Where privatisation went off the rails

[yorksrob]

Well from the Times this morning and the way Hammonds briefing its suggesting he will find come down mostly on the labour costs of the industry suggesting abolition of things like contractual cross station/down train walking times, 45 minute warm up time, fixed 8 hour shifts replaced with flexible shifts such as 5 or 6 hours which closer match actual train journey times, massive overtime multipliers, etc...

Yes, I was reading those today (I don't know how true any of them are).

The one where the unions apparently threatened to go on strike if an extra carriage was added to the train sounded pretty unjustifiable.

There was another example quoted where a TOC complained that they had to allow a driver twelve minutes to switch end rather than two. I think twelve minutes sounds reasonable as it might be the drivers only chance to have a pee. (I'd post the link but the paper doesn't allow it anymore).

There probably are savings to be made in this area, but they're living in a dreamworld if they think that this will solve all of the railways organisational and financial problems.

 

[WatcherZero]

The extra carriage was the Docklands, encouraged by Crow they were demanding a 1/3rd increase in wages because they were now responsible for three car sets rather than two. I think they did eventually back down there.

 

[Mystic Force]

The ROSCOs were clearly sold of much to cheaply.

Now the price of this can all be summed up in one of the simplest tenets of economics, supply and demand. Without a high supply of excess units franchisers cant get competitive rates they have to pay the asking price. Secondly the way the ROSCOs have aligned themselves, they tend to own all of one class of train. At which point you have lost the competitive element, if you can only go to one ROSCO for the equipment you need, no competition.

Then their is the other aspect of pricing which we have to consider, that is what the market will bare. In the absence of a price lowering incentive the driving force for the cost will be the maximum you can extract before the customer baulks. That's how most goods are really priced. Its not like if a ROSCO lowers its prices 10% it can make up the difference in volume. It has a fixed number of trains to lease and a lack of supply of alternatives.

The other point of ROSCOs is they should be bearing the risk of new trains, but it still seems that the government has to put their hand in their pocket when it comes to financing of new rolling stock.

The one thing that has me wondering is the likes of SNCF and DB, those state owned companies that are now becoming important international transportation conglomerates, maybe under a different approach British Rail would now be buying up assets in France and Germany?