Is MORE privatisation the answer?

[nuneatonmark]

Given that most of the highest ranked train operators for customer service and punctuality are either open access operators (that require no subsidy) such as Grand Central and Hull Trains or require little or no subsidy like Chiltern, is there an argument that we haven't gone far enough with this psuedo privatisation franchising lark?

Indeed, had the railways stayed totally public would projects such as the Chiltern upgrade gone ahead, the new route into Oxford or the new proposed BMW line opening? Would Hull, Bradford, Sunderland, Eaglescliffe now have decent services to London? I don't think they would, not to the extent they have, anyway.

Also, If I read the latest subsidy figures it looks like that if you leave out the Network Grant element of the subsidy, Transpennine Express and Northern Rail are the operators that require a huge amount of subsidy compared to all the rest of the franchises, should Northern passengers be paying more?

BTW, I am not necessarily supporting more privatisation but it seems odd that the more 'private' of companies often offer a better service. I hope to get some reasoned arguments both for and against this rather than the predictable political dogma.

 

[jopsuk]

It depends whether you want the railway to be a public service or a profit machine. Open Access rather than subsidised franchises would result in many, many places entirely loosing services.

 

[nuneatonmark]

It depends whether you want the railway to be a public service or a profit machine. Open Access rather than subsidised franchises would result in many, many places entirely loosing services.

Why? If it was all open access, then either local government or central government could choose to pay operators to run services much like what happens today?

 

[yorksrob]

Why? If it was all open access, then either local government or central government could choose to pay operators to run services much like what happens today?

In that case, you'd end up with private concerns cherry-picking the most profitable routes and leaving the taxpayer picking up a larger tab for the rest.

I think if we're keeping the current system it's worth exploring more of what has delivered for passengers, i.e. more open access whhere appropriate and perhaps some longer franchised. I wouldn't go for the upheaval of more sell-offs.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There's a very interesting piece by Michael Holden (CEO of Directly Operated Railways) in the November Modern Railways.
It's his personal view, but he describes the ECML scene of bitty open access overlaid on a core public franchise as "an unholy mess".
He thinks it might be better for long distance routes to be fully open access with everybody bidding for paths on a level playing field, and paying full whack access charges to Network Rail for the privilege.
This would make long distance routes more like the airline model.
He thinks the concession model (like LO and Merseyrail, or the Länder in Germany) is better for regional/local services.
If anybody should know about the right mix of public/private operation on the railways, it's him.
Interesting that he isn't in favour of renationalisation.

 

[Elecman]

I for one fully support the Concession route for all non intercity services, LOndon a Overground and Merseyrail prove the process works and delivers real benefits locally when the local commissioning body is fully in charge of the franchise process. I would suggest that the latest Northern franchise should be scrapped and relent as a concession under the control of the new Northern transport body who can actually specify the services they want and are willing to fund.
With regard to Intercity services these should either all Open Access or all rolled into 1 super franchise covering all the Intercity routes including TPE and Cross Country.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Given that most of the highest ranked train operators for customer service and punctuality are either open access operators (that require no subsidy) such as Grand Central and Hull Trains or require little or no subsidy like Chiltern, is there an argument that we haven't gone far enough with this psuedo privatisation franchising lark?

Indeed, had the railways stayed totally public would projects such as the Chiltern upgrade gone ahead, the new route into Oxford or the new proposed BMW line opening? Would Hull, Bradford, Sunderland, Eaglescliffe now have decent services to London? I don't think they would, not to the extent they have, anyway.

Also, If I read the latest subsidy figures it looks like that if you leave out the Network Grant element of the subsidy, Transpennine Express and Northern Rail are the operators that require a huge amount of subsidy compared to all the rest of the franchises, should Northern passengers be paying more?

BTW, I am not necessarily supporting more privatisation but it seems odd that the more 'private' of companies often offer a better service. I hope to get some reasoned arguments both for and against this rather than the predictable political dogma.

TPE aren't highly subsidised. Northern are as the better stock and routes are run by TPE. Rail North wanted the two franchises merged into a Merseyrail style railway but the government didn't listen.

Grand Central are making a loss at the moment and it's success is yet to be seen. Remember Wrexham and Shropshire? Some lines are feeders which are needed to support the mainlines but are not profitable for companies to run.

The best situation was if rail was nationalised.
East Coast is paying back more money to the taxpayer than all others.
And if the government ran it then MPs are accountable for improving transport for their area.
If you look at Germany and France you will see that the national rail companies have cheaper fares and more investment.

 

[AmeralGunson]

"The best situation was if rail was nationalised".

I presume that you're too young to remember what British Rail's often rude staff, often grotty trains and inhospitable stations were like.
Like the rose tinted spectacle wearers who speak in glowing terms of the glory days of the LNER, LMS et al in the 1930s whilst ignoring the clanking dirty trains on secondary lines that they ran people talk about B.R. as if it was wonderful. Yes, there were good bits but they were far outweighed by the majority which was dross.

 

[Yew]

I presume that you're too young to remember what British Rail's often rude staff, often grotty trains and inhospitable stations were like.

Oh, a bit like the railways today then...

 

[gordonthemoron]

BR was neither as good nor as bad as people make out. It did a decent job with what funds it had available and was cost effective but it also had it's faults as described above. There have certianly been some improvements since privatisation in some respects, e.g. service frequency, speed, new trains, but it's a pity that late night/sunday services are often no better than the 1980s

 

[Rhondda Rudie]

No it's not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's a very interesting piece by Michael Holden (CEO of Directly Operated Railways) in the November Modern Railways.
It's his personal view, but he describes the ECML scene of bitty open access overlaid on a core public franchise as "an unholy mess".
He thinks it might be better for long distance routes to be fully open access with everybody bidding for paths on a level playing field, and paying full whack access charges to Network Rail for the privilege.
This would make long distance routes more like the airline model.
He thinks the concession model (like LO and Merseyrail, or the Länder in Germany) is better for regional/local services.

The difficulty there is that Germany has a pretty much completely split IC/local function, whereas the UK doesn't. TPE is a perfect example of a blurred case.

I'm not sure UK-style high frequencies are achievable without this blurred situation.

Neil

 

[Greenback]

BR was neither as good nor as bad as people make out. It did a decent job with what funds it had available and was cost effective but it also had it's faults as described above. There have certianly been some improvements since privatisation in some respects, e.g. service frequency, speed, new trains, but it's a pity that late night/sunday services are often no better than the 1980s

I agree. I think the privatised railway is more similar to BR than it is different. There's no way to tell if the improvements that have come would not have happened under BR. For me, as someone who remember travelling by BR in the 1970's and 1980's, the experience of travelling by train is in some ways worse and in some ways better than back in the day. But overall, it's pretty much the same. The positives cancel out the negatives and vice versa.

 

[nuneatonmark]

Oh, a bit like the railways today then...

I find virtually all the staff on Virgin to be very pleasant, Chiltern too. London Midland are a bit of a mixed bag, CrossCountry are usually ok too. In general better customer service than under dear ol' BR.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

If it is, then it was a bl**dy stupid question... :roll:

 

[Bletchleyite]

I find virtually all the staff on Virgin to be very pleasant, Chiltern too. London Midland are a bit of a mixed bag, CrossCountry are usually ok too. In general better customer service than under dear ol' BR.

I think the railway as a whole is vastly better than the BR I remember, which would be from the early 1990s on. The big question it raises, though, is whether the much higher price the taxpayer/farepayer is paying for it is good value for the improved service, and whether another model could deliver an equivalent service for less money.

The Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey is worth a watch to see just how depressing BR in the North had got by the mid 1990s. I remember watching that and expecting wholesale closures to follow shortly.

Neil

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I think the railway as a whole is vastly better than the BR I remember, which would be from the early 1990s on. The big question it raises, though, is whether the much higher price the taxpayer/farepayer is paying for it is good value for the improved service, and whether another model could deliver an equivalent service for less money.

The Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey is worth a watch to see just how depressing BR in the North had got by the mid 1990s. I remember watching that and expecting wholesale closures to follow shortly.

Neil

I am from the North (Grimsby) and services were better with BR. The Barton line was hourly as was Lincoln line trains. Now both are 2hourly and run by a single 153 Super Sprinter.
We used to have services to Wales via Birmingham upto privatisation.
The Brigg line was made Saturdays only ready for privatisation.
Fares are higher from Grimsby to everywhere than what Hull has.
And the last good service to Manchester is in a consultation document for being axed to save money for TOCs and is to be replaced by the already crowded 2car Scunthorpe pacer.

 

[sprinterguy]

The Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey is worth a watch to see just how depressing BR in the North had got by the mid 1990s. I remember watching that and expecting wholesale closures to follow shortly.

That was a very good programme. I do, however, feel that it overplayed the “grimness” somewhat. The reality didn’t seem nearly that pessimistic to me at that time, though I was only young.

That’s not to say that the railway hasn’t come on leaps and bounds since, though. Just how clean and efficient major stations like Reading and Derby feel to me these days amazes me compared to their typical conditions in BR days.

It’s impossible to say whether BR would or would not have achieved the same. BR did a very good job of shedding its’ steam age outlook that it seemed to have clung to into the early eighties, once sectorisation came into play and I feel began to evolve into a far more dynamic organisation. The wholesale modernisation of northern rail services with Pacer and Sprinter trains (not to mention the electrification of the East Coast main line) certainly helped BR present a modern image going into the nineties, and things felt like they were on the up to me.

 

[tbtc]

There's a very interesting piece by Michael Holden (CEO of Directly Operated Railways) in the November Modern Railways.
It's his personal view, but he describes the ECML scene of bitty open access overlaid on a core public franchise as "an unholy mess".
He thinks it might be better for long distance routes to be fully open access with everybody bidding for paths on a level playing field, and paying full whack access charges to Network Rail for the privilege.
This would make long distance routes more like the airline model.
He thinks the concession model (like LO and Merseyrail, or the Länder in Germany) is better for regional/local services.
If anybody should know about the right mix of public/private operation on the railways, it's him.
Interesting that he isn't in favour of renationalisation.

Interesting.

It depends whether you want the railway to be a public service or a profit machine. Open Access rather than subsidised franchises would result in many, many places entirely loosing services.

Agreed.

For me, I'm all for public service, but there comes a point where a train with over a hundred seats isn't the answer to every single problem.

A fully profitable railway is unrealistic, but I wonder if you gave an English threshold of "a service that requires three times the average subsidy per passenger mile" (e.g. anything that required an average of under twenty pence per passenger mile was okay, but anything that required a subsidy of over twenty pence per passenger mile was reduced), how many places of size would lose their railways?

Subsidy per passenger mile quoted below:

• c2c 5.6
• Chiltern Railways 7.9
• CrossCountry 15.6
• East*Coast -0.6
• East Midlands Trains 13.1
• First Capital Connect -3.9
• First Great Western 6.4
• First TransPennine Express 16.8
• Greater Anglia 1.5
• London Midland 13.6
• Northern Rail 51.5
• Southeastern 12.4
• Southern 0.6
• South West Trains -1.7
• Virgin Trains 4.7
• Average 6.8p subsidy per passenger mile (the three TOCs paying a premium per passenger mile highlighted in bold)

...given the size of some of these franchises, we don't know how much the figures are skewed by a minority of good/bad routes within a franchise - but there are presumably a few Northern services that require a lot less subsidy than the 51.5p/ mile quoted (those where standing is regular), that would come under the "twenty pence per mile" I've suggested...

...which suggests that there are some routes where the subsidy per passenger mile is closer to a quid. Without knowing which size of places are going to be affected, it's hard to have any kind of debate about whether removing some of the subsidy would have a massive impact on large places.

TPE aren't highly subsidised

I'd say that they are.

They require a subsidy of around twice the National average (per passenger mile, which is the only sensible benchmark to apply), despite the fact that their franchise seemed to "cherry pick" the most lucrative bits of the old RRNE & RRNW operations.

It's easy to defend the Northern subsidy because "they have to deal with the unprofitable routes, since all the good routes went to TPE", but TPE are requiring fairly big subsidies too.

 

[deltic]

Not sure what the questions is to which the answer is more privatisation. The rail freight sector is an interesting pointer to what a private sector passenger railway could look like, with new players entering the market and competition on certain flows. Productivity has increased dramatically and there has been some considerable investment in new locomotives as well as maintaining some very old stock, whether customer service is better than in BR days I have no idea.

 

[455driver]

TPE aren't highly subsidised. Northern are as the better stock and routes are run by TPE. Rail North wanted the two franchises merged into a Merseyrail style railway but the government didn't listen.

Northern and TPE are a perfect example of what would happen if everything was operated by open access operators, the profitable bits are cherry picked (TPE) and the rest is left to be subsidised (Northern)!

Is that really what you want?

If you are old enough just look at what happened when the buses were deregulated, the Town/City Centres were flooded with buses and the socially necessary services were cut to the bone or withdrawn altogether.
PTEs and Councils then put these routes out to tender but nobody bothered bidding as they could make more money running around the town centres, or their bid was so high the PTEs wouldnt pay it.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

tbtc. Your list of subsidies is great. But as you can see on it TPE are not highly subsidised. It is about the same as the similar Cross Country franchise. Both run very long distance services with 2-5car trains.

 

[yorksrob]

There's a very interesting piece by Michael Holden (CEO of Directly Operated Railways) in the November Modern Railways.
It's his personal view, but he describes the ECML scene of bitty open access overlaid on a core public franchise as "an unholy mess".
He thinks it might be better for long distance routes to be fully open access with everybody bidding for paths on a level playing field, and paying full whack access charges to Network Rail for the privilege.
This would make long distance routes more like the airline model.
He thinks the concession model (like LO and Merseyrail, or the Länder in Germany) is better for regional/local services.
If anybody should know about the right mix of public/private operation on the railways, it's him.
Interesting that he isn't in favour of renationalisation.

Sounds like he's proposing an unholy free for all, soon to turn into an even bigger money-go-round than we have today. How do we allocate those paths that free operators don't fancy ?

The ECML is actually in a bit of a sweet spot at the moment. Theres enough rigidity to operate a frequent service whilst having open access comprtition to open up new areas and provide competition in terms of product and price.

Do we really want the railway run like an airline ? Only if it means them dolling out free gin in standard !

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Privatisation is a complete disaster.

All you have now is so called improved frequencies, but in many cases considerably slower journey times as a result, you have style over substance.

As for modern rolling stock it's a joke, you now have cramped fuel guzzling Voyagers, Meridians & 185s, you have Pongolinos with their awful windows and abysmal levels of storage, space & comfort.

And the biggest problem with all of these is that they're very heavy in weight and therefore increase the levels of track wear & tear. Who pays for this?

You do through the farebox. Then you have the complete BS of TDA which is just a money laundering exercise and not a lot more.

Put on top of this the large number of TOCs & FOCs, 20 TOC's & 7 FOCs, now work out how many very highly paid directors, managing directors & high end managers you have and how much "dead wood" you could cut out of it from that by putting it all back to just the regions: (WR, SR, LM, ER, ScR), that's just a ¼ of the number of TOCs, so just a ¼ of the highly paid mangers & directors & you could easily reintegrate the FOCs into each one again, plus each one has a share of XC like it used to be.

Again who pays for all of those seriously high executive salaries & pensions?

You do, through the farebox.

Another major issue is none of the existing lot works in harmony with each other it's always point scoring and it very much comes across to me & public that when things go wrong cross company ticket acceptance is only done very begrudgingly at best and it's a constant buck passing exercise when it comes to getting compensation.

Still, we'll never know what a privatised BR would have been like as we're stuck with this bleeding fiasco until such time as some MPs wake up, "smell the coffee" and realises how stupidly darn expensive this set up is and how much of a bureaucratic muddle, mess & nightmare it is and says let's go back to square one.

So if you were one's who voted Tory in 92 and don't like the mess we have now, just remember you voted for it, you darn well live with it. As for those who couldn't vote in 92 or weren't born then, well I hope you enjoy the darn awful railway network that the avaristic generations before you have given you now. Just live with it and if a party says about renationalising it, VOTE for it.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Not sure what the questions is to which the answer is more privatisation. The rail freight sector is an interesting pointer to what a private sector passenger railway could look like, with new players entering the market and competition on certain flows. Productivity has increased dramatically and there has been some considerable investment in new locomotives as well as maintaining some very old stock, whether customer service is better than in BR days I have no idea.

I can assure you that the customer service level for trainload movements under BR was excellent (not so for wagonload traffics) - huge amounts of time and effort were made to get these loads through on time - or better. Being a contract manager for some "perishable" and critical flows I got fed up with being rung at home by cheery Controllers saying that 6M87 (A Ford contract train from the bottom end of SW Wales was 30 late at Bromsgrove at 0300) - bless them !

 

[PHILIPE]

Privatisation resulted in the setting up of DFT (and his predecessors) ORR and and expensive joining all the dysfunctional bits together as well as Consultants to show them how to do it. These are extortionate costs that a politically dogmatic Government don't want to know about.

 

[DarloRich]

No one seems to suggest how the infrastructure would be maintained in any of these fanciful schemes - we have seen what happened the last time the maintenance of the railway line was left to the private sector and their need to make dividend payments. Any one fancy going there again....................

Given that most of the highest ranked train operators for customer service and punctuality are either open access operators (that require no subsidy) such as Grand Central and Hull Trains or require little or no subsidy like Chiltern, is there an argument that we haven't gone far enough with this psuedo privatisation franchising lark?

Yes i am sure more privitsation is the answer. What we really need as an industry is a MORE fractured operating model :roll:

I would be interested why , in your view, the Open Access operators achieve such high passenger satisfaction levels.

I think it is because they carry a low number of passengers to cleverly selected locations on few trains over a tightly defined, less intensively worked railway or in the case of Chiltern operate the majority of their trains through affluent commuter land.

Indeed, had the railways stayed totally public would projects such as the Chiltern upgrade gone ahead, the new route into Oxford or the new proposed BMW line opening? Would Hull, Bradford, Sunderland, Eaglescliffe now have decent services to London? I don't think they would, not to the extent they have, anyway.

Who do you think had to bail the wonderful private companies out of the clarts when the Evergreen project started to slip?

Hull, Bradford, Sunderland, Eaglescliffe (certainly Middlesbrough) all had direct services to London under BR. In fact they often had services to a wider range of destinations than they do now.

Also, If I read the latest subsidy figures it looks like that if you leave out the Network Grant element of the subsidy, Transpennine Express and Northern Rail are the operators that require a huge amount of subsidy compared to all the rest of the franchises, should Northern passengers be paying more?

I dont know how this has anything to do with privitisation but: No railway operating model is going to address the deep socio-economic issues facing "the north". In my view more privatisation will not make things better. A lower subsidy would lead to less services and reduced social and employment mobility. Not sure that is a good idea in an already struggling area!

BTW, I am not necessarily supporting more privatisation but it seems odd that the more 'private' of companies often offer a better service. I hope to get some reasoned arguments both for and against this rather than the predictable political dogma.

It sounds like you are! BTW your more "private" companies are all owned by massive PLC/international companies

Privatisation is a complete disaster.

All you have now is so called improved frequencies, but in many cases considerably slower journey times as a result, you have style over substance.

As for modern rolling stock it's a joke, you now have cramped fuel guzzling Voyagers, Meridians & 185s, you have Pongolinos with their awful windows and abysmal levels of storage, space & comfort.

And the biggest problem with all of these is that they're very heavy in weight and therefore increase the levels of track wear & tear. Who pays for this?

You do through the farebox. Then you have the complete BS of TDA which is just a money laundering exercise and not a lot more.

Put on top of this the large number of TOCs & FOCs, 20 TOC's & 7 FOCs, now work out how many very highly paid directors, managing directors & high end managers you have and how much "dead wood" you could cut out of it from that by putting it all back to just the regions: (WR, SR, LM, ER, ScR), that's just a ¼ of the number of TOCs, so just a ¼ of the highly paid mangers & directors & you could easily reintegrate the FOCs into each one again, plus each one has a share of XC like it used to be.

Again who pays for all of those seriously high executive salaries & pensions?

You do, through the farebox.

Another major issue is none of the existing lot works in harmony with each other it's always point scoring and it very much comes across to me & public that when things go wrong cross company ticket acceptance is only done very begrudgingly at best and it's a constant buck passing exercise when it comes to getting compensation.

Still, we'll never know what a privatised BR would have been like as we're stuck with this bleeding fiasco until such time as some MPs wake up, "smell the coffee" and realises how stupidly darn expensive this set up is and how much of a bureaucratic muddle, mess & nightmare it is and says let's go back to square one.

So if you were one's who voted Tory in 92 and don't like the mess we have now, just remember you voted for it, you darn well live with it. As for those who couldn't vote in 92 or weren't born then, well I hope you enjoy the darn awful railway network that the avaristic generations before you have given you now. Just live with it and if a party says about renationalising it, VOTE for it.

Well said - the terribly fractured nature of the industry leads to a level of role duplication that is beyond a joke while rival companies spend all their time trying to score points of each other like children rather than run a sensible joined up service. As for agreeing to maintenance access..........

I can assure you that the customer service level for trainload movements under BR was excellent (not so for wagonload traffics) - huge amounts of time and effort were made to get these loads through on time - or better.

God forbid an awful public operator might know what they are doing and do it well! Only private companies can do that! Don't you know you were supposed to tip all the goods in the river?

 

[Mugby]

Surely BR's strongest point was that they always had some spare capacity. Virtually any driver could drive any train as necessary, services could be strengthened as and when required, stock could be used on any service, relief trains were operated, connections were maintained and there was no "Nothing to do with us, it's a different company".

A private company won't have spare capacity, anything lying around idle is not earning a profit which is what it's all about. BR had it's faults, many of them but it was a unified network, it did it's best with what it had - and didn't do a bad job at that!

 

[PHILIPE]

Privatisation resulted in the setting up of DFT (and his predecessors) ORR and and expensive joining all the dysfunctional bits together as well as Consultants to show them how to do it. These are extortionate costs that a politically dogmatic Government don't want to know about.[/QUOTE

Oh yes, I forgot to mention TOCs train timers and the duplication of Network Rail ratifying them. There are also staff employed in transferring money round the different areas such as attribution for train delays.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Surely BR's strongest point was that they always had some spare capacity. Virtually any driver could drive any train as necessary, services could be strengthened as and when required, stock could be used on any service, relief trains were operated, connections were maintained and there was no "Nothing to do with us, it's a different company".

A private company won't have spare capacity, anything lying around idle is not earning a profit which is what it's all about. BR had it's faults, many of them but it was a unified network, it did it's best with what it had - and didn't do a bad job at that!

With BR a driver could be doing freight one day and then a class 1 passenger service the next and so the job was more involved and you gained massive route & traction knowledge and valuable handling experience.

Then there was LHCS which could easily be added to services to give extra capacity or removed if there was a little excess, a service could be tailored to what was needed at relatively short notice. Then you had simple couplings which allowed almost anything to couple to anything.

Now you have more varieties of mechanical & electrical coupling that Heinz! So if something from one company breaks down in front of another one, you could have serious issues because of the coupling compatibility or lack of! :roll:

At the end of the day privatisation is a shambles, a farce and it was designed by the avaristic, the incompetent and inept for the city boys to play trains.