Has privatisation really changed the network that much?

[emoaconr]

Although it has been a long time since privatisation in my lifetime, one of my distant family members, who emigrated to Australia back in the early 90's, recently flew over, and having used trains recently around the North West, was surprised of how privatisation hasn't had much effect on the Network itself, besides cosmetic upgrades and the obvious changes in branding. I can't say how much I agree with that statement, but it is for that reason why people who say "privatisation has ruined the railways" slightly bemuse me!

We say there are numerous train operating companies... however at the end of the day, the system is as centralised as it was under BR. Network infrastructure has somehow survived as a single national entity, and the TOCs themselves are, in essence, workers of ATOC. ATOC runs national ticketing, timetabling, standards and revenue-sharing systems. Who runs what, where and when is all very heavily regulated, and has little to do with the TOC. Although at the end of the day, the pocket of whom the profits go into differs from the BR era, as does the ownership of the rolling stock itself. But really, in terms of service provided and the way it is provided to passengers, how much have things actually changed? I guess the biggest losses since BR is the obvious saving of having a single monopoly organisation which owns everything, the innovation and development and the ability to run its own agenda, within reason.

Also, have similar privatisations in other countries changed the way things work?

 

[Swift-Deere]

where TOC's buy trains from has changed all BR trains were built in the UK and the trend of importing locos was started by Foster Yeoman in the mid 1980 with the class 59 and unfortunately this has carried on from there!!!

 

[daccer]

I worked for Br in the 80's but emigrated a few years back. I still go back to the UK every now and again and often travel on the network. I actually see a great difference in the network as a whole and because I only see it every couple of years the changes do strike me maybe more than someone who experiences the system every day.

The biggest change I see is that the network seems to have a vibrancy. Under BR there was always an air of gloomy despondency and if you look at pictures from the 70's and 80's things just seem to be a little bit dim compared to today (digital photos obviously help in this regard!! Whether it is the abundance of new liveries or just the constant changes that are stimulating it there does seem to be a vibrancy around the system that wasnt always there under BR.

I think Network rail are doing a decent job and the fact they have managed to squeeze so much money out of the Govt doesnt seem to hurt either. This extra finance allied to the realisation that the railways do seem to have a role now (allied to the advent of High speed rail) gives the impression to me that the railways are no longer in decline and that the vicous circle of BR decline has at long last been reversed.

 

[yorksrob]

Thats a very big question, which many of us will have partially touched upon in other posts.

I suppose squeezing more money out of the government is a great skill if the government's willing to be squeezed It's interesting to speculate what will happen if the government stops giving - and I think my point is that the last fifteen years have been benevolent for the railways, with governments providing considerably more subsidy and an unusually long period of sustained economic growth.

How much of the increase in passenger usage has been due to private enterprise, how much due to economic growth in the wider economy and how much due to public subsidy? Given the same resources and economic situation would BR as it was in the early 1990's have done worse, the same or better? It's impossible to say, though this is basically what the privatisation debate boils down to.

My gut feeling is that the current system is more expensive than it needs to be - for what it is. I don't remember much of BR from the 70's and early 80's, but I certainly remember Network SouthEast doing a reasonable job in the early nineties (See my posts on the "NXEC to be renationalised" thread). I agree with daccer that Network rail is doing alright - certainly better than Railtrack anyway.

 

[emoaconr]

The only bit of BR I remember was right at the end of its existence. The dirtyness of Wrexham General and the shabby look of the 101's made me assume that railways were an archaic and 'last resort' mode of transport for going long distances. I knew there was only a skeleton of a service between Shrewsbury-Wrexham-Chester, and the state of my local station on the Borderlands line was rather foul, and full of "naughty boys and girls" (a few years later... to be known as chavs!). Quite a contrast from the heritage railway, Llangollen Railway, which I had a number of journeys on.

The local services under First North Western were still, little and far between in comparison to other new TOC's just after privatisation. It wasn't really until when Wales & Borders / ATW (and essentially, the WAG) took over that services became serious, and I know a hell of a lot more people who travel by train now, who probably wouldn't have done back in 2003.

Of course, at my age I did not know what privatisation was! :P I didn't actually fully understand that BR was completely non-existent until about 2002!

 

[mrcheek]

where TOC's buy trains from has changed all BR trains were built in the UK and the trend of importing locos was started by Foster Yeoman in the mid 1980 with the class 59 and unfortunately this has carried on from there!!!

which has nothing whatsoever to do with privatisation

 

[Swift-Deere]

which has nothing whatsoever to do with privatisation

Er...actually it does because if the railways nationalised the government will want to support British jobs and the British economy so buy British rolling stock, private companies on the other hand look for the cheaper or more reliable option which is imported rolling stock

 

[Daimler]

Er...actually it does because if the railways nationalised the government will want to support British jobs and the British economy so buy British rolling stock, private companies on the other hand look for the cheaper or more reliable option which is imported rolling stock

Tell that to the police, driving round in 5 Series BMWs when the Jaguar XF is not only British-made, but a superior car.

 

[Swift-Deere]

Tell that to the police, driving round in 5 Series BMWs when the Jaguar XF is not only British-made, but a superior car.

to be fair most British built cars are crap the 5 series is cheaper, better and Jaguars owned by Tata which is Indian

 

[90019]

Tell that to the police, driving round in 5 Series BMWs when the Jaguar XF is not only British-made, but a superior car.

It's quite hard to buy a car before it's being made.
They've been buying the Beemers for years.

Why is the XF superior to a 5 Series?

 

[Daimler]

It's quite hard to buy a car before it's being made.
They've been buying the Beemers for years.

Why is the XF superior to a 5 Series?

The police buy 530ds (and I've seen '09 plate ones about). The XF diesel S is significantly faster. It's faster even than the 535d, and more economical too. Furthermore, it's reckoned to retain its value better and most magazines (indeed, pretty much every review) concludes it to be the better car.

And I agree with your first point. They should have been buying S-Types before.

But anyway, this is a rail forum, and if I get 'stuck in' to car talk I'll witter on for ever!

 

[Swift-Deere]

The police buy 530ds (and I've seen '09 plate ones about). The XF diesel S is both faster and more economical. Furthermore, it's reckoned to retain its value better and most magazines (indeed, pretty much every review) concludes it to be the better car.

And I agree with your first point. They should have been buying S-Types before.

But anyway, this is a rail forum, and if I get 'stuck in' to car talk I'll witter on for ever!

We should have Volvos for normal patrol cars and American "Cruisers" for pursuit cars and maybe the odd ford mustang

 

[daccer]

It is undeniable that the network has benefited from more subsidy in the last decade than was historically the case with BR. However this has helped stimulate the network and bring some much needed improvements. The recent upsurge in usage shows that there is a vast latent demand for railways in the UK and if the network is fit for purpose it will grow and a virtuous circle will form. What is not known is what happens if the tap gets turned off - will the network continue to grow due to natural momentum or will it stall and we get back to the make do and mend mentality of BR. I hope that economies are made by NR and future govts see that railway investment is a worthwhile usage of scarce funds.

 

[yorksrob]

The only bit of BR I remember was right at the end of its existence. The dirtyness of Wrexham General and the shabby look of the 101's made me assume that railways were an archaic and 'last resort' mode of transport for going long distances. I knew there was only a skeleton of a service between Shrewsbury-Wrexham-Chester, and the state of my local station on the Borderlands line was rather foul, and full of "naughty boys and girls" (a few years later... to be known as chavs!). Quite a contrast from the heritage railway, Llangollen Railway, which I had a number of journeys on.

The local services under First North Western were still, little and far between in comparison to other new TOC's just after privatisation. It wasn't really until when Wales & Borders / ATW (and essentially, the WAG) took over that services became serious, and I know a hell of a lot more people who travel by train now, who probably wouldn't have done back in 2003.

Of course, at my age I did not know what privatisation was! :P I didn't actually fully understand that BR was completely non-existent until about 2002!

I'm afraid I must confess, my experience of Regional Railways was practically nill at the time. I'm still not convinced that the improvements in areas such as yours aren't more to do with the increased subsidy rather than privatisation itself.

I suppose what really made me angry (and what still does to an extent) is that BR appeared to be deliberately run down and kept on a shoestring - yet when given the chance it managed to do rather well, an example being the total route modernisation in South East London. BR upgraded the track, replaced the signalling, upgraded several stations and built new trains. I wonder how much in comparison such an excercise would cost today. And as I've said on previous threads, this wasn't an isolated case. We had other route modernisations, electrification projects, new services - all with less fuss than seems to be the case nowadays. Yet the way some people go on you'd have thought BR was the Albanian state washing machine company (to paraphrase Red Dwarf). Needless to say, the powers that be were always quick to point out how "wasteful and inefficient" BR was, even though as I've said many times, the public subsidy was much less than it is today.

 

[90019]

We should have Volvos for normal patrol cars and American "Cruisers" for pursuit cars and maybe the odd ford mustang

God no, the US patrol cars are piles of sh*t. They designed for American roads and would be useless here.
The use of Volvos, well, would you be willing to fork out the extra cash for them? Especially considering that there isn't much need for the extra power and higher top speed of them within towns and cities.
And Mustangs would be sh*te for the same reasons as the patrol cars.

 

[Swift-Deere]

God no, the US patrol cars are piles of sh*t. They designed for American roads and would be useless here.
The use of Volvos, well, would you be willing to fork out the extra cash for them? Especially considering that there isn't much need for the extra power and higher top speed of them within towns and cities.
And Mustangs would be sh*te for the same reasons as the patrol cars.

Ok Maybe your right as far as practicalities are concerned but our police would look cooler in the american cars rather than tottering around in crappy Astra's

 

[Daimler]

Ok Maybe your right as far as practicalities are concerned but our police would look cooler in the american cars rather than tottering around in crappy Astra's

At least the Astra is made in Liverpool. How much longer that'll last though, I don't know.

 

[tbtc]

Could this thread be moved to the Police Car sub forum?

 

[Swift-Deere]

At least the Astra is made in Liverpool. How much longer that'll last though, I don't know.

Ellesmere port on the wirral not liverpool lol and Vauxhall is owned by GM (for now at least) which is American

 

[Daimler]

Ellesmere port on the wirral not liverpool lol and Vauxhall is owned by GM (for now at least) which is American

Close enough. And yes, it's precisely Vauxhall's current ownership (and concerns over selling it off) that make the factory so much at risk.

To return to the real subject of this thread (and pending the opening of a new 'police car' sub-forum ), I would say that - from my own limited experience, being only 18 - privatisation's biggest change, as far as daily passenger interface is concerned, is the variety of shiny different liveries - as others have commented upon.

Naturally, vast arrays of trains have been replaced - most notably where Mk1 EMUs previously operated, but I do wonder if this wouldn't have happened under BR anyway.

 

[Swift-Deere]

Ive remembered a big change the disappearance of the royal mail night mail trains

 

[yorksrob]

Close enough. And yes, it's precisely Vauxhall's current ownership (and concerns over selling it off) that make the factory so much at risk.

To return to the real subject of this thread (and pending the opening of a new 'police car' sub-forum ), I would say that - from my own limited experience, being only 18 - privatisation's biggest change, as far as daily passenger interface is concerned, is the variety of shiny different liveries - as others have commented upon.

Naturally, vast arrays of trains have been replaced - most notably where Mk1 EMUs previously operated, but I do wonder if this wouldn't have happened under BR anyway.

I read somewhere that Chris Green was planning to replace the longer distance MK1's as his next project after the suburban route modernisation, before privatisation intervened.

So privatisation definately had some benefits

 

[WillPS]

There are three issues I have with privatisation. The first is ROSCOs - who as far as I can tell have a DfT sanctioned license to print money.

The second and third are to do with the way the railway is split up. Firstly, rather than having one large network of trains, a company is given an arbitrary allocation of trains to run their services with. If this is not enough, then tough, new build is very rarely offered as an answer (it, again, must be sanctioned by the DfT).

Third, terms are applied to franchises which seem a lot like political punts rather than well-guided business cases.

For example, Norwich - Liverpool is normally run with a single 158. This is not enough, but East Midlands Trains don't have the resources to run longer trains. The reason for this is two fold:

1. They were not allocated enough Sprinters, especially ExpressSprinters. Because an allocation is fixed and must be adhered to, EMT cannot get more stock and in fact were left in the bizarre position of having to hand over carriages (the 158 centre cars) which they by then knew were needed, because they were not in their allocation.
2. They are franchised to run a service to Corby which far overservices the demand, meaning that the shorter Meridians and Pioneers are tied up running half-empty services whilst the Citylink route is left short on capacity.

Under a sensibly run national network, neither would happen. In the case of Corby, a service would build up as passengers demand, not come in full-throttle with no passengers to serve.

The network is overstretched, and the way it's broken up means we have TOCs fighting with one another to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to take possession of Pacers which were considered life expired at the time of privatisation. Investment has, by and large, been insufficient as a result of being hampered by official meddling (I'm thinking of the Voyagers and Pennines in particular here).

For some reason I don't quite understand, the DfT has to order stock for the TOCs to use... what the hell!? For a privatised system to work properly, surely ROSCOs themselves should be placing orders with Bombardier, Siemens etc. safe in the knowledge that there is a massive demand for these units... instead we have to wait for cogs of politics to turn.

The system is quite simply wrong. Either stop imposing impossible terms (anything beyond run these routes, probably), or take charge of the whole ship yourself. I prefer the latter.

 

[bengley]

Ticket prices are the most annoying change.

 

[emoaconr]

Ticket prices are the most annoying change.

I guess so. And it seems to be a bit of a postcode lottery too!

Back in Wrexham, I can travel a 2 mile 2-stop journey on a commuter service (incl railcard discount) for 45p. A similar length 2-stop journey on the Valley Lines in Cardiff costs me £1.15. (although a bus up North would cost me £1.70, and £1.50 in Cardiff on similar services)

Booking in advance is cheap enough for long-distance, but the problem with that is you can't predict when and where you can travel. I don't argue with a £6.60 fare from South to North Wales, but when it gets closer and closer up and over the £20 mark, it climbs up very steeply. Plus the fact you can't book advance for many journeys. But all in all, the rules surrounding fares and ticketing are pretty much based on BR standards, aren't they?

 

[Spaceflower]

I'm afraid I must confess, my experience of Regional Railways was practically nill at the time. I'm still not convinced that the improvements in areas such as yours aren't more to do with the increased subsidy rather than privatisation itself.

I suppose what really made me angry (and what still does to an extent) is that BR appeared to be deliberately run down and kept on a shoestring - yet when given the chance it managed to do rather well, an example being the total route modernisation in South East London. BR upgraded the track, replaced the signalling, upgraded several stations and built new trains. I wonder how much in comparison such an excercise would cost today. And as I've said on previous threads, this wasn't an isolated case. We had other route modernisations, electrification projects, new services - all with less fuss than seems to be the case nowadays. Yet the way some people go on you'd have thought BR was the Albanian state washing machine company (to paraphrase Red Dwarf). Needless to say, the powers that be were always quick to point out how "wasteful and inefficient" BR was, even though as I've said many times, the public subsidy was much less than it is today.

Not just SE but the same could be said for the ECML, which has always been very well run imo.
Unfortunately I don't think privatisation has had much of a positive effect on regional railways in my neck of the woods. Bar a lick of paint here and there, actual services are poorer than what they were. In fact Northern seem against any improvement to services, a point demonstrated by their unwillingness to back much needed station reopenings in East Durham, something local community groups and government have been campaigning towards for a while.

 

[nedchester]

Of course there have been changes to the network since privatisation. With the amount of government money going into the system since 1994 then I'd be disappointed and annoyed if it hadn't changed.

My concern is whether the money has been spent well. If the money that is presently invested into the privatised network was put into BR (as was) then I suspect the network would be better than is presently the case.

The problems as I see it since 1994 are:

1. Prices going through the roof for pay on the day fares. Not everyone wants to book months in advance
2. Rolling stock that is unfit for purpose particularly for long distance travel (Pendolino and Voyagers being prime example)
3. Lack of flexibility between operators. For example if a TOC wants to run a service out of 'their' area they can't because of franchise rules
4. Frequent use of buses as soon as 'engineering' works start.

I can think of more but these are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[HSTfan!!!]

My personal view of privatisation, is that between the TOCS and NR there is a bit of a blame culture going on, whereas if it was just BR (as still a lot of the travelling public still believe it is) there is no-one else to blame over problems.
Also TOC's are quite commonly not willing to help other TOC's where needed... okay there are situations where we help each other out, but it's not always 100% of the time.
Also a great deal of the current rolling stock used is unsuitable for the routes they serve.
Another thing, notably there are a lot less jobs than their used to be, TOC's aren't willing to pay more than they need to for staffing, and rather use what they can get away with - there is a lot of understaffing - at least at my part of the network.
Alot less freight, not many Royal mail workings anymore either. Alot of variety has been lost from many stations, I know in my station at one time, you would have worked between platforms, shunting, announcing, post/red star trains. There is little of that left now.
But as people say with time comes progress... allegedly

 

[furryfeet]

the types of tickets are similar to what BR had, but the prices under privatisation are far higher. Plus the restrictions on many walk on tickets now force people to either pay for a full price open ticket, or use the car instead.

Unfortunately due to loopholes in the governments regulation of pricing, added to the fact that franchises have been let to the highest premium bidder, I do not foresee this situation changing in the short term.

UNLESS someone at Merstham street has a brainwave and forces some price cuts on ATOC before the next election, in the hope of buying some votes !