Rail renationalisation- do you support it?

[frodshamfella]

Private rail services to my mind are more complexed for the passenger to get inclusive information, fares are more restricted and not cheaper. Come back BR all is forgiven !

 

[Bletchleyite]

....bearing in mind that that someone of fifteen years of age in 1994 would now be thirty seven years of age and have no real clue as to just how awful B.R. could be with it's fleet of dirty grotty old trains, dirty grotty old stations and a huge tranche of staff who had no clue or interest in good service. There were good bits but they were overwhelmed by the bad bits.

I'm 37, and I remember how bad BR was in places. A lot of places.

It's those in their twenties who never really experienced it. But if anyone does want a feel of it, watch the Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey (if you want a feel of it in the 1990s) or one of the earlier ones (for the blue and grey era).

The present system has many faults, but it's not the story of depressing decline, decay and a lack of ambition it was in the 1990s at least.

 

[AlterEgo]

You may find this interesting.

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/railway-roulette/

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing.

 

[LLivery]

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.

I had a feeling someone would say this. No I wouldn't. I study political theory and I'm far from a communist. Supermarkets compete, water companies don't and there is a reason we have one of the highest energy bills in Europe, even the world. If you're in favour of privitisation of everything, are you happy with Abellio, EdF, DB, or SNCF effectively running our trains and energy?

 

[highdyke]

. Supermarkets compete, water companies don't and there is a reason we have one of the highest energy bills in Europe, even the world. ?

Yep. we're now a net energy importer with climate change obligations. Wouldn't make a blind bit of difference who ran it, except there'd be even less choice.

Ironically if it was pure private sector with no climate frameworks, the coal fired power stations would still be open and energy might be cheaper. The US (and China) pretty much ignore this kind of thing, which is great for current generations as they get their bills cheaper, at the expense of future generations.

The problem with these kinds of debates is people make the facts fit their view of the world, it's a well documented human defect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Now water companies are a regional monopoly, and they have strong regulation to stop overcharging.

Again, some don't like profit, but that is the potential reward for investment and innovation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I also find that bus companies, by and large, don't abuse their de-facto monopoly that they have in most places. They could set fares far higher, and quality far lower, than they actually do.

 

[LLivery]

Yep. we're now a net energy importer with climate change obligations. Wouldn't make a blind bit of difference who ran it, except there'd be even less choice.

Ironically if it was pure private sector with no climate frameworks, the coal fire power stations would still be open and energy might be cheaper. The US (and China) pretty much ignore this kind of thing, which is great for current generations as they get their bills cheaper, at the expense of future generations.

The problem with these kinds of debates is people make the facts fit their view of the world, it's a well documented human defect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Now water companies are a regional monopoly, and they have strong regulation to stop overcharging.

Again, some don't like profit, but that is the potential reward for investment and innovation.

Yes water has strong regulation, I never said water charge to much. I simply don't like having no choice on the private companies I must use to live. I can choose national or private healthcare, I can choose my supermarket, even gas supplier.

Climate change obligations personally I see as morally right. However energy companies are often accused of taking a long time in reducing tariffs when oil prices are low. As for coal, the US and Chinese governments have a long history of disregard for the environment. Plenty people in US government are climate change deniers and the lobbyist system probably has a lot to do with it. I doubt a whole load of coal mines would be open in this country.

Claiming that US state owned systems would be like UK ones always seems far fetched. US Government/States cash starves systems beyond Britain would. Britain would of never allowed British Rail to become Amtrak, while the New York Subway is a different world to London Underground.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Again, I must say, that although I wouldn't be against a nationalised rail operator, I have no problem with an improved private system (apart from Network Rail).

 

[GarethJohn]

It will be interesting to see the results here, but I wonder if there could have been two options for each answer, allowing a way to record if someone is working IN the industry or outside (a rail user).

I suspect rail users may well want nationalisation more than those working in the industry!

Wasn't privatisation supposed to create an Airline style competition for fares?
One where you could have two TOC's ticket windows side by side competing for your custom. Instead we have a complicated system that requires an in depth knowledge of routes & train branding.
But instead has created an industry where their is competition for qualified staff where one TOC can offer a higher rate than another?

 

[Grimsby town]

I voted for nationalization for a number reasons which I will list shortly. First though can I just say that the railways shouldn’t be nationalised simply for ideological reasons, they should be run for the benefit of people and the economy and not profit driven. Unfortunately I can’t see this ever being the case while services are mainly run by the private sector.

Long franchises could help to increase investment, larger franchises could help to increase connectivity and integration but we will still be left with the problems of the privatised franchise system.

Firstly there is the problem with the lame duck period between franchises. There is very little incentive for a firm to invest in the last few years of franchise because they won’t see any return back. We have seen with the northern franchise that if franchise is let with the wrong growth predictions it can lead to a significant lost period of investment. If we have 25 year franchises this means even less flexibility
Integration is a massive problem. The franchised system is hugely fragmented. Little loaning of stock between operators. For example there is no spare unit left at Grimsby because there are 3 different companies running services. Yes there are problems with stock knowledge but a nationalised system could be more flexible.

We could have something similar to SNCF with integrated coach travel owned by the nationalised company to provide through services to towns without rail services. Services could be run to connect with each other.

Currently rail services don’t provide the maximum support the economy needs. Seaside resorts have seen a huge decline in fortune for many reasons but this has been compounded by private companies’ unwillingness to provide extra services to seaside destinations or run extra services during large events. Last trains often run to early to provide people with a good service that allows them to spend an evening out.
Of course the government t doesn’t always do this correctly either especially in times where services are being cut. I think the best way would be a not for profit company to be created with ring fenced spending who’s main aim is to provide services that boost economic activity and allow social mobility. A fantasy? Perhaps, but I do think BR were starting to move towards this in 80’s. Large stock orders meant that economies of scale were exploited. They were trying to be innovative with the pacer. BR had its flaws but it had a lot less funding than the system currently and existed at a time were the railways were seen as a dying form of transportation. With the resources the private sector have been given and the advances in technology I don’t think we have seen vast improvements

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Anything the private TOCs do is determined and circumscribed by the publicly-owned DfT which lets the 7-10 year franchise contracts, sets service specs and determines capacity and frequency of services.
If you magically returned the TOCs to the public sector, what would change?
I don't agree that this is actually renationalisation, because you haven't changed the fragmented industry structure.
But if we follow the Corbyn rule of simply not refranchising private TOCs when the franchises expire, what have you got?
I don't see what is different in the underlying system.
How do you fund and manage the new system? Nobody ever explains what will be different.
Sectors? Vertical integration with NR Routes? Regional monopolies?

 

[coppercapped]

Wasn't privatisation supposed to create an Airline style competition for fares?
One where you could have two TOC's ticket windows side by side competing for your custom.

No.

In the run up to privatisation various models were explored. But the Railways Act 1993 never legislated for such an eventuality. In fact it was specified that any TOC's booking office had to sell the whole range of available tickets and tickets were usable on any operators trains, except for those special offers valid on only one company's trains.

You may be referring to Open Access operators, but these were very limited in the early days - and one could argue that they still are.

Why are there so many myths around about what privatisation was supposed to do?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

No.

In the run up to privatisation various models were explored. But the Railways Act 1993 never legislated for such an eventuality. In fact it was specified that any TOC's booking office had to sell the whole range of available tickets and tickets were usable on any operators trains, except for those special offers valid on only one company's trains.

You may be referring to Open Access operators, but these were very limited in the early days - and one could argue that they still are.

Why are there so many myths around about what privatisation was supposed to do?

It was rapidly realised that a complete and utter commercial free for all would massively affect franchised operations , along with a "we only sell our own tickets at booking offices" - so a series of huge and awkward negotiations were done on (a) Protected flows to stop "raiders - e.g Virgin got protection into Euston by not allowing competitors to run terminal IC services into say Queens Park - (oops - that may happen) , or Kensington Olympia for example (b) The ORR played it hard on the protection of customer benefits for impartial retailing. Something that ATOC managed - in itself a construction of privatisation ....

So what did privatisation actually achieve - ? - best as Christian Wolmer for example....certainly not a free for all , or reduced operational costs. A few lucky millionaires and a lot of bureaucracy ......

 

[coppercapped]

It was rapidly realised that a complete and utter commercial free for all would massively affect franchised operations , along with a "we only sell our own tickets at booking offices" - so a series of huge and awkward negotiations were done on (a) Protected flows to stop "raiders - e.g Virgin got protection into Euston by not allowing competitors to run terminal IC services into say Queens Park - (oops - that may happen) , or Kensington Olympia for example (b) The ORR played it hard on the protection of customer benefits for impartial retailing. Something that ATOC managed - in itself a construction of privatisation ....

So what did privatisation actually achieve - ? - best as Christian Wolmer for example....certainly not a free for all , or reduced operational costs. A few lucky millionaires and a lot of bureaucracy ......

Which privatisation?

What we have now bears little resemblance to that which originally pertained.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....bearing in mind that that someone of fifteen years of age in 1994 would now be thirty seven years of age and have no real clue as to just how awful B.R. could be with it's fleet of dirty grotty old trains, dirty grotty old stations and a huge tranche of staff who had no clue or interest in good service. There were good bits but they were overwhelmed by the bad bits.

To be fair, a lot of things levelled at BR could apply today. Dirty, filthy, old, late or cancelled trains, staff with no idea whats going on and little appetite to learn more than they feel they need to. What has really changed with Privatisation?

 

[Kettledrum]

The tories have always hated the railways and been it`s number one enemy. The French and German argument has merit as these have been largely socialist governments that have an infrastructure designed around it`s working. Britain`s railways had suffered years of butchery at the hands of politicians intent on control of a service they didn`t care about as nothing more than a tool of whim.

.

I am not a political person, but from a historical perspective this is so wrong on so many fronts - and so little evidence to support it. Perhaps if you go back to the Beeching era, you could possibly argue that the tories hated the railways - but you'd also have to balance that by saying that Barbara Castle the Labour Minister continued where the Tories left off....but since then, we had conservative governments investing in electrification - from Thatcher to Cameron, Michael Portillo saving the Settle and Carlisle line, and I could say so much more. Labour had 10 years of doing nothing until Lord Adonis came along, so it's really not as simple as you're suggesting. There have been moments of inspirational political brilliance on both sides....as well as periods of huge ignorance and wilful neglect on all political sides.

As for your comment about German socialist governmentshock: that would be a huge surprise to the German's who have more often than not voted for right wing coalition governments. Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkl were/are in power for very long periods for example. In France the power has been more evenly shared between socialist and right wing presidents.

French and German infrastructure has more to do with the demolition caused by wartime bombing and the subsequent rebuilding of continental cities from almost scratch.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I had a feeling someone would say this. No I wouldn't. I study political theory and I'm far from a communist. Supermarkets compete, water companies don't and there is a reason we have one of the highest energy bills in Europe, even the world. If you're in favour of privitisation of everything, are you happy with Abellio, EdF, DB, or SNCF effectively running our trains and energy?

As a political theorist, can you offer up a reason why the general public can choose different gas and electricity suppliers but not water suppliers?

 

[ComUtoR]

As a political theorist, can you offer up a reason why the general public can choose different gas and electricity suppliers but not water suppliers?

Could it be because lecky and gas can be tracked and measured by the unit but waste can not ? Maybe the more to water meters can provide a method to change supplier, or at least change the person you pay.

As I understand it, my phone line is provided by BT but I pay Sky and Sky pay BT its just all the jiggery pokery in the exchange that allows Sky to "provide" my Broadband and Phone. Same with lecky. Its all done by the national grid and my "supplier" is just a different name on the contract rather than different infrastructure.

I pay "Thames Water" but if I moved house I would be paying a different provider. There is competition but more from a fragmented nature than one of direct supply and demand.

 

[jon0844]

With electricity you can choose to buy power from different sources, so you might pay for greener energy sources at a higher price. That service provider than buys different electricity, even if your actual supply won't be from that source.

Water is water. I assume gas is also gas but maybe that can be bought from different supplies?

Telecoms is the best for competition IMO. You have a BT infrastructure that many companies use, but not exclusively. There are other networks, from Cable and Wireless (Vodafone owned?), Virgin and many others.

 

[Busaholic]

Surely all Brexiteers would support renationalisation on the grounds of 'regaining National Sovereignty'? No? You do surprise me!

 

[ComUtoR]

Surely all Brexiteers would support renationalisation on the grounds of 'regaining National Sovereignty'? No? You do surprise me!

Oooh another angry, self righteous, bremainer. Keep up the insults, they are amusing.

Are all the bremainers in favour of privatisation because they are all capitalist pigs busy lining their pockets with shares invested in foreign rolling stock companies and TOC operators ? No? You do surprise me!:roll:

 

[dk1]

I supported Brexit & have continuous railway service since being employed by BR in September 1984. I still would not support renationalisation.

 

[Phil.]

To be fair, a lot of things levelled at BR could apply today. Dirty, filthy, old, late or cancelled trains, staff with no idea whats going on and little appetite to learn more than they feel they need to. What has really changed with Privatisation?

What has changed since privatisation?
Loads of nice new trains.
Stations being smarted up and independent refreshment retail units operating rather than "Traveller's Fare" and it's awfulness in products and staff.
Staff being more aware of having to impart information.
Trains and stations are definitely cleaner and tidier.
The staff are far better presented.
Huge amount of works to the infrastructure being carried out.

 

[mikeg]

I support renationalisation and broadly bringing back BR with some structural changes to take account of developments such as increasing devolution in transport.

BR was actually a very efficeint company, we had people come over from abroad to see how such an effective system could be run on a shoestring. That's not to say BR was perfect - it certainly was not!

The shortcomings of BR were in my opinion:

1. Not the customer friendly organisation many think it to be, just look at the old byelaw 5. But progress was made in the latter years, such as the explicit allowing of split ticketing since the late 70s iirc. Staff were renowned for having the opinion that you should be thankful that they were willing to provide you with a service at all and the organisation seemed at points to view passengers as getting in the way of efficient operation.

2. Chronically underfunded. This resulted in Maggie's buses on wheels and a passion for closing things, as well as some short-sighted fare increases. However the fare increases, with the exception of certain regulated fares (seasons in particular) have continued at a faster pace since privatisation.

3. Too much political interference - but then everything is run from DafT HQ nowadays in the long term, so I see little change there.

4. Constant restructuring - though this was to some extent necessary as the Big Four had outlived its usefulness and BR continued to be structured like this for way too long. It would take some time for a decent cost-effective and relevant structure to be found and even then that wouldn't necessarily work today.

5. A lack of openness, transparency. The freedom of information act though would like mean that a new BR would be more transparent than any private operator - just look at all the useful information gleaned from East Coast.

6. Despite many innovations under its belt, there could be a lot of conservatism in management - the company was woefully behind on things such as equalities, hiring its first woman driver in 1978 - again progress was made more quickly in the final years. It is perhaps also remembering that four years prior the stock market allowed women on the trading floor for the first time so not that far behind.


I'd say if we gave new BR the same money we give our railways today, we'd have a much better system than existed either under the current or previous ownership models. The problem is how to ensure that money is guaranteed. Maybe if we created a statutory corporation answerable to parliament rather than an board answerable to DafT and ran it at arms length, with more stakeholder involvement than government involvement?

Under BR in a period of less than 40 years we went from a slow steam railway with a small southern commuter electric network to having among the fastest trains in Europe, a greater percentage of our network running at 100mph+ than any other European country and a lot of technological innovation - most of this in the last 25 years. Today we just import stock technologies (including that tilting technology we invented then sold to the Italians), manage the system through pricing people off certain trains and give the trains a new lick of paint now and then. There's little innovation and progress is glacial due to the need to get so many companies to agree on basic things. Despite an advancement in ticketing technology for example, it has to work to an agreement from twenty years ago. Budgets are absurd, costs are inflated due to bureaucracy. False economies abound. The cost of raising debt is high due to the private markets being expensive compared to the public ones. The rolling stock market is oligopolised and can't be competitive by definition unless we were to have a large surplus of units (which would add further to cost). There is a lack of alignment of incentives - why should Network Rail pay for infrastructure when franchisees and freight operators will benefit? Why should a franchisee make any investment towards the end of the franchise unless DafT has mandated it? Under common ownership, these incentives would be aligned. We'd electrify track if the annualised cost was less than that of the diesel, for example. New BR would be able to do things such as rolling stock replacement without having to go through extensive and expensive consultations with ROSCOs for finance and procurement, or with Network Rail for track access charges. Infrastructure could be improved without having to shell out large amounts of compensation to the companies who will in the long term benefit.

So why not just create British Rail PLC? On the face of it that's a good idea, but would lead to high prices through other means and would create a firm that would probably just rest on its laurels reaping monopoly rents. With no franchise process/demsetz competition there would be no need to better standards until a regulator demanded it. Prices could be raised in a sub-obtimal manner,this already happens on many lines as it is, it would happen on all of them in this case.

But wouldn't nationalisation be expensive? Well possibly. But the country was broke when nationalisation first occured. Franchises could be taken back as they expire, Network Rail is essentially nationalised already and the ROSCOs are owned by the banks - because they provide a good steady rate of return so are probably quite worth investing in! The savings in the long run would probably trump the short term cost plus interest rates would be cheaper, allowing further savings/improvements to be made.

 

[Master29]

I'm 37, and I remember how bad BR was in places. A lot of places.

It's those in their twenties who never really experienced it. But if anyone does want a feel of it, watch the Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey (if you want a feel of it in the 1990s) or one of the earlier ones (for the blue and grey era).

The present system has many faults, but it's not the story of depressing decline, decay and a lack of ambition it was in the 1990s at least.

But wasn`t the point of privatisation to run down the railways by the tories so as to offer their alternative. They had every intention of doing that, as the point you made indicates.

 

[The Ham]

I voted not sure.

The reason being, it depends on what form Nationalisation takes and therefore how it will work/is governed.

One risk with doing so is that you could have national strikes over issues. That could mean that the national organisation opts to bring in things that aren't favourable to unions, so they have fewer more crippling strikes rather than TOC's opting to bring them in and resolving the problem one area at a time. To give a current example, DDO could be brought in so that it was able to be used everywhere (even if it wasn't at that point in time for most areas) so as to resolve that issue once and for all.

 

[mikeg]

As a political theorist, can you offer up a reason why the general public can choose different gas and electricity suppliers but not water suppliers?

Sure! Missed this post but here goes: For household supplies the standing charge forms quite a large part of the bill with water when compared with electric and gas. This is because a larger proportion of water supply costs and sewerage costs are fixed. These things lend themselves naturally to monopoly and certain aspects of sewerage are a public good. Even when you take into account the water itself and the fact that other companies could be brought in to dispose of parts of the sewage it's still tricky. Whereas electrricity need merely by synchronised with the grid (and we have a system operator to ensure that happens) and supplied by the DNO at a voltage correctable at the substation, introducing just any old water would negatively impact on everyone's supply. To maintain the frequency at 49.8-50.2Hz we just need a market that can design in supply and demand and a system operator to act as a buyer and seller of last resort should there be a surplus or shortfall (that's the simplified version without going into load profiles, etc). Gas is even easier: It can be stored and as long as supply and demand is roughly balanced all the rest is the transporter's problem. Water competition does happen and is increasing in the business sector and is in fact complete in this sector in Scotland. But the cost of administering the rather contrived competition for those who use as little as households do would almost certainly outweigh any reduction in monopoly rent-seeking. Thus we have a regulator to cap prices rather than competition.

In my mind this works well but the government has nonetheless hinted that retail competition for domestic water may begin around 2020 all going to plan. I say it's free market fundamentalism, some things do actually work better as a monopoly. Another problem with domestic supply is what to do with those on unmetered supplies. I suspect they won't be getting competition anytime soon. Though I think competition is overrated. We have forgotten that it is a means towards an end (namely high quality service for a low price) rather than an end in itself.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to electricity I find it interesting that our model differs from that in Germany, where competition is over where the electricity originates and actually affects the buying market. So you can choose to pay more to fund more renewable energy being fed in, or less and go for dirty coal, or you can choose to import or generate domestically. This seems to have a lot more benefits than just competing over who can cut the cost of the billing and customer service operation more, something that never ends well.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[steamybrian]

I support renationalisation and broadly bringing back BR with some structural changes to take account of developments such as increasing devolution in transport.

BR was actually a very efficeint company, we had people come over from abroad to see how such an effective system could be run on a shoestring. That's not to say BR was perfect - it certainly was not!

The shortcomings of BR were in my opinion:

1. Not the customer friendly organisation many think it to be, just look at the old byelaw 5. But progress was made in the latter years, such as the explicit allowing of split ticketing since the late 70s iirc. Staff were renowned for having the opinion that you should be thankful that they were willing to provide you with a service at all and the organisation seemed at points to view passengers as getting in the way of efficient operation.

2. Chronically underfunded. This resulted in Maggie's buses on wheels and a passion for closing things, as well as some short-sighted fare increases. However the fare increases, with the exception of certain regulated fares (seasons in particular) have continued at a faster pace since privatisation.

3. Too much political interference - but then everything is run from DafT HQ nowadays in the long term, so I see little change there.

4. Constant restructuring - though this was to some extent necessary as the Big Four had outlived its usefulness and BR continued to be structured like this for way too long. It would take some time for a decent cost-effective and relevant structure to be found and even then that wouldn't necessarily work today.

5. A lack of openness, transparency. The freedom of information act though would like mean that a new BR would be more transparent than any private operator - just look at all the useful information gleaned from East Coast.

6. Despite many innovations under its belt, there could be a lot of conservatism in management - the company was woefully behind on things such as equalities, hiring its first woman driver in 1978 - again progress was made more quickly in the final years. It is perhaps also remembering that four years prior the stock market allowed women on the trading floor for the first time so not that far behind.


I'd say if we gave new BR the same money we give our railways today, we'd have a much better system than existed either under the current or previous ownership models. The problem is how to ensure that money is guaranteed. Maybe if we created a statutory corporation answerable to parliament rather than an board answerable to DafT and ran it at arms length, with more stakeholder involvement than government involvement?

Under BR in a period of less than 40 years we went from a slow steam railway with a small southern commuter electric network to having among the fastest trains in Europe, a greater percentage of our network running at 100mph+ than any other European country and a lot of technological innovation - most of this in the last 25 years. Today we just import stock technologies (including that tilting technology we invented then sold to the Italians), manage the system through pricing people off certain trains and give the trains a new lick of paint now and then. There's little innovation and progress is glacial due to the need to get so many companies to agree on basic things. Despite an advancement in ticketing technology for example, it has to work to an agreement from twenty years ago. Budgets are absurd, costs are inflated due to bureaucracy. False economies abound. The cost of raising debt is high due to the private markets being expensive compared to the public ones. The rolling stock market is oligopolised and can't be competitive by definition unless we were to have a large surplus of units (which would add further to cost). There is a lack of alignment of incentives - why should Network Rail pay for infrastructure when franchisees and freight operators will benefit? Why should a franchisee make any investment towards the end of the franchise unless DafT has mandated it? Under common ownership, these incentives would be aligned. We'd electrify track if the annualised cost was less than that of the diesel, for example. New BR would be able to do things such as rolling stock replacement without having to go through extensive and expensive consultations with ROSCOs for finance and procurement, or with Network Rail for track access charges. Infrastructure could be improved without having to shell out large amounts of compensation to the companies who will in the long term benefit.

So why not just create British Rail PLC? On the face of it that's a good idea, but would lead to high prices through other means and would create a firm that would probably just rest on its laurels reaping monopoly rents. With no franchise process/demsetz competition there would be no need to better standards until a regulator demanded it. Prices could be raised in a sub-obtimal manner,this already happens on many lines as it is, it would happen on all of them in this case.

But wouldn't nationalisation be expensive? Well possibly. But the country was broke when nationalisation first occured. Franchises could be taken back as they expire, Network Rail is essentially nationalised already and the ROSCOs are owned by the banks - because they provide a good steady rate of return so are probably quite worth investing in! The savings in the long run would probably trump the short term cost plus interest rates would be cheaper, allowing further savings/improvements to be made.

I fully agree.
The person that should be voting on this forum should be only those that used BR prior to 1994 and can fully understand the differences.

 

[Andrewlong]

I think water supply is less of a political issue than power price-wise. You can cut charges by going metered, not pouring gallons over your lawns and not having too many baths. And not having a swimming pool. That's about it.

 

[jon0844]

I fully agree.
The person that should be voting on this forum should be only those that used BR prior to 1994 and can fully understand the differences.

A new BR couldn't be given the same amount of money and the whole argument for nationalisation by many is due to the perception that we waste so much money and could do everything so much cheaper by getting rid of the profits and fat cat salaries.

I rather suspect we would more likely go back to a shoestring budget than investing huge sums. I can't believe there's as much to save getting rid of private companies as some think.

Comments in papers and social media would have you believe we could halve rail fares or something!