that fit with the argument at the time Labour nationalised Railtrack that one of the driving forces behind the nationalisation was they were not prepared to increase investment while the railway infrastructure was in private hands?
blacknight
Member
Just how many on this forum are old enough to have travelled on BR in 70's & 80@s as an adult & have their own person experience of how BR operated.
Are the opponants of renationalisation just based on myths & old wives tales of late running trains, of which some were due to actually holding services to connect with other trains
hock:.
Look to the history books railways were in decline in the 1920's & by time of of post war nationalisation just about worn out. Enter the swinging 60's & a iffy Tory Minister for Transport with interests in road transport the rest is history.
If you are opposed to the return of BR then please don't complain about how railways are run today.
Are the opponants of renationalisation just based on myths & old wives tales of late running trains, of which some were due to actually holding services to connect with other trains
hock:.Look to the history books railways were in decline in the 1920's & by time of of post war nationalisation just about worn out. Enter the swinging 60's & a iffy Tory Minister for Transport with interests in road transport the rest is history.
If you are opposed to the return of BR then please don't complain about how railways are run today.
That's just it. I wrote out a response but thought better of filling the page to be honest!
The argument falls down at the moment you remind someone that the 1997 general election happened. No government of any colour would dare take the railways back into nationalised control.
Other European countries have very different situations - from the level of general taxation to the strength (or otherwise) of the unions, and as you say, the level of funding.
It is fanciful to imagine that this country could afford to continue the railways as they are currently run through a nationalised model. It would anchor the railways to the state in much the same way as the NHS currently is - where costs can spiral out of control with no improvement because the political consequences of admitting "Do you know what, maybe full state control is not the answer?" is seen as ballot box suicide.
Privatisation is flawed, we all accept that. I remember the dying days of BR, I don't want to revisit them.
The argument falls down at the moment you remind someone that the 1997 general election happened. No government of any colour would dare take the railways back into nationalised control.
Other European countries have very different situations - from the level of general taxation to the strength (or otherwise) of the unions, and as you say, the level of funding.
It is fanciful to imagine that this country could afford to continue the railways as they are currently run through a nationalised model. It would anchor the railways to the state in much the same way as the NHS currently is - where costs can spiral out of control with no improvement because the political consequences of admitting "Do you know what, maybe full state control is not the answer?" is seen as ballot box suicide.
Privatisation is flawed, we all accept that. I remember the dying days of BR, I don't want to revisit them.
blacknight
Member
If you are prepared to accecpt that flaw then no more complaints about running of the railways
So in its decline BR introduced new Pacer & Sprinter Class91 & Mk 4 coaching stock. What as privitisation done apart from change livery on the above?
PaxVobiscum
Established Member
Lots of pretty "Quality Street tin" uniforms for the staff?
Some of the staff began to look distinctly scruffy in late BR days with little sign of uniform in some places. Not everyone, of course, varied a lot, but all operatives seem to be either neatly uniformed or (increasingly) festooned in safety gear these days.
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blacknight
Member
After NatEx introducing see through shirts wouldn't use word quality & as for replacing service hat with beeny hat & badge. Classy
table38
Established Member
Pity really, some of it made sense until it descended into the usual political rant. :roll:
ANorthernGuard
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although he does have a point about the Tories lol, The Tories at the end of the day brought in a totally flawed Privatisation system, Labour fouled up by not even attempting to correct the serious mistakes the Tories made
PaxVobiscum
Established Member
Sorry for obscure reference. Photo shows what some TOC uniforms reminded me of when I first saw them. Didn't mean that the actual quality was good.
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blacknight
Member
Uniforms colour co-ordinated to match garish post privitisation liveriesSpecial project to make staff invisible when standing next to trains so passengers get used to idea of stations & trains being destaffed, so it wont be such a shock when stations & trains operate unmanned.
Special project to make staff invisible when standing next to trains so passengers get used to idea of stations & trains being destaffed, so it wont be such a shock when stations & trains operate unmanned.
What some - I guess particularly the younger members of the forum - seem to forget is that there was a period, in the lead-up to privatisation - when funding to BR for the rolling investment programmes was cut off. This seems to be extended backwards in the public recollection, so that we have the myth that BR was chronically underfunded, inefficient and run down throughout all the years since Beeching. Like most industries, it had to exist without a never-ending flow of gold, but it managed a darn sight better than some would have us believe.
And, as a matter of record, the industry has generally fared better under Tories than under labour!
And, as a matter of record, the industry has generally fared better under Tories than under labour!
Railtrack was not nationalized. Network Rail is still officially in the private sector.
hairyhandedfool
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I must admit I don't really remember train travel before the late 80s, but, as I understand it, the publicly given idea of privatisation was basically to create a railway that not only paid for itself, but actually became a source of revenue for the government. Franchising fits perfectly for this aim, a company pays to run part of the railway and it makes a profit on top of that.
As far as I know, the government paid companies to run the railway initially to allow stock to be replaced, etc, with a view to the companies ending up paying the Government. In the fifteen or so years since privatisation the government has not managed to reduce the cost (to the government) of the railway to a level anywhere near that which it was giving BR, nevermind get a profit from it.
We will never know what BR could have done with all that money, we will never know if that money could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't think these points are worth arguing about. I think we can, however, agree that Privatisation has not been good for the public who have and are still paying for it.
I do wonder why everyone who wants Nationalisation, thinks it has to happen overnight and why those who are against it thinks it has to be expensive.
What if the Government let the franchises run out and take over operations at that point? What if they continued to lease trains until they needed replacing (when new trains could be bought outright)? Would this cost half as much? Granted things like Network Rail might cost quite a bit and freight operations might be best left as they are, but this to me seems a much more economical route to take.
As far as I know, the government paid companies to run the railway initially to allow stock to be replaced, etc, with a view to the companies ending up paying the Government. In the fifteen or so years since privatisation the government has not managed to reduce the cost (to the government) of the railway to a level anywhere near that which it was giving BR, nevermind get a profit from it.
We will never know what BR could have done with all that money, we will never know if that money could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't think these points are worth arguing about. I think we can, however, agree that Privatisation has not been good for the public who have and are still paying for it.
I do wonder why everyone who wants Nationalisation, thinks it has to happen overnight and why those who are against it thinks it has to be expensive.
What if the Government let the franchises run out and take over operations at that point? What if they continued to lease trains until they needed replacing (when new trains could be bought outright)? Would this cost half as much? Granted things like Network Rail might cost quite a bit and freight operations might be best left as they are, but this to me seems a much more economical route to take.
A motion on this was actually passed at the 2004 Labour party conference but Gordon Brown overruled it.
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Not correct, it is owned by its members. Most of the members are not the government, it was not nationalized.
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Doesn't make it owned by the government though. If you think it's owned by the government, try running a Freedom Of Information request on them. You won't get very far.
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Who actually introduced that motion at the 2004 conference ?
Irrelevant. This is a direct quote from NR's website:
"There is no specific minimum or maximum number of Members. However, a majority of the Members must be Public Members. Under the companys current membership policy Public Members should not comprise more than 80% of the Members. At any one time there are about 100 Members in total.
They do not have any financial or economic interest in the company. This means that they do not receive dividends, share capital or any other form of payment from Network Rail, except for travel expenses."
table38
Established Member
That's a ridiculous argument, many branches of government are exempt from FOI
It's not irrelevant, FOI will be declined as it's not public sector. As for saying the members don't have any control over share capital, it's a company limited by guarantee there simply isn't any share capital to be owned by anyone.
Members are not technically owners so the wording I used above was not the best but actually it's a private company limited by guarantee so there isn't any share capital for anyone to own at all. Network Rail is not a nationalized company.
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Not it is not, as I said above Network Rail will decline a FOI request as they are not in the public sector.
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wilsontown
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That seems like an odd point to make, since privatisation there's been loads of new stock. You might not like it much, but there's plenty: Pendolinos, Voyagers, Turbostars, Electrostars, Desiros, 175s, 180s, 332s, 333s are all post-privatisation.
To be fair, the rolling stock from the 80s and 90s replaced far older stock (an awful lot of slamdoor stock for example) and nobody should have expected these 'new' trains to be replaced for a long time. BR did get a lot of new trains (I remember when the 317s were brand new, for example) but not quite enough to manage when usage increased. That has continued ever since.
The big problem (as I see it) was the failure to order new stock, or strengthen existing routes that saw huge growth, and that wasn't down to the TOCs (or even the ROSCOs) but the Government dictating what could, or couldn't, be built.
It seems that Labour was no different to the Tories in trying to keep costs down and trying to make do. In fact, I think it's even slightly unfair that TOCs were demanding new trains and weren't allowed them, and got most of the blame from the public with accusations of profiteering and so on.
Some TOCs did do a bad job, but others have worked hard to secure (or even buy) new stock and improve things with new timetables. FGW with its HSTs or FCC on the GN side with the various capacity improvements and optimisations with the DfT to reduce the congestion through the Welwyn viaduct at peak times. But FCC gets a load of flak on the TL side for problems that aren't all down to them, as it's one giant building site and they were short on rolling stock for years, then let down by problems with the late delivery (and subsequent faults) on the 377/5s.
I could go on with more examples and write thousands of words, but all it would prove is that there are good and bad things with both public and private ownership, but one common factor would be that the same people would invariably end up having to pay for it - us.
If BR was spending £1-2bn a year, and now we're spending £4bn or whatever, how much do we think BR would have been spending today, taking into account inflation, HSE rules, new regulations and so on? I'd love to know how much a nationalised train service would likely cost the tax payer, to properly judge if we'd be better off. I have a feeling that costs may have risen to pretty much where we are now. The only way we'd likely save money would be doing some dodgy accounting, as is common for so many Government projects. Spend today, hide the cost until tomorrow when we've long gone... Yet the tax payer is still around to pick up the pieces.
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The TSSA.
The members are not 'not technically owners', they are not the owners. The Government is. Network Rail has a vast amount of assets. Someone has to own those assets, if it isn't the members, and it doesn't have shareholders then it is the Government. It is Government owned.
It is not owned by the government. I say the members are technically not the owners as people would be expecting the board of a company to be accountable to the owners of the capital although it wasn't the best way of explaining it but as the members do not own any capital so I should not have referred to them as owners in any way. The government doesn't own Network Rail though. Network Rail though are accountable to the members they do have some similar roles to shareholders (owners of capital). As for ownership the assets, Network Rail Infastructure Limited which is a company limited by shares. These shares are owned by Network Rail Limited which is a company limited by gaurantee with no share capital available to be owned by anyone.
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blacknight
Member
Like Network Rail a private company in state hands but debt don't shown on Public Finances Books, & Gordon old fav trick of PFI funding claim the glory for the new shiney buildings, just don't mention paying for it & in 30 years time when its clapped out it belongs to the tax payer.
It's not owned by the state.
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