Rail renationalisation- do you support it?

[Harbornite]

I voted yes, I support it. Certain things should not be subject to profit and I think the railways are an example of this.

Why? Do you think is the case for airlines too?

 

[matt_world2004]

I am for nationalisation, The southern railway debacle shows that the privately run railways have limited accountability towards the public there is virtually no competition on the railways in the south east of England meaning there is no incentive to improve the service; at least under the nationalised model the respective politicans can be voted out and The one example in the UK where a completely private railway and a completely nationalised railway runs between the same two stations , the nationalised railway charges 20% of the price of the privatised one, and is more frequent

 

[Harbon 1]

The intentions of this are good, but what if an XC unit fails and the Voyager is gone?

Like I said, if there is no stock, then there is no stock, even BR couldn't Magic a rake of carriages and a loco out of thin air

At the end of the day, there will always be a circumstance that means a train cannot physically run.

 

[Harbornite]

Like I said, if there is no stock, then there is no stock, even BR couldn't Magic a rake of carriages and a loco out of thin air

At the end of the day, there will always be a circumstance that means a train cannot physically run.

And there you have killed your own argument for renationalisation!

 

[Moonshot]

I think you have hit the nail on the head there. I was trying to work out how to phrase it. With the way railways are franchised, if you get bad service or you don't think what you are paying for is value for money, you often cannot go to a different firm as the one you have is the one you are stuck with at least until the franchise is up. If you want/need to travel by rail, you have no real control over who gets your custom.

In which case, maybe bidding for train paths as opposed to franchises would encourage competition?

I must admit I actually struggle with the phrase " re nationalisation " - isnt is true that virtually all the investment into the railways in BR days actually came from state funds? Scale that up to today, and pretty much all the investment is still from the taxpayer. Also in general , the private sector sends price signals to the market, but in UK Rail, 50% of the fare basket is actually regulated by the state. Of course what doesnt help the cause in general is that passenger demand is very compelled - the only way it would shift would be to incentivise employees to work hours other than 9-5 and fill up all those empty trains in the off peak period.

 

[416GSi]

I would support an integrated railway, with the infrastructure owned by the same organisation as train operators. This would eliminate a huge amount of non-value adding contract negotiation and splits of responsibilities, thus potentially increasing efficiency.

I may be in the minority, but I do consider British Rail was doing a very good job by the late 1980’s until its demise taking into account the circumstances which then existed. It was potentially doing a better job than today more complicated organisation which paradoxically seems to have more government interference by non-rail ‘experts’ than the nationalised BR ever did.

All that said, I don’t think its particularity important who owns the railway, either one public or one private company is fine with me.

 

[jon0844]

I am for nationalisation, The southern railway debacle shows that the privately run railways have limited accountability towards the public there is virtually no competition on the railways in the south east of England meaning there is no incentive to improve the service; at least under the nationalised model the respective politicans can be voted out and The one example in the UK where a completely private railway and a completely nationalised railway runs between the same two stations , the nationalised railway charges 20% of the price of the privatised one, and is more frequent

Does the Southern situation really do anything for the argument either way? It's a DfT management contract so you could argue that it's quite close to being state run. And the industrial action could be down to the state.

A shortage of drivers recruitment wise may or may not have happened if the Government ran things, but we can't know.

 

[Harbon 1]

And there you have killed your own argument for renationalisation!

Under any system there will times when there is no stock at all, I'm sure that's always been the case, whereas in an integrated system with greater traction knowledge, trains will be able to run and cover services for what would be other companies now on the premise that there is stock available that can be made serviceable.

 

[Harbornite]

I would support an integrated railway, with the infrastructure owned by the same organisation as train operators. This would eliminate a huge amount of non-value adding contract negotiation and splits of responsibilities, thus potentially increasing efficiency.

I may be in the minority, but I do consider British Rail was doing a very good job by the late 1980’s until its demise taking into account the circumstances which then existed. It was potentially doing a better job than today more complicated organisation which paradoxically seems to have more government interference by non-rail ‘experts’ than the nationalised BR ever did.

All that said, I don’t think its particularity important who owns the railway, either one public or one private company is fine with me.

The late 80s was not a bad time at all for BR, with with decreasing subsidies and sectorisation, not to mention new rolling stock. It was a shame that the 90s got off to a bad start with the demise of Speedlink and the axing of intercity 250.

 

[southern442]

Does the Southern situation really do anything for the argument either way? It's a DfT management contract so you could argue that it's quite close to being state run. And the industrial action could be down to the state.

A shortage of drivers recruitment wise may or may not have happened if the Government ran things, but we can't know.

GTR were doing terribly anyway before the whole guard thing.

 

[matt_world2004]

I would support an integrated railway, with the infrastructure owned by the same organisation as train operators. This would eliminate a huge amount of non-value adding contract negotiation and splits of responsibilities, thus potentially increasing efficiency.

I may be in the minority, but I do consider British Rail was doing a very good job by the late 1980’s until its demise taking into account the circumstances which then existed. It was potentially doing a better job than today more complicated organisation which paradoxically seems to have more government interference by non-rail ‘experts’ than the nationalised BR ever did.

All that said, I don’t think its particularity important who owns the railway, either one public or one private company is fine with me.

Isn't a managment contract with insufficent incentive to provide a service anyway squarely a problem with a privatised railway, Claire Perry in either a speech to parliament or one of the select committees that southern Railway had been fined £2 million in total for cancelling 341 services a day whereas under the TfL model that fine would have been topping £2 million a day. (using figures from London Reconnections article on the managment contract for crossrail)

 

[highdyke]

It's a DfT management contract so you could argue that it's quite close to being state run. And the industrial action could be down to the state.

Indeed the 1982 dispute over DOO and flexible rostering, the BR board imposed the contracts. The dispute was in some ways similar to the Southern one.

 

[jon0844]

GTR were doing terribly anyway before the whole guard thing.

Well, yes. Like wanting to get rid of station staff and combining roles. But wouldn't the Government also do that?

I feel the railway would suffer cuts ahead of so many other things given half a chance.

 

[southern442]

Well, yes. Like wanting to get rid of station staff and combining roles. But wouldn't the Government also do that?

I feel the railway would suffer cuts ahead of so many other things given half a chance.

I'm talking in terms of performance. I had no complaints about Southern before it became part of GTR, but the service quality dropped dramatically immediately after.

 

[ian959]

Don't care

Well it does not affect me much since I live in Australia... as long as I can get my Britrail pass and ride any train, any time then I am happy.

However...

In broad terms I have always felt that certain necessary services SHOULD be the realm of government run operations: mail, health, education, public transport, power and water. I don't necessarily see the overall benefit to society in general that such things are solely the domain of for profit companies, which in some way inevitably leads to higher prices to consumers and poor investment in infrastructure.

The worry is with strict nationalised industries however is that they become top heavy bureaucracies with the people in charge usually being there because of length of tenure of service, rather than whether they are actually any good at their job. Furthermore more, strict nationalised industries become political footballs at the whims of the policies of the government of the day. That is no way to run an industry where you have to be looking at the medium term future needs all the time.

So to me if renationalisation were to happen it should be in the form of for instance DOR. A private for profit company outside the reach of government other than it is funded by government, in a similar manner to Network Rail based upon submitted budgets and specified aims, and is wholly owned by government so that any profit generated flows back solely to the government.

Conversely if renationalisation were not to happen, I would still like to see greater connectivity of the various franchised TOCs so that the railway does still operate as a national network rather than what seems like now to be a fragmented network. Certainly ticketing needs to be greatly simplified for instance and obligations of franchises for things like delay repay are consistent across the industry.

 

[NSEFAN]

The status quo isn't great, but I don't think shaking the whole industry apart again for idealogical reasons is a good idea either. At least with the status quo, the railways are generally at an arm's length and receive money from the state without being subject to potential cuts in the public sector. That said, I think we're entering an era of much greater DfT "caretaking", and I fear that the staffing dispute on Southern will spread elsewhere as franchises come up for renewal.

 

[highdyke]

I support it in that I believe public services (rail, roads, healthcare utilities etc) should be run in the best interests of the people, not profit, since a lot of it is integral to daily life now.

There's nothing wrong with profit provided it is not exploitative through monopolies or exploiting suppliers or workers.

The railway's profit margin is incredibly thin around 1-4%, it's fairly good for pension providers, not much else. If you want to make money you go into IT, oil, financial services, automotive, telecoms more or less in that order. Railways are a very long term investment with little return, they make more money if coupled with other activities as was the case in the past.

Profit gives investors an incentive to invest, and is useful if you need capital up front. For example, the average person wouldn't expect a cost free mortgage. There has to be some reason for someone to hand over their cash.

Having said that, some companies have failed spectacularly and there should be more profit sharing with workers, which would raise standards of productivity and drive down inequality. Sport direct is an especially bad model.

Private companies are generally always run in the interests of customer need, else you go out of business. It is the most democratic system of all, where consumers can choose who wins or fails on a daily basis, not by hidden meetings in government board rooms, where you can only vote out the government (should it be a democracy) once every few years. Even then they may not stick to their manifesto or have ideological ideas about things. In the case of BR in the early 1980s, there was an ideological bent against rail.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

What I want is...

• More reasonable walk-on fares, and the ability to go one-way without having to basically pay the price of a return.
• Better integration with bus services: Through ticketing, bus routes designed for rail connections, etc.
• Better online facilities to plan end-to-end (postcode-to-postcode) journeys using public transport
• The network expanding at a faster rate than is currently happening.
• In short, all the things needed to make public transport a more viable/friendlier option compared to private cars.

If someone can show how nationalization can achieve those things better than the current system, then I'll be happy to support nationalization. I fear that too often, nationalization of the railways is seen as an end in itself, whereas the real question is: Which system will give us a better, growing, and more efficient, public transport network. I'm not clear what the answer to that is. However, I'm fairly sure that any solution that treats the railways in isolation, rather than considering public transport as a whole, will not achieve very much.

 

[LLivery]

The problem I have with profit is the fact the government is actively subsiding these companies to ensure they make a profit. Using tax money to ensure private companies make a profit isn't right. Whats worse is the fact that some of these companies are awful, get subsidies then get a franchise extension.

People say the private companies bring innovation. What major iconic thing has the private companies brought to the railways since BR? I can think of plenty BR had done: the HST + 125mph main lines, aiming for a 140mph ECML, pushing for the APT which without the Pendolino wouldn't exist, creating Thameslink etc. Since privatisation Network Rail and TfL has had the innovation; the TOCs have just ordered new trains (which half of the time they had to do anyway). Only Chiltern has really thought out of the box and spent its money improving.

I too believe essential services like the National Grid, Water, Royal Mail etc should be nationalised, but of course should be run to earn more than they spend. The rail franchise system and the bus de-regulation outside London and Nottingham has broadly failed. Nationalisation creating a perfect railway is a fairy land idea, however the current system cannot stay the way it is. With nationalised industries (if we have any left), the government in this country needs to stop meddling every 5 mins and allow autonomy.

 

[Deepgreen]

What I want is...

• More reasonable walk-on fares, and the ability to go one-way without having to basically pay the price of a return.
• Better integration with bus services: Through ticketing, bus routes designed for rail connections, etc.
• Better online facilities to plan end-to-end (postcode-to-postcode) journeys using public transport
• The network expanding at a faster rate than is currently happening.
• In short, all the things needed to make public transport a more viable/friendlier option compared to private cars.

If someone can show how nationalization can achieve those things better than the current system, then I'll be happy to support nationalization. I fear that too often, nationalization of the railways is seen as an end in itself, whereas the real question is: Which system will give us a better, growing, and more efficient, public transport network. I'm not clear what the answer to that is. However, I'm fairly sure that any solution that treats the railways in isolation, rather than considering public transport as a whole, will not achieve very much.

Much though my gut feeling has always been in favour of nationalisation as the theoretical means to ensure better integration, well said!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Don't care

Well it does not affect me much since I live in Australia... as long as I can get my Britrail pass and ride any train, any time then I am happy.

However...

In broad terms I have always felt that certain necessary services SHOULD be the realm of government run operations: mail, health, education, public transport, power and water. I don't necessarily see the overall benefit to society in general that such things are solely the domain of for profit companies, which in some way inevitably leads to higher prices to consumers and poor investment in infrastructure.

The worry is with strict nationalised industries however is that they become top heavy bureaucracies with the people in charge usually being there because of length of tenure of service, rather than whether they are actually any good at their job. Furthermore more, strict nationalised industries become political footballs at the whims of the policies of the government of the day. That is no way to run an industry where you have to be looking at the medium term future needs all the time.

So to me if renationalisation were to happen it should be in the form of for instance DOR. A private for profit company outside the reach of government other than it is funded by government, in a similar manner to Network Rail based upon submitted budgets and specified aims, and is wholly owned by government so that any profit generated flows back solely to the government.

Conversely if renationalisation were not to happen, I would still like to see greater connectivity of the various franchised TOCs so that the railway does still operate as a national network rather than what seems like now to be a fragmented network. Certainly ticketing needs to be greatly simplified for instance and obligations of franchises for things like delay repay are consistent across the industry.

So, in fact (based on the length of your post); DO care, if only a little.

 

[highdyke]

The problem I have with profit is the fact the government is actively subsiding these companies to ensure they make a profit. Using tax money to ensure private companies make a profit isn't right. Whats worse is the fact that some of these companies are awful, get subsidies then get a franchise extension.

People say the private companies bring innovation. What major iconic thing has the private companies brought to the railways since BR? I can think of plenty BR had done: the HST + 125mph main lines, aiming for a 140mph ECML, pushing for the APT which without the Pendolino wouldn't exist, creating Thameslink etc. Since privatisation Network Rail and TfL has had the innovation; the TOCs have just ordered new trains (which half of the time they had to do anyway). Only Chiltern has really thought out of the box and spent its money improving.

I too believe essential services like the National Grid, Water, Royal Mail etc should be nationalised, but of course should be run to earn more than they spend. The rail franchise system and the bus de-regulation outside London and Nottingham has broadly failed. Nationalisation creating a perfect railway is a fairy land idea, however the current system cannot stay the way it is. With nationalised industries (if we have any left), the government in this country needs to stop meddling every 5 mins and allow autonomy.

Sympathetic to all of that. The current set up doesn't promote innovation nearly enough because it's not really true private ownership in any meaningful sense.

In an ideal world the railways would be self-supporting, be allowed to get involved with other activities, the government would just pay for some of the more economically difficult capital projects in return for setting minimum standards.

Politicians have been interfering with railways ever since the railway mania crash, adding taxes, common carrier obligations, adding subsidy, micromanagement in more recent times. They also interfere with other modes (or in fact deliberately don't interfere!) in particular providing free at the point use roads, with no compensatory regime, relatively unregulated with few barriers to entry.

Because of that I'm not sure we'll ever get to a situation, with passenger trains at least, where you can run the current network completely subsidy free. So in that sense I can see why these arguments are attractive. I guess it comes down the the right mechanisms in the end..

What I worry about is whether the railways are ready for the next revolution in transport. Should the *worst* case scenario happen (at least for the railways) and we get the uber autonomous car/truck platooning/electric revolution - far from certain - the railways wrapped in regulation and public subsidy are not going to be able to complete. Outside cities (and their commuter hinterlands) there would be very little reason to subsidise the railways, especially if they are using outdated tech. Areas like East Anglia, the East Midlands, Scotland, South west could become very devoid of railways, save for fast intercity lines and localised light rail.

http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-anglia-reports-railways-transport-special-1982/

Worth a watch for people that are nationalisation believers who don't remember BR.

Yes things picked up in the late 1980s, but that was much to do with the boom in the city of London. Services were radically cut again in the 1990s

 

[Rail Ranger]

What I want is...

• More reasonable walk-on fares, and the ability to go one-way without having to basically pay the price of a return.
• Better integration with bus services: Through ticketing, bus routes designed for rail connections, etc.
• Better online facilities to plan end-to-end (postcode-to-postcode) journeys using public transport
• The network expanding at a faster rate than is currently happening.
• In short, all the things needed to make public transport a more viable/friendlier option compared to private cars.

If someone can show how nationalization can achieve those things better than the current system, then I'll be happy to support nationalization. I fear that too often, nationalization of the railways is seen as an end in itself, whereas the real question is: Which system will give us a better, growing, and more efficient, public transport network. I'm not clear what the answer to that is. However, I'm fairly sure that any solution that treats the railways in isolation, rather than considering public transport as a whole, will not achieve very much.

You are probably already familiar with it but there is a national door-to-door public transport journey planner at www.traveline.info.

 

[Deepgreen]

It would be interesting to know what proportion of voters here have experienced both regimes.

 

[CarlSilva]

Why? Do you think is the case for airlines too?

Because the railways are an essential part of the infrastructure of the country, and attempting to extract a profit from them adds to the financial burden of the fare paying passenger. Then there's the issue of consistency. Companies come and go, but a nationalised company doesn't. As we've seen over the many years since privatisation, it complicates and duplicates things. Get rid that's what I say.

Airlines ? Don't know, and it's a different topic.

 

[tbtc]

Part of the problem with these threads is that there are a thousand flavours of “nationalisation” and it’s a lot easier to find one that you find more appealing than the status quo.

Look at how people on the left voted Brexit because “the EU is a neo-liberal conspiracy to concentrate everything in the hands of the wealthy, prop up Bankers and keep workers’ wages down by encouraging the free movement of people ”…​

… whilst people on the right voted Brexit because “the EU is a socialist conspiracy to burden us with too many workers rights/ too much environmental legislation/ too many human rights”.​

Anyone can come up with a version of “change” that appears nicer than the status quo. So here are a few questions about the kind of “nationalised” railway that you want:

• Can freight remain privatised? Or should one Government department run all rail freight?
  
• Should all Open Access be abandoned/ subsumed into the new “British Rail”? Or are you okay for private operators to cherry pick routes that they think they can make a profit on, like the ECML?
  
• Do you think that ticket prices would come down, if the profits made by Stagecoach/ Deutsche Bahn/ Go-Ahead etc weren’t being paid to them?
  
• Do you think that ticket prices would come down, if we didn’t repaint trains/ stations every seven years when a new franchise starts (bearing in mind that things generally need repainting every few years anyway)?
  
• Would you want total nationalisation, whereby everything on the railway is done “in house”? So Network Rail don’t use contractors to build things, trains are all built by a nationalised company?
  
• Are you okay with private companies providing things like station cafes and newsagents? Or should staff at WH Smith/ Starbucks be replaced by Civil Servants?
  
• Would you have been happy if rail staff were treated the same way as the majority of Public Sector employees over the past few years (Final Salary pensions closed to new accrual and replaced by Career Average ones, pay freezes etc)?
  
• Would a nationalised railway “solve” the problem of Sunday working, and bring in a railway that wasn’t dependent upon staff willing to work regular overtime? Sundays are much more important nowadays than in the 1980s – it’s one of the busiest shopping days of the week – it can get as many big sporting fixtures as Saturday – it sees lots of people travelling back from a weekend away – so needs more than just a general hope that people will volunteer to work the Sabbath.
  
• What about Charters? Should they be permitted? Or, are they profit making private trains that aren’t welcome on a nationalised railway? Where do you draw the line? Profit making private trains are generally bad, but if they are run by a steam locomotive then are wonderful?
  
• Would a nationalised railway deal with infrastructure problems better (given that the nationalised Network Rail are responsible for a significant number of the delays that passengers encounter)?
  
• Is this about “how to get a better value railway” or is “political dogma” or is this a desire to use the railway for some idealistic notion of “social equality” etc? Do you instinctively want nationalisation because “Public Sector Good, Private Sector Bad”, or is this about using the railways to try to solve some national problems?
  
• How would a nationalised railway solve the situation at Southern (lack of trained drivers, the move to DOO…)? Oh, wait, Southern is pretty much nationalised (being a DfT management contract)… and BR were responsible for converting large numbers of routes to DOO.
  
• Should a nationalised railway eliminate “competition” on routes like London – Birmingham, where there are currently three tiers of service (the fast Virgin ones, the semi-fast Chiltern ones and the relatively slow LM ones, each with different pricing structures to reflect)? Easy to say “I want simpler fares”, but would you accept it if competition were removed and only one standard fare remained? That’d mean a lot of empty seats on London Midland north/west of Northampton (as people cram into 390s, since there’d be little incentive to take an empty seat on a slower train)…
  
• Given the much criticised handling of IEP procurement, do you trust the Government to order new stock?
  
• Do you think that abandoning “delay attribution” would mean a more efficient railway? You’d sack a few “bean counters” (I hate that phrase), but you’d end up with less incentive to a more efficient railway. If a freight train regularly disrupts some busy passenger services (and those passengers are entitled to refunds due to the delays) then should the freight operation face financial sanction to pay to the passenger operation to compensate those people?
  
• Would you want everything painted one colour like 1970s BR? Or are you okay if liveries change on a regular basis like 1980s/1990s BR? Remember how InterCity was Swallow/ Mainline/ Executive etc? If you want to go back to sectors then where to draw the line re “InterCity”/ “Network South East”/ “Provincial”? What is the LM service up the Trent Valley to Crewe?
  
• Should we also privatise all buses/ coaches/ ferries/ planes?

Or is this all about some “Thomas The Tank Engine” fantasy, where you can have one “proper railwayman” in charge of everything*, free to run anything anywhere, without having to worry about route knowledge/ traction knowledge/ accountants/ safety…

(* - because some people see the world in binary, where you are either a “proper railwayman” or not)

Bash the status quo all you want, but nobody seems to be coming up with a better version of a nationalised railway that we can all agree on. I’m left of centre, I like the “public services should be nationalised” argument but the devil is in the detail. And, so far, nobody is convincing me that there is one better realistic alternative.

Convince me (without soundbites, but with some solutions to the difficult issues like Sunday working/ Open Access/ “simpler” fares)?

 

[Haig paxton]

Let's not forget there are rail enthusiasts who like to see all the pretty colours of the various TOCs and would recoil at the thought of any sort of uniformity that renationalistion could bring about. It's really that basal.

 

[Deepgreen]

Part of the problem with these threads is that there are a thousand flavours of “nationalisation” and it’s a lot easier to find one that you find more appealing than the status quo.

Look at how people on the left voted Brexit because “the EU is a neo-liberal conspiracy to concentrate everything in the hands of the wealthy, prop up Bankers and keep workers’ wages down by encouraging the free movement of people ”…​

… whilst people on the right voted Brexit because “the EU is a socialist conspiracy to burden us with too many workers rights/ too much environmental legislation/ too many human rights”.​

Anyone can come up with a version of “change” that appears nicer than the status quo. So here are a few questions about the kind of “nationalised” railway that you want:

• Can freight remain privatised? Or should one Government department run all rail freight?
  
• Should all Open Access be abandoned/ subsumed into the new “British Rail”? Or are you okay for private operators to cherry pick routes that they think they can make a profit on, like the ECML?
  
• Do you think that ticket prices would come down, if the profits made by Stagecoach/ Deutsche Bahn/ Go-Ahead etc weren’t being paid to them?
  
• Do you think that ticket prices would come down, if we didn’t repaint trains/ stations every seven years when a new franchise starts (bearing in mind that things generally need repainting every few years anyway)?
  
• Would you want total nationalisation, whereby everything on the railway is done “in house”? So Network Rail don’t use contractors to build things, trains are all built by a nationalised company?
  
• Are you okay with private companies providing things like station cafes and newsagents? Or should staff at WH Smith/ Starbucks be replaced by Civil Servants?
  
• Would you have been happy if rail staff were treated the same way as the majority of Public Sector employees over the past few years (Final Salary pensions closed to new accrual and replaced by Career Average ones, pay freezes etc)?
  
• Would a nationalised railway “solve” the problem of Sunday working, and bring in a railway that wasn’t dependent upon staff willing to work regular overtime? Sundays are much more important nowadays than in the 1980s – it’s one of the busiest shopping days of the week – it can get as many big sporting fixtures as Saturday – it sees lots of people travelling back from a weekend away – so needs more than just a general hope that people will volunteer to work the Sabbath.
  
• What about Charters? Should they be permitted? Or, are they profit making private trains that aren’t welcome on a nationalised railway? Where do you draw the line? Profit making private trains are generally bad, but if they are run by a steam locomotive then are wonderful?
  
• Would a nationalised railway deal with infrastructure problems better (given that the nationalised Network Rail are responsible for a significant number of the delays that passengers encounter)?
  
• Is this about “how to get a better value railway” or is “political dogma” or is this a desire to use the railway for some idealistic notion of “social equality” etc? Do you instinctively want nationalisation because “Public Sector Good, Private Sector Bad”, or is this about using the railways to try to solve some national problems?
  
• How would a nationalised railway solve the situation at Southern (lack of trained drivers, the move to DOO…)? Oh, wait, Southern is pretty much nationalised (being a DfT management contract)… and BR were responsible for converting large numbers of routes to DOO.
  
• Should a nationalised railway eliminate “competition” on routes like London – Birmingham, where there are currently three tiers of service (the fast Virgin ones, the semi-fast Chiltern ones and the relatively slow LM ones, each with different pricing structures to reflect)? Easy to say “I want simpler fares”, but would you accept it if competition were removed and only one standard fare remained? That’d mean a lot of empty seats on London Midland north/west of Northampton (as people cram into 390s, since there’d be little incentive to take an empty seat on a slower train)…
  
• Given the much criticised handling of IEP procurement, do you trust the Government to order new stock?
  
• Do you think that abandoning “delay attribution” would mean a more efficient railway? You’d sack a few “bean counters” (I hate that phrase), but you’d end up with less incentive to a more efficient railway. If a freight train regularly disrupts some busy passenger services (and those passengers are entitled to refunds due to the delays) then should the freight operation face financial sanction to pay to the passenger operation to compensate those people?
  
• Would you want everything painted one colour like 1970s BR? Or are you okay if liveries change on a regular basis like 1980s/1990s BR? Remember how InterCity was Swallow/ Mainline/ Executive etc? If you want to go back to sectors then where to draw the line re “InterCity”/ “Network South East”/ “Provincial”? What is the LM service up the Trent Valley to Crewe?
  
• Should we also privatise all buses/ coaches/ ferries/ planes?

Or is this all about some “Thomas The Tank Engine” fantasy, where you can have one “proper railwayman” in charge of everything*, free to run anything anywhere, without having to worry about route knowledge/ traction knowledge/ accountants/ safety…

(* - because some people see the world in binary, where you are either a “proper railwayman” or not)

Bash the status quo all you want, but nobody seems to be coming up with a better version of a nationalised railway that we can all agree on. I’m left of centre, I like the “public services should be nationalised” argument but the devil is in the detail. And, so far, nobody is convincing me that there is one better realistic alternative.

Convince me (without soundbites, but with some solutions to the difficult issues like Sunday working/ Open Access/ “simpler” fares)?

A worthwhile post, but did you mean 'nationalise' where I have used bold type?

 

[Mordac]

I too believe essential services like the National Grid, Water, Royal Mail etc should be nationalised, but of course should be run to earn more than they spend. The rail franchise system and the bus de-regulation outside London and Nottingham has broadly failed. Nationalisation creating a perfect railway is a fairy land idea, however the current system cannot stay the way it is. With nationalised industries (if we have any left), the government in this country needs to stop meddling every 5 mins and allow autonomy.

Buses aren't regulated in Nottingham, there just happens to be a municipally owned bus company which runs the majority of services--same as in Edinburgh.

Buses are still regulated in Northern Ireland, some look at which might be a better indication of how regulation would fare in places with lower population density than London.

 

[Bletchleyite]

would you accept it if competition were removed and only one standard fare remained? That’d mean a lot of empty seats on London Midland north/west of Northampton (as people cram into 390s, since there’d be little incentive to take an empty seat on a slower train)…

Have you actually used LM recently? "Empty seats" are not what you'll find. What you will find is severe overcrowding, which is entirely caused by the fares policy taking passengers from 11-car Pendolinos onto 4-car regional units which would be perfectly adequate in this form were the fares not so low.

So what it would actually do is make people choose the appropriate train for their journey.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I too believe essential services like the National Grid, Water, Royal Mail etc should be nationalised, but of course should be run to earn more than they spend. The rail franchise system and the bus de-regulation outside London and Nottingham has broadly failed. Nationalisation creating a perfect railway is a fairy land idea, however the current system cannot stay the way it is. With nationalised industries (if we have any left), the government in this country needs to stop meddling every 5 mins and allow autonomy.

Knowing that we have to eat and drink in order to live, that surely must make these large supermarket chains "essential services", so would you nationalise all of these and we'll all end up with the faceless "grey image" establishments that were so well known in the countries of the Warsaw Pact.

Be careful in holding nationalisation dear to your heart, as you might find your wish granted sooner than you think.