Any ideas what the Government is going to suggest?

[Zoe]

Oh come on! At BR's rate of rolling stock renewal we could expect Pendelinos on WCML in, oh, about 2030? Except we couldn't because BR woundn't have had the funding for them.

How about Intercity 250 before 2000?

 

[HSTEd]

Perhaps I'm imagining all those new trains, including those Pendelinos that whisk me to London in under 2 hours, with 3 trains an hour? I think I mentioned them a few times in this thread, and loads more besides. I'm not going to repeat it all here - you can go back and read the thread.

What evidence do yu have that a BR railway today would be even a fraction as good as what we have now? Their track record (pardon the pun) and the absence of privatisation-induced funding indicates it would in fact be a lot lot worse.

Well if we assume privatisation was never mooted and thus the years long drought of funding for actual capital investment to free resources to prepare for it never occured....

IC250 never gets cancelled due to the aforementioned lack of capital investment resources, which means we have 150mph operations along the WCML which gets us train times from London to Manchester in the 90-100 minutes range. (As opposed to 2hr8 of almost all trains today, Infact im not aware of any train that does the journey in under 2 hours).

Rolling rolling stock replacement continues as it had done, leading to the Pacers and Sprinters almost entirely gone by now, Thameslink 2000 actually gets finished somewhere near the original target date (guess what that was?) and Crossrail doesn't turn into a £20bn mess.
Most of the slammer fleet probably dissapears earlier than it did due to the Networker programme continuing at a nice gradual, cost effective, pace.

Lots of people don't die because of Railtrack incompetence and the electrification programme continues as it did during the 1980s, with the Midland Main Line and GWML already wired by now (if things continued as they were doing, with no reason to consider it changing).

It is likely the Mk 2 fleet in XC service would have been replaced by Cascaded Mk 3s (and possibly even newbuild Mk 4s/5s) from the West Coast and is probably well on the way to largely electric operation.

The stabilisation and icnrease of passenger numbers witnessed in the late 80s and early 90s continues and the railway is probably running smaller deficits than it did in the 80s after adjustment for inflation.

 

[CosherB]

How about Intercity 250 before 2000?

*sigh*

Zoe... it DIDN'T HAPPEN!

HSTEd - you dream of stuff that 'might have been'. Crikey, I might have been a multi millionair if I'd followed a different career route. 'Might have beens' are worthless! What butters bread is WHAT YOU ACTUALLY ACHIEVED!

 

[Zoe]

*sigh*

Zoe... it DIDN'T HAPPEN!

In the same way the GWR didn't build any HSTs.

 

[HSTEd]

*sigh*

Zoe... it DIDN'T HAPPEN!

No.... because the Government decided to spend the money meant for it on privatising the railways.

This by neccesity doesnt happen in a world where we consider privatisation was never undertaken in the first place.

You want us to tell you what BR would have looked like or not?

 

[yorksrob]

Oh come on! At BR's rate of rolling stock renewal we could expect Pendelinos on WCML in, oh, about 2030? Except we couldn't because BR woundn't have had the funding for them.

Do pay attention! We've been though this on the thread; insufficient money means fewer, later, or even no new trains! We saw that in BR days!

Average age of rolling stock transferred to ROSCO's at privatisation = 16 years according to parliament:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmpubacc/782/78203.htm

Average age of rolling stock 2011-12 = 17.55 years according to ORR:

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/816411eb-1d67-41d4-88e5-37b791246d1e

You seem to have swallowed a manifesto.

 

[CosherB]

No.... because the Government decided to spend the money meant for it on privatising the railways.

Your proof of this? Do you KNOW that if privatisation hadn't happened that sufficient funds would be available to implement that project, and that BR would have been able to deliver it? Of course you don't - none of it!

HSTEd, it's just another of your 'might have beens'. Castles in the air!

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Perhaps I'm imagining all those new trains, including those Pendelinos that whisk me to London in under 2 hours, with 3 trains an hour? I think I mentioned them a few times in this thread, and loads more besides. I'm not going to repeat it all here - you can go back and read the thread....

Name one new train that a franchise holder has actually bought for the railway with it's own money.

Oh come on! At BR's rate of rolling stock renewal we could expect Pendelinos on WCML in, oh, about 2030? Except we couldn't because BR woundn't have had the funding for them.

Do pay attention! We've been though this on the thread; insufficient money means fewer, later, or even no new trains!

Maybe if BR had the money the TOCs get (relatively speaking) they may have done something with the APT project (which you may know shares some engineering principles with the Pendolino, something called tilt technology, maybe you've heard of it?), or developed new stock, we will never know now.

 

[ainsworth74]

'Might have beens' are worthless! What butters bread is WHAT YOU ACTUALLY ACHIEVED!

Well seeing as BR never got the opportunity to live into the late 90s and 00s we won't know what it might have done so lets look at some of the things it achieved it actually achieved instead (seeing as we're not allowed what ifs).

1980s:

• Replacement of vast numbers of 1st Gen DMUs with Pacers and Sprinters on Regional Railways
• The reopening of a number of old stations and the creation of several new stations in various regions all over the RR area of operations.
• Full scale route modernisation of the Chiltern Mainline turning it from a dead and buried backwater to a revitalised main line which Chiltern the TOC built upon.
• Moving onto rolling stock in the NSE region:
• Chiltern - British Rail Class 165
• Great Eastern - British Rail Class 321
• Great Northern - British Rail Class 365
• Island Line - British Rail Class 483 (LU 1938 Stock)
• Kent Coast - British Rail Class 465, British Rail Class 466, British Rail Class 365
• North Downs - British Rail Class 165, British Rail Class 166
• Northampton Line - British Rail Class 321
• Solent and Wessex - British Rail Class 442
• South London Lines - British Rail Class 456
• Thames - British Rail Class 165, British Rail Class 166
• Thameslink British Rail Class 319
• Waterloo and City - British Rail Class 482 (LU 1992 Stock)
• West Anglia British Rail Class 317 and British Rail Class 322
• West of England British Rail Class 159

My friends are summoning me for tea otherwise I'd continue this list. However, food is more important than talking to you on the internet. Sorry

If I have time I'll continue later however.

 

[CosherB]

In the same way the GWR didn't build any HSTs.

GWR didn't build anything more advanced that the 'Kings'. So Stanier went from Swindon to Crewe where he developed arguably the finest British steam locomotive of all time - the Duchess pacific.

But what's that got to do with the price of fish?

 

[HSTEd]

Your proof of this? Do you KNOW that if privatisation hadn't happened that sufficient funds would be available to implement that project, and that BR would have been able to deliver it? Of course you don't - none of it!

HSTEd, it's just another of your 'might have beens'. Castles in the air!

So your saying that we arent allowed to use the actual BR plans from the 1990s to make our argument?
So how do you expect us to make any counterargument?

You are effectively denying the validity of any and all evidence that does not support your point.

This is not the way a rational person weighs up the evidence to come to a decision.

 

[Yew]

What government would build brand new stock when it knew it would be selling it off to private companies in a short amount of time, for a knock down rate?

 

[CosherB]

Maybe if BR had the money the TOCs get (relatively speaking) they may have done something with the APT project (which you may know shares some engineering principles with the Pendolino, something called tilt technology, maybe you've heard of it?), or developed new stock, we will never know now.

Exactly my point! You make it very well for me with just that example (even if you are patronising with it - I know a great deal about tilt technolgy and its history).

BR developed the technology... but the government didn't back it. So it was sold to the Italians. And then we bought it back in the form of the Pendelino.

A perfect example of why a state-owned railway will never be fit for purpose in UK. And if you'd read my previous posts, you'd know I've already said that few times in this thread.

 

[Zoe]

But what's that got to do with the price of fish?

The point is that just as someone didn't build something doesn't mean they wouldn't have done had they had the opportunity to. I'm sure the GWR could have produced a diesel train like the HST and BR could have produced the Intercity 250. Neither were given the opportunity to.

 

[CosherB]

So your saying that we arent allowed to use the actual BR plans from the 1990s to make our argument?
So how do you expect us to make any counterargument?

You are effectively denying the validity of any and all evidence that does not support your point.

This is not the way a rational person weighs up the evidence to come to a decision.

You're going round i circles, HS.

It's really very simple. You get no points for 'might have beens'. None for saying "I could have done that!".

You get points for implementing stuff. For DOING things. For MAKING THEM HAPPEN.

So the rational thing is - you compare what BR implemented (and heaven knows it had about 50 years to do it) compared to what came immediately after BR.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The point is that just as someone didn't build something doesn't mean they wouldn't have done had they had the opportunity to. I'm sure the GWR could have produced a diesel train like the HST and BR could have produced the Intercity 250. Neither were given the opportunity to.

Could have... could have.... could have... That doesn't cut it, Zoe! Results are all that counts.

The GWR never produced a steam loco more advanced than the 'King'. They could have (Stanier proved that at the LMS using Swindon principles). But they didn't.

It's not what you say you can do that counts, it's what you actually DO!

 

[Zoe]

Could have... could have.... could have... That doesn't cut it, Zoe! Results are all that counts.

The GWR never produced a steam loco more advanced than the 'King'. They could have (Stanier proved that at the LMS using Swindon principles). But they didn't.

It's not what you say you can do that counts, it's what you actually DO!

It's not possible to judge BR by results when they were never given the opportunity to build the trains that have been built in recent years.

 

[HSTEd]

Well for one thing I have my doubts that the electrification plans commited and actually carried out match the route mileage of London-Carstairs via Edinburgh and London-Skipton, let alone any of the other projects in the late BR era.

Essentially your argument is "I say privatisation improved the railways and any attempt you make to undermine my argument that a modern BR would be in a dire state is irrelevent because we will never know and thus I am right"

 

[CosherB]

It's not possible to judge BR by results when they were never given the opportunity to build the trains that have been built in recent years.

There is no other way to judge it than by results. By looking at what they did do, and what they didn't (APT is a perfect example of something they didn't do, and should have done, way before privatisation was on the horizon).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Essentially your argument is "I say privatisation improved the railways and any attempt you make to undermine my argument that a modern BR would be in a dire state is irrelevent because we will never know and thus I am right"

It's up to you to show that privatisation did not improve the railways, if that's what you think. Trying to second guess what BR might have done in the last 15 years is pointless, as I've already said more than once.

My argument is simply that we have a much better railway (from the users' point of view) now than we did in BR days, so privatisation was 'A Good Thing'.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

So, Captain Speaking, if I get your argument right, BR failed because Government didn't give it enough money and Privatisation works because the Government gives it vast amounts of money?

 

[Oswyntail]

Perhaps I'm imagining all those new trains, including those Pendelinos that whisk me to London in under 2 hours, with 3 trains an hour? I think I mentioned them a few times in this thread, and loads more besides. I'm not going to repeat it all here - you can go back and read the thread.

Yes, I have seen you banging on about these ad nauseam. But you cannot say that BR would not have produced new stock, because the evidence shows they were doing just that. This is not an example of TOC-generated "thinking outside the box". Please answer the question!

What evidence do yu have that a BR railway today would be even a fraction as good as what we have now? Their track record (pardon the pun) and the absence of privatisation-induced funding indicates it would in fact be a lot lot worse.

Of course there is no evidence, because BR is no longer with us, just as you have produced no evidence of anything the TOCs have done that was not being done by BR in the pre-privatisation period (allowing for changes in technology). The BR track record was not that bad, and, apart from the deliberate freeze period, the funding was in place and being used effectively; sectorisation was producing rapid benefits and, in some cases, profits..
I ask you again - what are the concrete examples of TOC-generated, "thinking outside the box" improvements that prove that privatisation is a good thing that has worked? Repeating your nonsense about BR being rubbish does not count as an answer.

 

[HSTEd]

My argument is simply that we have a much better railway (from the users' point of view) now than we did in BR days, so privatisation was 'A Good Thing'.

That is a correlation fallacy.

The Die Hard box set on my desk protects against fires because my university hall hasn't burned down since I got it.

 

[CosherB]

So, Captain Speaking, if I get your argument right, BR failed because Government didn't give it enough money and Privatisation works because the Government gives it vast amounts of money?

You're getting there, but you're too prescriptive. Money is a very large part of it, but culture comes into it as well.

And BR didn't 'fail' as such, and while privatisation does work, it's not perfect.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That is a correlation fallacy.

The Die Hard box set on my desk protects against fires because my university hall hasn't burned down since I got it.

That's an incorrect simile.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Culture? Not sure I get that to be honest. The Government sold the idea of privatisation on the basis it would bring in investment and at the same time mean that Government money could be spent on other things.

They got it badly wrong though, sure they had a quick fix from the sale of assets, but ultimately there has been no private investment and the Government is basically paying for everything.

Privatisation has been and still is inefficient and wasteful, I would hardly say it works, I mean, sure it works in the sense that trains run and people get about, but it hasn't achieved it's aims and in that respect it does not work.

 

[CosherB]

Hairyhanded, you talk rubbish. 'No private investement', eh? Actually, it's about £3,000,000,000 per year.

Here's a piece from the Green Party on privatisation.

The railways in the UK had been nationalised by the Atlee Labour government in 1947 and had gone into a steady decline until privatised by the Conservative government of John Major in 1996. The effect was dramatic. Privatisation increased the number of trains.

The improvement was not just in train numbers. They carried more passengers. Railway passenger kilometres remained remarkably stable through two World Wars, the Beeching cuts of the 1960's and the advent of the motorcar. However, quite extraordinary growth was established after privatisation. Quality of service initially also improved for some years after privatisation but started to decline, partly as a consequence of congestion of trains on the network.

The effect on freight was less dramatic. Apart from one relatively small company the road haulage industry was never nationalised and it thrived. In contrast under nationalisation rail freight declined steadily until a small upturn after privatisation in 1996.

The effect of privatisation was to increase investment in the railways. Private investment increased from near zero to about 3 billion per year but the total investment increased less than that because government investment fell by about 1.5 billion per year over the same period.

This was unfortunate since the additional private investment proved inadequate to correct the infrastructure weakness that had resulted from years of under investment while nationalised.

The general public were unhappy with the concept of rail privatisation, and their concerns were fanned by BBC commentators and the new Labour government of Tony Blair which had opposed privatization whilst in opposition. People were unreceptive to data that seemed to show that things were improving.


The message is clear for those who care about the environment and wish to shift passengers and freight from the roads to the railways. Privatisation is the way to achieve this. There may be a role for government railway subsidy but there should be no return to railway nationalisation. That would return the railways to the path of long term decline.

So all you BR-lovers, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Or just get real!

 

[Zoe]

Here's a piece from the Green Party on privatisation.

That piece is not from Green Party but from free market environmentalists. Now let's have a quote that's really from the Green Party:

It seems obvious that privatisation of the rail network has plunged the system into crisis yet it is also being mooted that Network Rail chiefs could see their pay packets rise to more than £1m a year. This is indicative of the reasons why our railways are in such astate - profits are put before public interest. Much of the work that is needed on the rail network is hampered by the extra bureaucracy and costs that have resulted from privatisation and fragmentation. For example, if a section of line has to be closed for repairs Network Rail have to pay the train operators compensation for the times when their trains are unable to run because the line is out of action - before privatisation this sort of compensation was not necessary because both the track and train operationwere part of the same business, British Rail.

The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has recently decided that some train services are to be cut because of congestion on the network. That means fewer passengers on the railways and more cars on the road, exactly the opposite of what should be happening. A much better solution to train congestion would be to increase track capacity, yet the funding is not there. Instead the SRA, in its new Strategic Plan published last Thursday, has decided to shelve major rail projects and put small improvements on ice because of lack of funding.

The Government's 10-year transport plan will fail to meet its targets for increased use of the railways and reductions in road traffic. While the £60bn earmarked for rail sounded impressive when announced back in 2000, since then it has become apparent that costs have increased and the private sector will not deliver the half that the government was expecting from it. Meanwhile the state of the rail network has been made worse by the privatisation of its maintenance. The people who seem to have most benefitedfrom the privatisation of the rail network are managers, accountants and lawyers - certainly not passengers.

The Conservatives created the mess in the first place by privatising the railways. The New Labour government has failed to sort it out. The answer seems simple - take the railways back into public ownership and re-integrate the operation of tracks and trains. This can be funded by scrapping the Government's road building plans, freeing up some £35bn. Until this happens, the rail network and all of its users face a bleak future.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

What is that investment?

 

[CosherB]

Meanwhile the state of the rail network has been made worse by the privatisation of its maintenance. The people who seem to have most benefitedfrom the privatisation of the rail network are managers, accountants and lawyers - certainly not passengers.

What complete tosh. That last statement alone is enough; my only connection with the railway is as a passenger, and using the trains today is a so much better experience that it ever was in BR days.

 

[Captain Chaos]

I find it interesting that you mis-quoted a piece that was supposed to be from The Green Party and then when presented with a genuine quote disagree with what they are saying.

The privatisation argument is rather like trying to find out the meaning of life. Everyone is going to have their own opinions on what it was like for them and everyone will have their own opinions on wether it was a success or not. No-one is either right or wrong.

 

[Wath Yard]

No-one is either right or wrong.

Except Captain Speaking with his dynamic, 'blue sky thinking' private sector silliness.

 

[D1009]

So any ideas what the government is going to suggest ?

Not sure whether among these 44 pages of political claptrap anyone's referred to Ian Walmsley's article in the current Modern Railways but I considered it quite thought provoking.