Is MORE privatisation the answer?

[alexl92]

I'm not old enough to have experienced the best/worst of BR and I don't know a huge amount about the way the privatisation system works but there are two things that I've observed:

1. The German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese (and others?) state railway companies all have stakes of varying sizes in our private TOCs. How is it that we've ended up with a shambles of a privatised railway system but these countries can operate their own nationalised railway service well enough to also take part in running ours (and use the profits to subsidise their own, from what I understand)? Is it not possible for the UK to have a modern, functional, as-close-to-profitable-as-possible Nationalised system?

2. As I understand it, the idea of privatisation is to encourage competition - the private companies compete to provide the best service, the best price etc etc. However, as it stands, this doesn't happen. If I want to travel from Leeds to Harrogate, Bradford, Wakefield or Blackpool, I have only one choice - Northern. Even if I want to go from Leeds to York or Huddersfield, I have the choice of Northern or TPE but the price is the same, it's just the journey time and the quality of the train that's different. To me, that says that fundamentally our privatised system is flawed.

I realise I've probably missed out on some major arguments here but as I say, I have no expertise - just the observations of a passenger who happens to be a little bit of an enthusiast.

 

[jopsuk]

We have the privatised system not because we couldn't run a nationalised system, but because of political ideology.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Absolutely spot on.

 

[Greenback]

Yes, that's pretty much correct. Of course, a nice little side effect of privatisation was a lot of additional work for consultants and lawyers, not to mention those pesky rolling stock leasing companies.

When you look at things form the politician's view at the time there were no negatives at all. The government divests itself of the railways, their friends in the professional classes get a fantastic deal out of it, and, more importantly, those in power cna look forward to non executive director positions when they retire years later

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, that's pretty much correct. Of course, a nice little side effect of privatisation was a lot of additional work for consultants and lawyers, not to mention those pesky rolling stock leasing companies.

When you look at things form the politician's view at the time there were no negatives at all. The government divests itself of the railways, their friends in the professional classes get a fantastic deal out of it, and, more importantly, those in power cna look forward to non executive director positions when they retire years later

Indeed, although I doubt that the various half baked ideas about how the network should be split up and even whether through ticketing should be retained that were in the news at the time, did much for the Tory party's credbility as a party of Government !

 

[Oscar]

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.

This is the model the EU is promoting through its Railway Packages. I personaly find the long distance open access airline model hugely problematic in terms of:

- capacity allocation - open access operators may have incentives to find maximum capacity but capacity will not be allocated at the same time so is unlikely to be used optimally
- cherry picking of core routes and neglect of others as there is no obligation to provide service - lots of evidence of loss of secondary services from other European countries
- loss of walk-up offer makes rail offer inflexible and therefore not competitive for large part of population, also not all "Intercity" journeys are long-distance, so limits modal shift from car but encourages people to go shopping in another city rather than their own.
- connections and shared/through ticketing without other services - separate "Intercity" and "regional" fare structures confusing and inflexible.

I can see some benefits in terms of passenger journey experience on core routes and in theory simplicity in organisation, but for me the negatives massively outweigh the positives and I would prefer a concession model for long-distance services as well.

In Germany long-distance passenger numbers have flatlined over the last 20 years (there was a dip and then an increase) - this has been partly due to the company saving money on infrastructure maintenance in Germany and buying up companies abroad and partly due to the way long-distance services have been managed. Passenger numbers on regional services have increased at a similar route to those in the UK despite also suffering from infrastructure problems. I guess wider social and economic factors will have played a role in creating this discrepancy (commuters often have little choice) but the difference in structures can't be dismissed as a cause. When ATOC present an average figure for Germany and compare it to the UK, remember that that doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[Greenback]

Indeed, although I doubt that the various half baked ideas about how the network should be split up and even whether through ticketing should be retained that were in the news at the time, did much for the Tory party's credbility as a party of Government !

Quite! Although I feel that was down to the general ignorance of the political class about matters which don't directly affect them rather than being part of a cynical plan to better themselves and their friends!

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is the model the EU is promoting through its Railway Packages.

I find it odd that that model is promoted by the EU when near enough none of its member states want it. Who does it represent?

Neil

 

[Greenback]

In the EU everyone gets what nobody wants!

 

[Oscar]

I find it odd that that model is promoted by the EU when near enough none of its member states want it. Who does it represent?

Neil

Well, several countries such as Germany and Italy implemented this model before the European Commission started promoting it vigorously. The Fourth Railway Package proposed (forgive any minor inaccuracies if I don't remember perfectly):
- standardising safety technologies and setting up a body to clear new rolling stock to run on the whole European network rather than national networks - this was passed
- preventing holding groups from both owning and maintaining infrastructure and running open access or contracted services - no passed, DB and SNCF lobbied against this, European Parliament rejected this though "Chinese wall" required between different sectors regarding finance, European Commission accused Parliament of supporting vested interests, concern that rolling stock, timetable and infrastructure planning could not be co-ordinated
- open access rights must be granted for domestic as well as international services - passed by Parliament but in a form which is difficult to actually implement
- enforcing competitive tendering - Parliament delayed to a date in the 2020s

The European Commissioners are appointed by member states and the Commission propose legislation. The Parliament can amend and veto legislation but can't propose any.

 

[Greenback]

Sorry, should have said everyone in the EU gets what Germany wants!

I don't believe this at all, but I'm trying to infiltrate UKIP!

 

[pablo]

BR was "Getting there" if you are old enough to remember! But it was also carrying a lot of baggage. Some of which you can still detect on this thread, surprisingly.

The electrification of the WCML in the sixties was a major uplift; freightliners and other modernisations were occuring. The integration of the previous, separate networks was happening slowly. And so on until the end.

I'm one of the avoracious generation. I observe that organations become moribund at intervals and a major change is necessary to shake out the bigotry and protective practices that develop. All big industry is the same but private industry rises and declines without the same fuss.
Whether privatisation of the railway is good or bad remains to be seen. We've had barely twenty years of it and there is still time for improvement or re-shaping. A lot of the negatives mentioned on here are true. They need tackling but, certainly, there is no appetite nation-wide to return to nationalisation. More co-operation or integration seems desirable. I see something of a renaisance. Would BR have managed that earlier? We'll never know. We are stuck with what we've got for now and need to make the best of it.

See what the Lottery did to re-distribution politics? Doesn't get a mention anymore. Even political parties learn lessons eventually.

 

[alastair]

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.

While I am sure that was the case historically,did that not come to an end with the creation of the BR sectors(InterCity,Regional etc) where rolling stock and traincrews were allocated to specific sectors?

 

[HarleyDavidson]

While I am sure that was the case historically,did that not come to an end with the creation of the BR sectors(InterCity,Regional etc) where rolling stock and traincrews were allocated to specific sectors?

Yep. And that was down to political meddling AGAIN. It was a mild form of what privatisation was to bring. It was 5h17 like privatisation is.

Through that inept idea, drivers lost loads of route & traction knowledge and we now get to what we have today which is when things go wrong, you can't just go & fetch a loco, you have to hire one & a driver, you can't easily divert over a route because the crews don't know the diversions anymore, you can't easily swap crews about because they don't sign all of the same traction either.

Apparently VT aren't doing traincrew route refreshers over the S&C anymore because it's not cost effective and it's far easier & cheaper to replace the trains with coaches!

The biggest loser is the travelling public and it's going to get a lot worse, because do you think that franchise holders are going to pay for drivers/guards to learn diversionary routes, when its so much easier to just replace the train with a bus and/or taxi & let NR pick up the tab?

DaFT doesn't like or want that sort of thing where they see money being spent unnecessarily on things that make travelling easier. :roll:

 

[Busaholic]

Sorry, should have said everyone in the EU gets what Germany wants!

I don't believe this at all, but I'm trying to infiltrate UKIP!

That's because they're paying for most of it.

 

[yorksrob]

I find it odd that that model is promoted by the EU when near enough none of its member states want it. Who does it represent?

Neil

Whilst this is odd, it doesn't surprise me.

As much as Tory party complains about it, the EU seems to be complicit in the imposition of pseudo-thatcherite policies.

I'm afraid the argument that the nations of Europe must have identical postal systems, railway services etc "or else there'll be another world war" has always struck me as being the utmost drivel.

 

[Kneedown]

The bottom line is, the railway is there to provide a service, ie getting people from one point in the country to another. The advent of privatisation meant that the company running a given franchise intended to make a profit from doing so. Easy for an "Inter City" type franchise to do, but not so simple for one running a loss making local route.
If privatisation is to continue, then rather than continuing to keep long distance and regional franchises seperate, a long distance route should also be responsible for the regional services along, and feeding into the main route. This would mean that the losses made by the local route would be offset somewhat by the profit of the main route. It would also benefit passengers in providing better connectivity. Not everyone goes from London to Manchester only. They go on forwards to places on the local network surrounding Manchester.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I find it odd that that model is promoted by the EU when near enough none of its member states want it. Who does it represent?

It represents the Single Market and level-playing-field competition.
The aim of the Railway Packages is to open up state monopolies to cross-EU competition.
The state monopolies are of course against it, but are gradually being ground down.
DB is no longer the monolith it was and does not win all the tenders for services.
Italy is opening up, also Austria, Sweden and Czecho.
Arriva (a British outfit, remember, run from Sunderland) operates in several countries.
SNCF is taking a little longer to open up.
The state monopoly model is dying.
It's also incorrect to think that Germany, France etc are content for their state-owned railway to rack up billions in debt.
On balance I think most of them have worse structural problems than we do.
(Oh, and the UK has been in the lead in progressing the Single Market, and in EU enlargement).

 

[gordonthemoron]

Arriva are owned by DB (German)
Haven't the French jacked up track access charges to discourage competition to SNCF?

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Arriva - It's run by Donald, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy & Minnie to name but a few. Because it's a Mickey Mouse outfit that can't even run a decent bus service let alone a rail service.

Should be kicked out of the transport industry altogether.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Arriva are owned by DB (German)

So are Rolls Royce Motors and Bentley.
The point is that Britain can still benefit from foreign ownership.
It's not just a one-way street.
In rail, it's rather a pity that First, Stagecoach and the other UK-based rail groups have not taken advantage of the opportunities in Europe.
They seem to be fixated on the USA and buses.
Arriva did well in Europe, and got taken over by DB for their pains.