Chris Grayling's comments on Japanese trains

[Fincra5]

I'm sure the Japanese Suburban trains have a higher build quality than Electrostars and Aventra's....

 

[Chester1]

Exporting trains is probably a very long way off! I would settle for Siemens, CAF and Alstrom having to build assembly plants to gain orders after brexit. Hitachi employ hundreds of people at their assembly plant which is better than none. If all of a major sellers have an assembly plant it becomes much more likely that one will start designing and building trains from scratch in the UK.

 

[yorksrob]

Exporting trains is probably a very long way off! I would settle for Siemens, CAF and Alstrom having to build assembly plants to gain orders after brexit. Hitachi employ hundreds of people at their assembly plant which is better than none. If all of a major sellers have an assembly plant it becomes much more likely that one will start designing and building trains from scratch in the UK.

Yes, I could agree with that, given that we are where we are.

 

[DT611]

We have also suppled a grand total of 26 cars of class 2700 DMUs and 10 cars of class 8200 EMUs. Hardly anything worth writing home about when Derby is supposed to be the centre of railway design.

the 2700 and 8200 cars were built in spain by alsthom. All though i think they were still GEC alsthom at the time, so is that where the british connection comes in? either way, be glad those abominations weren't produced in britain itself.

Washwood Heath closed in 2005....under Labour

Surely the plants have to take some of the blame, if the Junipers (and Coradias) hadn't been such a disaster, then SWT would presumably have a fleet of them instead of the Desiros.

It depends on whether the plants or the actual designs were the issue.

 

[Olaf]

That might have worked 50 years ago, but I'm afraid it works the other way round now.
The other (serious) problem is that the UK railway is so different from anyone else's that nobody is interested in our local solutions.

This is an industrial trend and design boutiques are not constrained product back-catalog; such businesses go after the requirement and it is their expertise that matters.

Manufacturing will continue to gravitate to low cost centres and that is not something the majors can avoid, nor want to, so developed countries are left to focus on premium services.

 

[Olaf]

Yes, we have a long history of laissez-faire economics in this country. It brought us slums and the potatoe famine.

All the major improvements to civic society, such as sanitation, education and and decent housing have been brought about by local Government or state intervention.
...

It is laissez-faire economics that paid for all these social benefits. They will soon disappear under a managed economy.

 

[yorksrob]

It is laissez-faire economics that paid for all these social benefits. They will soon disappear under a managed economy.

We didn't have laissez-faire economics when these improvements were made. We were already moving towards a mixed economy with some elements of state intervention, so your observation doesn't bear scrutiny. Moving away from unfettered market capitalism doesn't automatically lead to North Koreanisation, much as right wing comentators would like to characterise it as a binary decision.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

We didn't have laissez-faire economics when these improvements were made. We were already moving towards a mixed economy with some elements of state intervention, so your observation doesn't bear scrutiny. Moving away from unfettered market capitalism doesn't automatically lead to North Koreanisation, much as right wing comentators would like to characterise it as a binary decision.

Well, the 3rd (aka "middle") way was followed by Blair/Brown (also Heath in his time) and is now scorned.
You can have the Ukip view of the world or the Momentum view, but nothing in between.
Very sad.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Having built the 2700 / 8200 Class in Ireland is not a very big claim to fame, rather the opposite.

 

[Olaf]

We didn't have laissez-faire economics when these improvements were made. We were already moving towards a mixed economy with some elements of state intervention, so your observation doesn't bear scrutiny. Moving away from unfettered market capitalism doesn't automatically lead to North Koreanisation, much as right wing comentators would like to characterise it as a binary decision.

We have been using the model for the last few centuries, and the periods of managed intervention were caused long lasting damage.

Unfortunately we have used almost all the fruits of the Empire so unless there is a sudden increase in productivity soon, we better get used to loosing more of these luxuries that UK has taken for granted.

 

[Bornin1980s]

Regarding Grayling, my question is, did he ask Bomardier before trying to flog their product?

 

[yorksrob]

Well, the 3rd (aka "middle") way was followed by Blair/Brown (also Heath in his time) and is now scorned.
You can have the Ukip view of the world or the Momentum view, but nothing in between.
Very sad.

Blair/Brown liked to call their way the third way, but in economic terms, I don't think it was that at all. It seemed to consist of following mainly Thatcherite economic policy whilst diverting more of the proceeds towards in-work benefits. From a social point of view, centrist, but we had the sell off of the post office and even the fiasco of the privatisation of directory enquiries of all things.

In terms of industrial policy, there was nothing to stop British companies being sold off and relocated abroad, unlike in France for example. There was nothing to encourage industrial development in the North and re-balance the economy away from finance. The coalition talked fine words about an industrial development bank in the aftermath of the financial crisis, all of which has of course disappeared without a trace. There was nothing to head off the car crash that is the London housing market, and barely any investment in Council housing (leaving labour vulnerable to Mrs May parking her tanks on their lawn by releasing land for this).

No, it wasn't what I would call a centrist policy by any stretch.

 

[yorksrob]

We have been using the model for the last few centuries, and the periods of managed intervention were caused long lasting damage.

Unfortunately we have used almost all the fruits of the Empire so unless there is a sudden increase in productivity soon, we better get used to loosing more of these luxuries that UK has taken for granted.

Ah, productivity. Now you are talking like the Times economic pages.

Do you know who has much higher productivity than us ? I'll tell you - France. And guess what France also has that is much higher than us. Unemployment.

There's a pay-off between greater productivity per person and spreading the work around, and if you don't spread the work around, you still end up having to pay the way for all the people who are now unemployed, not to mention for all of the social ills associated with greater unemployment.

Yes, productivity is a favourite buzz-word at the moment, however I'd be wary of turning it into a religion.

In terms of the periods of managed intervention, exactly which managed interventions would you have done away with ? The construction of the sewer network ? The development of the National Grid ? The building of the public school system perhaps.

 

[MCR247]

Ah, productivity. Now you are talking like the Times economic pages.

Do you know who has much higher productivity than us ? I'll tell you - France. And guess what France also has that is much higher than us. Unemployment.

There's a pay-off between greater productivity per person and spreading the work around, and if you don't spread the work around, you still end up having to pay the way for all the people who are now unemployed, not to mention for all of the social ills associated with greater unemployment.

Yes, productivity is a favourite buzz-word at the moment, however I'd be wary of turning it into a religion.

In fairness to Olaf I don't think that was the kind of productivity he was talking about, I got the impression he was referring to the productivity of raw materials

 

[yorksrob]

In fairness to Olaf I don't think that was the kind of productivity he was talking about, I got the impression he was referring to the productivity of raw materials

Fair point if that is the case. Although it does illustrate the strategic need to keep the production of some raw materials (steel for example) domestically.

 

[Chester1]

Fair point if that is the case. Although it does illustrate the strategic need to keep the production of some raw materials (steel for example) domestically.

Which is slightly more on topic! There is a move towards electric furances recycling steel. Liberty Steel is reopening two and in the long term would like to open new electric furnaces. I am not sure how much of trains and tracks can be made of recycled steel. There are only two traditional furnaces left in the UK - Scunthorpe (The new "British Steel") and Port Talbot (Tata Steel).

 

[Master29]

I don't think he was right to say this. Japan has a well established rolling stock manufacturing industry. What does Britain have?

Precisely.