The Structure of a Nationalised Railway?

[Polo Mint]

Hello,

There has been lots of conversations about a fully nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom, particularly since election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

What would be the best way to structure the railway system?

Labour have ruled out the return of British Rail, but perhaps a centralised system could reduce duplication costs and it may be suitable for people connecting between different parts of the country.

Could bigger cities control their own network system, just as TFL do with London Overground? The Merseyside PTE could operate the network in Merseyside and likewise with TFGM and the Manchester area whilst inter city and regional trains are run centrally.

Perhaps a regional structure may be more suitable with the likes of Network North West and Network Southeast returning, but with local councils in the areas they serve having more input.

Perhaps a good solution is a co-operative owned by employees, passengers and local authorities that has been suggested by Christian Wolmar. This may be a popular solution with locals having a stake in the network.

 

[najaB]

Perhaps a regional structure may be more suitable with the likes of Network North West and Network Southeast returning, but with local councils in the areas they serve having more input.

Who would run the intercity operations?

 

[cf111]

Who would run the intercity operations?

This forum .

 

[6Gman]

Perhaps a good solution is a co-operative owned by employees, passengers and local authorities that has been suggested by Christian Wolmar. This may be a popular solution with locals having a stake in the network.

Employee-owned bus companies didn't have a very good track record.

And how do you define "passengers" in this context and how would they participate in "ownership"?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Ideologically, I'm pro-nationalisation (not just for the railway but for ALL strategic industries/services such as utilities and power generation) but I'm not rose-tinted about what BR was like, particularly in the lead-up to privatisation. Naysayers like to bring up the huge investment in the railway since it was privatised but conveniently neglect the fact that most of that investment has come from (or been guaranteed by) the public purse.

Local control of local services works well in Germany where many medium and large cities have comprehensive S-bahn networks controlled by the "Lander" but it might be harder to implement without the long-established federal system of government that exists there. Cross-boundary services would be an issue as they are today (try getting a ticket from Marsden to Greenfield without needing a second mortgage!).

 

[matt_world2004]

British Rails Early 1990's business units worked rather well, I believe the best way of having an nationalised railway would be to have British Rail style business units, With a centralised pensions and staff travel scheme. To take advantage of increased devoloution have regional transport authorities responcible for Metro and Commuter railways in their respective areas.

 

[Grimsby town]

I'd personally like to see a centralised organisation 'Rail England' be formed. Wales and Scotland would get complete devolution for their railways and there would be scope for competition on overlapping services.

Cities would gain more control of commuter services but rolling stock would be ordered by a rolling stock planning commitee to allow greater standardisation. Open Acess would be given paths on intercity routes to encourage innovation and efficiency.

I'd also like to see a law passed that limits governments involvement to stop them using the railways as a political football.

 

[6Gman]

I'd personally like to see a centralised organisation 'Rail England' be formed. Wales and Scotland would get complete devolution for their railways and there would be scope for competition on overlapping services.

Cities would gain more control of commuter services but rolling stock would be ordered by a rolling stock planning commitee to allow greater standardisation. Open Acess would be given paths on intercity routes to encourage innovation and efficiency.

I'd also like to see a law passed that limits governments involvement to stop them using the railways as a political football.

Isn't there a contradiction there?

 

[furnessvale]

How would freight fit into all this?

Would they once again revert to the "good" old days of being shunted out of the way to allow a high priority class 153 with 4 passengers through?

 

[Grimsby town]

Isn't there a contradiction there?

Central Governments involvement should be limited because they are more likely to cut services to save money. Generally I think there is more scope for parties to work together in local government for the good of the area and there is less ideology involved. Obviously it won't be quite risk free but they will have a lot less power than a national government to make changes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Merseytravel already are the franchising authority for Merseyrail.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

All this sounds like playing trains with someone else's money.
The first task will be to define a money-go-round which suits the Treasury, DfT, regions and all the regulatory bodies (UK and EU) - not to mention passengers.
How much public ownership will there be? Trains? Maintenance? Catering? Property? etc
What do you do with Network Rail?
What will be the commercial objectives (BR's was mostly to "break even")?
Are we going back to annual budgets set by government?
Will operations be competitively tendered periodically (like London buses or Overground)?
What happens to open access/freight/international?

Only when there are answers to these questions (and probably many more) can you start drawing lines on maps and painting trains.
Corbyn's "we'll just take back the TOCs when the franchises expire" is not a proper answer.

 

[coppercapped]

Hello,

There has been lots of conversations about a fully nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom, particularly since election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

What would be the best way to structure the railway system?

Labour have ruled out the return of British Rail, but perhaps a centralised system could reduce duplication costs and it may be suitable for people connecting between different parts of the country.

Could bigger cities control their own network system, just as TFL do with London Overground? The Merseyside PTE could operate the network in Merseyside and likewise with TFGM and the Manchester area whilst inter city and regional trains are run centrally.

Perhaps a regional structure may be more suitable with the likes of Network North West and Network Southeast returning, but with local councils in the areas they serve having more input.

Perhaps a good solution is a co-operative owned by employees, passengers and local authorities that has been suggested by Christian Wolmar. This may be a popular solution with locals having a stake in the network.

The railways are already nationalised - the question is superfluous.

The infrastructure is owned by a company which is controlled by the Department for Transport and it is supplied with money by the Treasury. Since it has been deemed by the National Audit Office that its borrowings should be treated as Government borrowings it can no longer borrow money on the open markets. Hence the squawks about not having enough money to carry out all the enhancements planned during this control period.

The potential overspends are also in part due to the way the projects are selected. The Government wrote a 'wish list' of what it wanted to see done during the next Control Period - the High Level Output Specification (HLOS) and gave a 'do not exceed' limit to the expenditure it was prepared to make - the Statement of Funds Available (SoFA). This is all done on the basis of a finger in the air, back of the envelope calculations, and all the subsequent palaver is simply one group of civil servants writing to another group of civil servants until they can all agree on a business plan for Network Rail. Or do you think that the DfT and the ORR have, jointly or severally, the knowledge, ability and skills to accurately cost the conversion of the Southampton to Basingstoke stretch from DC to AC or accurately cost the construction of the 'Electric Spine' or the GW electrification before setting the SoFA?

If the system were 'officially' nationalised - why would this situation get better?

Train services are, with the partial exception of the Open Access Operators (see below), in the Government's gift. Potential train operators bid against requirements laid down by the Government concerning, among other things, train frequencies, first and last trains and the type of rolling stock to be used. The winner is then granted a licence by the Government to operate these services for a limited period. Note that the Government is standing as proxy for the passenger - the passengers are not asked directly what they want and need. If one can't get from any one part of the country to any other part of the country easily with interconnecting services - it's because the Government doesn't think it is necessary. It controls what the TOCs supply.

Fares are controlled by the Government - directly via the regulated fares and indirectly by the knock-on effect on the non-regulated fares. (By and large no non-regulated fare will be higher than a regulated one).

The Open Access operators are granted, or not, train paths by the ORR - nominally independent but essentially part of the DfT, i.e., the Government.

The only parts of the whole thing which are effectively private are the Freight Operating Companies and the Rolling Stock Companies.

Having more local involvement in train service planning is probably a good thing, but all it achieves is moving some decision making from one public body in London to another public body in Bristol or Sheffield or Leeds or wherever.

It's the equivalent of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

[yorksrob]

Having more local involvement in train service planning is probably a good thing, but all it achieves is moving some decision making from one public body in London to another public body in Bristol or Sheffield or Leeds or wherever.

It's the equivalent of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

That in itself is a big achievement. Even local public bodies are more likely to have an idea of what's needed North and West than Whitehall (see Scotland after devolution).

The tradgedy is that whilst the Cities have been transformed buy their PTE's and the devolved nations have been able to improve their areas, The rest of England has been allowed to atrophy.

Would a Cumbria PTE type body have allowed the closure of the Keswick branch for example.

 

[Senex]

The railways are already nationalised - the question is superfluous. ........... It's the equivalent of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Exactly so!

 

[HH]

What will be the commercial objectives (BR's was mostly to "break even")?

This is the nub of the matter. I expect we'd see the wasteful practise that BR followed, the DfT still follows, and which seem to be typical of all government departments. That they spend something like 80% of the year trying desperately to stay within budget and then realise that they are millions underspent and fish around for projects to spend it on (and from what I can see, it's projects that can be mobilised quickly, rather than those that are needed or are good value for money). This is driven by the fact that if you don't spend it, then next year's budget will be lower, rather than higher, and lower budget means less power, less high-ranking civil servants, etc.

This is one reason why reinstating BR or similar will never save the money that many believe.

Corbyn, of course, doesn't really care; he is still fighting 30 year old battles.

 

[coppercapped]

That in itself is a big achievement. Even local public bodies are more likely to have an idea of what's needed North and West than Whitehall (see Scotland after devolution).

The tradgedy is that whilst the Cities have been transformed buy their PTE's and the devolved nations have been able to improve their areas, The rest of England has been allowed to atrophy.

Unless the local area bodies have their own tax raising powers, all that can happen is that the same sized pot of money will be divided up differently. The size of the pot of money depends on tax revenues - the Government's only source of income. I leave it to the reader to decide which is the more deserving - tax credits for the low paid or longer trains to Bolton or Bromsgrove or another 1000 nurses for the NHS.

Would a Cumbria PTE type body have allowed the closure of the Keswick branch for example.

Who knows? It would have depended on how much money such a PTE had to spend. This is set by central Government.... [contd. p94.

 

[matt_world2004]

Unless the local area bodies have their own tax raising powers, all that can happen is that the same sized pot of money will be divided up differently. The size of the pot of money depends on tax revenues - the Government's only source of income. I leave it to the reader to decide which is the more deserving - tax credits for the low paid or longer trains to Bolton or Bromsgrove or another 1000 nurses for the NHS.



Who knows? It would have depended on how much money such a PTE had to spend. This is set by central Government.... [contd. p94.

So do you expect under nationalisation that all tickets on the railway will become free. Because pre privatisation railway and post privatisation railway were funded in exactly the same way a combination of tax revenues and ticket revenues.infact many railway lines under nationalisation ran at a surplus are now a bread basket under privatisation.

 

[yorksrob]

This is the nub of the matter. I expect we'd see the wasteful practise that BR followed, the DfT still follows, and which seem to be typical of all government departments. That they spend something like 80% of the year trying desperately to stay within budget and then realise that they are millions underspent and fish around for projects to spend it on (and from what I can see, it's projects that can be mobilised quickly, rather than those that are needed or are good value for money). This is driven by the fact that if you don't spend it, then next year's budget will be lower, rather than higher, and lower budget means less power, less high-ranking civil servants, etc.

This is one reason why reinstating BR or similar will never save the money that many believe.

Corbyn, of course, doesn't really care; he is still fighting 30 year old battles.

I'm not sure that's a fair representation of BR's investment policies.

Certainly the rolling electrification programme on the Southern Region, for example, seemed to be more or less ongoing during the 1980's, but which could be picked up whenever money was available. That's an example of a long term objective that was continuously pursued, in spite of limitations in terms of Government funding.

Of course, there's no reason why a Government couldn't agree a longer term funding plan for a public rail operator. That they didn't betrays poor Government policy.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Unless the local area bodies have their own tax raising powers, all that can happen is that the same sized pot of money will be divided up differently. The size of the pot of money depends on tax revenues - the Government's only source of income. I leave it to the reader to decide which is the more deserving - tax credits for the low paid or longer trains to Bolton or Bromsgrove or another 1000 nurses for the NHS.



Who knows? It would have depended on how much money such a PTE had to spend. This is set by central Government.... [contd. p94.

Well, that's an important point about control over tax raising powers (and tax raised), hence the current devolution agenda.

Nevertheless, one has to look at the difference PTE's have made in the past forty years without such powers.

 

[thenorthern]

Another thread about Nationalisation. First thing to remember is under the present political system its never going to happen regardless of who is in power.

Its important to remember that under British Rail nearly everything was self sufficient such as the catering, most the train building, car parking facilities and research for things such as the creation of Sandite were all done in house by British Rail. There was a lot of collaboration with other state owned industries at the time such as Rover built the gas turbines for the InterCity APT-E and British Leyland and the National Bus company collaborated with BREL in building the (now) dreaded Class 142 Pacer. As nearly all the state owned industries are sold off now we won't be going back to this.

With who would control what I would think that a nationalised ScotRail would be controlled by the Scottish Government and track maintenance for Scotland would be devolved. in Wales I am not sure how it would be controlled as the Wales and Borders Franchise does operate a large amount of services in England. For England the control of a nationalised railway would remain largely with Westminster simply because there are very few lines that stay within a city region, Merseyrail and London Overground are the exceptions. Intercity operators would remain the responsibility of Westminster.

As a whole though both the administration and governance of the United Kingdom as well as the amount of state owned industries has vastly changed since the railways were state owned its difficult to say what it would look like if the railways were re-nationalised.

 

[6Gman]

For England the control of a nationalised railway would remain largely with Westminster simply because there are very few lines that stay within a city region, Merseyrail and London Overground are the exceptions. Intercity operators would remain the responsibility of Westminster.

A very important point.

I wonder how many departures from Manchester terminate within Greater Manchester? Very few I suspect!

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

Hello,

There has been lots of conversations about a fully nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom, particularly since election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Labour have ruled out the return of British Rail.

That last point isn't entirely true. While British Rail won't return, Labour do now have a policy of renationalising the railways to the same structure as British Rail called a "People's Railway". This is because Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, as he's always been in favour in public ownership of the British railways, only he's doing it the cheaper way of taking franchises back into public hands once they expire, which would theoretically leave one-third of the system's train services renationalised by 2025. This isn't like Ed Miliband or Andy Burnham's policy where the state would be allowed to bid like any private company, this is reunifying and bringing back a single-bodied railway system ran by one company.

Now this is a popular policy but there are a few obstacles. Because people in marginal constituencies don't tend to hold strict political views, some of them may not be entirely informed and not be aware it would be cheaper to run the railways like Labour want to than how it is run now, and given that the Conservative Party have been relying on scaremongering tactics lately, along with the backing of the media, they have these people believe investment will decrease and services will drop, even though investment comes from the state, and can potentially maintain the level of services.

We may have to wait and see if this policy takes effect, but it's already popular among some marginal locals, and even around 30% of Conservatives believe it to be a good idea, so I'm sure it can win some votes, but we should wait and see, and you might see the return of British Rail one day.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

this is reunifying and bringing back a single-bodied railway system run by one company.

How do you know that? Labour has not done the detailed planning.
There already is a single nationalised body for rail, it's called DfT Rail Executive.
It is intended to become an "arms length" organisation during this parliament.
There's a lot of flesh to go on the bones of Labour's proposals yet.
How many companies we end up with, and what they do, is anybody's guess.
And Labour has to be voted into power, and enact the legislation which will take some time (and railways will probably again be "not a priority").
Meanwhile, the present government may well have changed the structure (eg re-privatised Network Rail).
I'm just pointing out the pitfalls in predicting what might happen in 5 years time.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

How do you know that? Labour has not done the detailed planning.
There already is a single nationalised body for rail, it's called DfT Rail Executive.
It is intended to become an "arms length" organisation during this parliament.
There's a lot of flesh to go on the bones of Labour's proposals yet.
How many companies we end up with, and what they do, is anybody's guess.
And Labour has to be voted into power, and enact the legislation which will take some time (and railways will probably again be "not a priority").
Meanwhile, the present government may well have changed the structure (eg re-privatised Network Rail).
I'm just pointing out the pitfalls in predicting what might happen in 5 years time.

I wasn't intending to predict anything in five years time, do forgive any misinterpretation, but from what I understand it is something that may make the manifesto given the Labour leader's views on rail nationalisation. Of course Labour has to be voted in, I don't think I disputed that. We shall just have to wait and see.

I hope to god though that the government doesn't re-privatise Network Rail, cause Railtrack had a terrible record in comparison. Sadly I wouldn't put it past the government to sell their souls off to private companies, yet alone Network Rail. Again, we'll have to wait and see.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I wasn't intend to predict anything in five years time, do forgive any misinterpretation, but from what I understand it is something that may make the manifesto given the Labour leader's views on rail nationalisation. Of course Labour has to be voted in, I don't think I disputed that. We shall just have to wait and see.

I hope to god though that the government doesn't re-privatise Network Rail, cause Railtrack had a terrible record in comparison. Sadly I wouldn't out it past the government to sell their souls off to private companies, yet alone Network Rail. Again, we'll have to wait and see.

No probs.
It's early days for Labour - we'll see how keen they are on rail nationalisation in a few year's time.
There are many pitfalls, not least the budget situation if/when they take over.
Sir Humphrey may well tell them their proposals are "unwise".
I've no idea how the NR thing will develop but I wouldn't rule out a chunk of NR being sold to pension funds.
It would be quite funny if unions' pension funds (such as RMT or ASLEF) were invested in Network Rail, like the Canadian public pensions have gone into HS1.
That is what George Osborne wants.

 

[Class 170101]

The Open Access operators are granted, or not, train paths by the ORR - nominally independent but essentially part of the DfT, i.e., the Government.

The only parts of the whole thing which are effectively private are the Freight Operating Companies

I would suggest the first sentence actually applies to the freight companies as they are granted paths by the ORR (2nd sentence).

and the Rolling Stock Companies.

These may be private but how many are still owned by the banks that still have shares owned by the government after 2007 recession?

 

[thenorthern]

A very important point.

I wonder how many departures from Manchester terminate within Greater Manchester? Very few I suspect!

The only one I can think of is the Rose Hill Marple line and the Stockport to Stalybridge Line.

There would also be the issue of who would own the rolling stock and would a Local Authority be forced to used a TMD outside their area.

 

[alexl92]

RE: Rolling stock, could it be possible to return engineering and the building & design of rolling stock to these shores?
One of the advantages of BR (it seems; I'm too young to remember properly) was that if they needed a loco or unit for a particular purpose, they went out and designed one and built it in house. Surely this approach could save a lot of money, rather than having to commission Hitachi or whoever to design something for us?

 

[Morgsie]

There is historical evidence that suggests when there is an economic downturn then the railways would be cut if there was a fully nationalised railway system.

Another argument that needs to be discussed is compliance with EU Law as Transport is a Shared Competence between the EU and the 28 Member States. EU policy is currently liberalising domestic services in other words opening up markets and there is the Fourth Railway Package going through the EU at the moment. Existing EU Law is for Infrastructure and Operations to be separate

 

[HH]

RE: Rolling stock, could it be possible to return engineering and the building & design of rolling stock to these shores?
One of the advantages of BR (it seems; I'm too young to remember properly) was that if they needed a loco or unit for a particular purpose, they went out and designed one and built it in house. Surely this approach could save a lot of money, rather than having to commission Hitachi or whoever to design something for us?

Shirley seems to be rather naive. Where are all the nationalised expert train designers going to come from?

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

There is historical evidence that suggests when there is an economic downturn then the railways would be cut if there was a fully nationalised railway system.

Another argument that needs to be discussed is compliance with EU Law as Transport is a Shared Competence between the EU and the 28 Member States. EU policy is currently liberalising domestic services in other words opening up markets and there is the Fourth Railway Package going through the EU at the moment. Existing EU Law is for Infrastructure and Operations to be separate

QFT. But since when have politicians let nasty little things like facts get in the way of policy - while they're in opposition?

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

These may be private but how many are still owned by the banks that still have shares owned by the government after 2007 recession?

Are there any?

Porterbrook has been owned since October 2014 by an international consortium comprising Alberta Investment Management Corporation, Allianz Capital Partners, EDF Invest and Hastings Fund Management.

In 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland group sold Angel Trains for £3.6 billion as part of a £10 billion assets sale to raise cash. On 13 June 2008 the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that a consortium led by Babcock & Brown had acquired the business.

HSBC announced in November 2010 that it had agreed to sell rolling stock leasing business Eversholt Rail Group to the Eversholt Investment Group consortium of funds managed by 3i Infrastructure, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and STAR Capital Partners. In January 2015 3i agreed to sell its stake to CK Investments, a joint venture owned by Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Holdings (present name CK Hutchison Holdings) and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI).