IT IS the Government's duty, isn't it?

[support-uk-rail]

Hi again,

I'm sure a similar thread was up here not so long ago about Goverment and rail relations, but I can't find it, and it seems its died out....

My question is simple...

Should the Government be helping the UK rail industry more?

I'm pretty sure it should - with a constant chaotic nightmare surrounding fuel, pollution etc, more people should be taking the train.

It is therefore surely the Government's duty to persuade and encourage car-based commuters to hit the trains more often, and ensure it's in their price range.

My parents are divorcing soon and so my Mum won't be getting her staff PRIV pass anymore, so to drive up to East Anglia to see my grandmother (a twice yearly custom) and back works out just £20 more than by rail according to a website I'll try and find again.

This is shocking. Terrible.

I'm sure most of you lot are in favour, like me, of nationalisation - someone commented in these forums we've become a laughing stock in Europe because everyone else has punctual, reliable, affordable services with a nationalised operation and we're in privatisation in dribs and drabs with our services.

I beleive it's time to start pushing the Government to give rail a chance.

I read briefly recently in a magazine (RAIL I think) that 'NR have promised the new age of the train' {I didn't read the article }, I hope this is true.

It's such a similar answer, more train travel = more affordable travel and perhaps even a stronger economy.

Please comment!
Hakzi!

 

[jv3531]

Unfortunatly as regards the priv thing mate, that is how the system works - its the same on the buses.

Yes I do agree with you on the re-nationalisation front as at the moment there is too much to contend with. They keep pushing people to use public transport then sting them for it, or make it impossible to get cheap fares on the day by making everyone book in advance. My way of thinking is that if people find it cheap and "COST EFFECTIVE" then they will use it again. Sting 'em and they will look for alternatives.

Another problem is that if a service fails along way from its home base for example, in BR days if a unit or loco and stock were spare on shed 99% of the time as long as the driver signed the stock and it was cleared you'd just go and nick that to do the rest or return journey The stock would just then work the next return journey back and be swaped when the failed unit was working again. Now you have to apply to hire someone elses stock, then there is the charges then the access rights etc... it just goes on, by the time the service is cancelled then you get the compensation claims,penalty charges for not running the service etc....

Then there are staff, again in br days if staff at that point signed the route and were spare they could have worked the service required. Now, again you have hire chrages etc, taxi charge if necessary and so it goes on.

The general public aslo have no idea half the time becuase they don't know which tickets are valid on which trains, they can't get some cose they've missed deadlines ....

I could go on but I won't for now as theres enough to be going on with!:grin:

 

[RonS]

An interesting question. The present Government seems to carry the blame for what happens on our private railways of today. I would like to remind people that it was not a Labour government that privatised the railway. In fact they were strongly against Mrs Thatchers privatisation plans. As for re-nationalisation now the only people to benefit would be the shareholders, they would get a big fat payoff subsidised by the taxpayer. Leaving the Government with the massive job of running the countries railway. Again subsidised by the taxpayer. As to the question of getting more people onto trains please remember that serious overcrowding is already a problem. Which begs the question 'are fares to expensive'??.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Nationalisation needn't be that expensive, when a passenger francise ends it could revert to Network Rail or some new state owned TOC. Might be more of a problem with freight though

 

[me123]

I think maybe the services should be supported more by the government, but still retain privitisation for a while. I beleive that privitisation could be successful with longer-term franchises, like 30 years. This would allow and encourage long term investment from TOCs and could improve the railway service tenfold IMO.

I do think, though, that the government should show more of an interest across the UK, but particulaly in England. Surely they can see the potential of rail over road and certainly promoting use of a good railway service is the way forward. If the government came into the railways a bit more and extended franchises to allow investment, well that would trigger a slow but sure improvement in UK rail.

Failing that, nationalisation is the way to go.

All my opinion.

 

[A0]

An interesting question. The present Government seems to carry the blame for what happens on our private railways of today. I would like to remind people that it was not a Labour government that privatised the railway. In fact they were strongly against Mrs Thatchers privatisation plans. As for re-nationalisation now the only people to benefit would be the shareholders, they would get a big fat payoff subsidised by the taxpayer. Leaving the Government with the massive job of running the countries railway. Again subsidised by the taxpayer. As to the question of getting more people onto trains please remember that serious overcrowding is already a problem. Which begs the question 'are fares to expensive'??.

Correction time - It wasn't Mrs Thatcher who chose to privatise the rail network, it was actually her successor John Major's policy.

However, where I do agree with you is on the overcrowding / fares too expensive. Current usage stats show that there are more rail journeys being currently than at any time since the early 60s, similar story with freight, so there are clearly going to be capacity problems. Now the BR solution to this was invariably to raise fares to deter usage - if anybody doubts this statement, go checking the net - it happened, alot.

Perhaps a better solution would be for the government to interefere less in the running of the railways, after all the goverment (or one of it's QUANGOs at least) defines the services which run, the types of trains which run on these services, where new trains get allocated, where investment is made etc

I seem to recall the efforts of 'Central Railway' to create a new London - Manchester link by restoring parts of the old GC with investment in other key areas - no public money was sought or required. What happened ? The government refused to let it progress.

The rail network in this country grew pre 1945 with private companies. It was pruned by BR. Beeching takes the blame, but actually some of the most prolific closures - GC Mainline, Waverely route - weren't proposed by Beeching, instead Nationalised BR did those itself.

Nationalisation won't solve anything - look at Northern Wreck - though it will cost huge amounts of money and become an accounting black hole.

 

[Mojo]

Sorry, but those who think that privatisation is the reason for such high fares are being a bit naïve. This Government is majorly interfering with the operation of our railways and by demanding more from the private operators by accepting higher premiums and offering lower subsidies. It is a stated aim of the Department for Transport to reduce subsidies being paid to the railway.

Thanks to New Labour's 'Nata' - the New Approach To Appraisal - the planning rules are designed in favour of roads and against major public transport capital & revenue expenditure.

It's clear that the current franchising system hasn't delivered adequate services and hasn't delivered value for money for taxpayers. In my opinion what's needed is proper consideration in what is the best way to run the railways.

 

[Bighat]

Ah, privisation, clause 4 and all that! If only it were THAT simple!

The Labour party have been in power for nearly eleven years now, and I haven't noticed the rush to renationalise.....ANYTHING. Northern Rock was 'forced' upon them, and even then they are committed to 'off-loading' it at the earliest possible moment.

One contributor made reference to european operations as a 'shining example'. But does he realise that many of those are already, or soon will be, privatised (denationalised if you will)?

Neither privitisation nor nationalisation are a panacea to good, or bad, operations. Both can succeed or fail given the necessary circumstances.

The simple answer is GOOD management, with a clear mandate as to what they have to achieve, and the backing and support (both moral and financial) of the government (if nationalised) or shareholders (if privatised).

Both can be fickle and short-sighted. Both can, and do, often appoint mediocre management, both are guilty of over/underpaying them for what the job is really worth.

We often laugh and snigger at the former Communist 5 or 10 year plans, for every aspect of life in those countries.

They too failed for the same reasons as happens in the capitalist world.

All did not have a fully thought through plan, they lacked the will or ability to appoint the right people for the job. Finally, having made appointments, they failed to build in safeguards to quickly get rid of under-performers.

When performance was satisfactory (and even the safeguards to measure this were often suspect) THEY FAILED TO LET THEM DO THE JOB WITHOUT UNDUE INTERFERENCE AND SUPPORT.

Get all of these points right and the METHOD of operation (private/nationalised) will be secondary. Either will succeed.

*rant over*

 

[mrcheek]

the government should leave the railways alone. in fact, they should leave us all alone. they need to stop wasting taxpayers money on things that THEY think we should have, and instead let us spend our OWN money ourselves, on the things WE want.

OK, so Im guessing Im the only committed libertarian out there. but one day, you'll see Im right...

 

[Metroland]

Well I dunno, I think you are right Mr Cheek.

Nationalisation? It’ll never happen. They are ideologically opposed to it and very little difference between them and the Tories. Generally the EU is for ‘liberalisation’, and breaking up nationalised industry too.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/extremeright

However, the wisdom of all this is yet proved. The latest is now the French have bought energy companies here, the French Government have capped prices over there, to be subsidised by British bill payers! Lovely!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/consumer_affairs/article4474456.ece

 

[RonS]

The real question is. Can we trust private companies to be responsible for a major infrastructure of the country like the railways. Personally I don't think you can. It is imperative that in the final analysis that the Government has the final authority.

 

[91101]

It was part of the Strategic Rail Authorities mandate to promote and enhance the railway network. When the legislation was pushed through to transfer strategic control from the SRA to the DfT as part of Darlings changes back in 2005 this mandate was removed.

More recently, the DfT have come forward that they are "modally agnostic" - ie that they have no particular support for one mode or another. This is completely and utterly ludicris, when you consider that the Government subsidises this industry to the tune of more than £5bn each and every year.

To adopt a policy where the governments aim is to give people the choice between modes is so hypocritical, when taken in comparison with the "nanny state" approach taken in Health Care or Education. Now quite frankly, I support a lot of what the government has done in the above areas and I believe that the government should be doing more to persaude people OUT of their cars, and on to trains, and that should be a two fold effort.

Thinking of a carrot/stick theory the government should be enticing people onto public transport with more attractive routes, fares, and higher quality services, and forcing them out of cars through taxation that refelects the damage that road users to do the infrastucture, to the environment, and the effect that making that journey in that method will have on other road users in terms of congestion.

For the rail industry this would mean massive investment, in providing extra capacity to cope with said influx of passengers, and in delivering a flawless, seamless experience from planning your journey through to arriving at your final destination.

I do beleive that this should be delivered through the private sector, the private sector knows how to deliver customer service, and by taking the revenue risk for the fare box, they cannot afford to alienate customers and repeat business.

The franchise model I generally agree with as it gives a localised focus on customers, and on operations and I agree wholeheartedly that companies should be allowed to utilise the full strength of their brands to promote the railways. 9 months on you still hear an incredible ammount of people both inside and outside the industry refering to "GNER" and "Virgin" as opposed to NXEC and AXC. However these franchises need to be freed from the financial burden that is placed on them in terms of heavy premimums back to the treasury, but instead if NX Group can tell the government that they can run the ICEC franchise and deliver 1.4bn back in 8 years, then half of that will be delivered to the treasury, but the other half reinvested in new infrastucture, new services and developments to existing services. Again franchises would need longer horizons to plan, invest and see a return. 25-30 year conessions with 5 year break cluases for both the DfT and the franchisee.

 

[Tom B]

The issue of fragmentation often gets me, as a passenger.

Say I want to travel from Doncaster to Gainsborough and get there for 9am. My choice by rail is to go via Retford, where there is a 45 minute connection - as the previous connection leaves about 2 minutes before the train from Donny arrives. Since they're both by different operators, nobody really wants to improve things. Likewise, there's absolutely no coordination with "connecting" bus services - which do anything but!

Then you get the "blame" culture when anything goes wrong - the passenger doesn't care which company/contractor/sub[sup]nth[/sup] contractor was to blame, they just want things to be put right.

 

[91101]

To be totally fair the NR-Conditions of Carraige do put the burdan of seeing customers to their final destination on all operators regardless of whome the customer is travelling with.

 

[Nick W]

At the end of the day, transport does not work well as a privatized industry because there is too much regulation and too little competition. There is also far too much communication required in the running of the railway for it to be effective to seperate staff into separate companies. In fact, the need to employ extra staff specifically for such purposes makes privatisation very uneconomical indeed, in many duplicating jobs.

Needless to say, privatisation, because of the requirement to earn maximum revenue, has improved customer service and promoted good localised innovation and marketing. On the other hand, I'm certain people have been priced off the railway and ive always believed maximizing public transport usage should be the main aim.

The Government are definitely responsible for this nations transport and should continue to intervene. They should have no bias in rail but should promote and encourage rail travel where it works best. This definitely requires much
More investment in railways and pottentially new lines to improve the capacity. They should not be aiming to reduce subsidy when road transport continues to make the government a huge loss.

I personally hope that both rail and road transport receives much more investment in order to avoid bringing the nation to a halt and would like to see the cost of road and rail transport to be brought in line, prefferably by slShing rail fares back to 1990s prices.

 

[Tom B]

Another point - from my journey today - people don't necessarily mind that trains are delayed. But there's a difference between a train running 1 hour late and PA's being made apologising for the late running - and giving an ETA - and staff being apologetic, to a train running 1 hour late and no information being given whatsoever. The cause may be outwith the railways control, but they can improve information.

I'd also like to see the end of "customer service" call centres - why can the local stationmaster not follow up a comment, query or complaint for you? At the moment, I'm trying to get NXEC to send me a £30 refund, which I sent off for about 2 months ago, but they've not replied to any of my letters or answered the phone - and all the sheep at the station do is rattle off the phone number to ring...

 

[Metroland]

I think the best thing the government could do is promote flexible working - spreading the peak out 2 hours or so either side. It is quite unclear in this day of modern internet and mobile communications and much more flexible retail hours, why we still all need to be in the same places at the same time. This puts enormous stresses on the transport system as a whole, with vastly underused capacity off peak and busting at the seems on peak. On the roads it would save a lot of lost hours sat in traffic jams and fuel - which would help the pockets of people and the planet. On the rails it would save nasty overcrowding experiences for a relatively small amount of the day. It would be far, far more efficient and cost effective to spread the load - yet I don't ever hear a debate on this.

At the moment, the railways appear to be trying to do this through price - which is never popular. On the roads, congestion charging is talked about.

The railways are actually nowhere near capacity, and vast amounts of empty seats are shipped about for much of the day - seats that could be filled by fare paying passengers.

For example, on the ECML:

There are 66,950 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between Kings Cross and Stevenage: Yet, 32,200 passengers.

There are 42,480 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between York and Doncaster. Yet, 17,500 passengers.

There are 29,190 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between Berwick and Dunbar and 9,900 passengers.

[Source: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...coast main line/east coast main line rus.pdf]

Extra capacity should be added to both road and rail when it is required, but we do need some carrots to fill this empty capacity, that should be the governments and train operators responsibility - whether that's through shifting the peak, cheap tickets or promotions. Because some revenue for a seat is better than no revenue at all.

 

[Nick W]

I think the best thing the government could do is promote flexible working - spreading the peak out 2 hours or so either side. It is quite unclear in this day of modern internet and mobile communications and much more flexible retail hours, why we still all need to be in the same places at the same time. This puts enormous stresses on the transport system as a whole, with vastly underused capacity off peak and busting at the seems on peak. On the roads it would save a lot of lost hours sat in traffic jams and fuel - which would help the pockets of people and the planet. On the rails it would save nasty overcrowding experiences for a relatively small amount of the day. It would be far, far more efficient and cost effective to spread the load - yet I don't ever hear a debate on this.

I nearly mentioned this, but I still don't think it will be popular. I don't want to get up any earlier than 07:45, and while I'd love a lay in, I don't think I want to get home any later than 18:15.

At the moment, the railways appear to be trying to do this through price - which is never popular. On the roads, congestion charging is talked about.

The time I wanted to get into London for 7pm I drove in at 1/3 the price of a rail ticket on empty roads till the very last few miles. Where are the early bird tickets for arriving at London before 8 etc?

The railways are actually nowhere near capacity, and vast amounts of empty seats are shipped about for much of the day - seats that could be filled by fare paying passengers.

True, but until we have a 24 hour public transport system, with decent and affordable catering there will be times at which people cannot or do not with to travel.

For example, on the ECML:

There are 66,950 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between Kings Cross and Stevenage: Yet, 32,200 passengers.

There are 42,480 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between York and Doncaster. Yet, 17,500 passengers.

There are 29,190 seats provided per day on NXEC long distance trains, between Berwick and Dunbar and 9,900 passengers.

Hmm perhaps AP tickets should be even cheaper eg a 50p flat rate is still 50p more than an empty seat. Charge for extras by all means cue Ryanair.

Extra capacity should be added to both road and rail when it is required, but we do need some carrots to fill this empty capacity, that should be the governments and train operators responsibility - whether that's through shifting the peak, cheap tickets or promotions. Because some revenue for a seat is better than no revenue at all.

Here, here!

 

[Waverley125]

Personally i think we need to bring back the SRA to represent government in the Rail industry, and allow a concerted vision for the railways. I'm not in favour of nationalisation-i think the current system could work better if longer franchises were given to allow TOCs to make long-term plans. Vertical integration is a possibility, and trialling it with Merseyrail (who reckon they can save £30m on NR's costings) would be a good place to start.

 

[thefab444]

I agree, the TOCs were allowed a bit of flexibility under the SRA, now they are just private puppets for the government.

 

[Waverley125]

and the good thing with the SRA is that while they ruled the TOCs, they also stood up for them when the DfT was being an arse. Now the government's trying to cash-cow the TOCs (which is what helped put GNER out of business).

 

[Metroland]

True, but until we have a 24 hour public transport system, with decent and affordable catering there will be times at which people cannot or do not with to travel.

Well we're never going to have a 24 hour public transport system, except perhaps in some larger cities. In BR steam days, there were a surprising amount of very late night or overnight passenger trains, which often carried mail. Such things are now deemed uneconomic and will probably never return, especially as NR was to get on with more overnight engineering work, avoiding the need for weekend closures.

Nevertheless, the 24 hour society is a recent thing and we are going in that direction and morning and evening peaks have spread more than there were. Post 1980s certainly.

Most people alive remember banks closing at 3.30pm, supermarkets at 2100 at the latest (and that was a novelty in the 70s) TV shut down at 11pm and restart at around 9am - breakfast TV didn't start until 1982 and on top of that no radio apart from maybe radio 2 after 2am. Most radio stations didn't go 24 hour until the 90s. Conversely the railways have probably got less busy overnight than they were, the roads far busier.

The point is, Britain has more shift and flexitime workers than over before and it is not unreasonable for employers to stretch out the morning and evening peak as a alternative to building vastly expensive ground transport that is little used relatively most of the day and the railways to price accordingly.

On a final note of charging 50 per seat, that's fine where it doesn't reduce overall revenue. Loss leaders, used by supermarkets and airlines are a good advert for your company in general. But this is a careful balancing act when traffic is naturally light or people want to travel at certain times because of societal pressures. The railways are never going to be Ryan air, because Ryan air isn't mandated to run socially necessary services on a daily basis, or services in areas where traffic simply isn't there or suffer enormous competition from other modes, or on very short journeys were walk-on travel is norm and most desirable. The comparison is somewhat invalid.