As usual, this thread is more "complaints about the current private set-up" than 'suggestions for a practical nationalisation". For example, if its unethical for trains to be operated by private companies, are you okay with Rail Replacement Buses to be run by private companies? Should all buses that accept Plus Bus tickets be nationalised too? Do we nationalise The Train Line or the M&S Simply Food at your local station?
I think the point of nationalisation of any asset is that, at the moment, any profit goes into the hands of fat cats and shareholders... and people don't see why that should be so. If it's something you have to use, such as gas, electricity, water, transport then the ownership should be public with any profit going straight back into the Government coffers...
The problem with this argument is that rail only makes up five/ten percent of journeys in the UK - it's hardly "essential" on a nationwide scale.
Important, sure, but the vast majority of people don't use heavy rail on a regular basis.
Whereas most people buy milk/ eggs/ meat/ vegetables... should we nationalise farms?
in fact, I think the whole nationalisation debate is being driven by the fact that, now hard ecomomic realities such as arbitary and excessive price hikes have hit home, people now realise what a massive con privatisation was in the first place...
Most of the increase in costs to the railway industry have come from the increases to infrastructure - compare a new platform or a mile of electrification or remodelling a junction with the equivalent cost twenty years ago - its astronomical. Part of that is because we have much higher safety standards, of course, but the public sector Network Rail have run up huge debts - people still blame Stagecoach/ First/ Arriva though!
BR was one big resource. You cannot argue that as one big lump it helped that everyone was reading from the same page, had the same objective and all problems were overcome by pulling together. Failed train? Loco comes from a depot a short distance away and pulls it home. Freight terminal sitting on 85 spare locos? Share them with a depot that has ran dry
All sounds lovely but that wasn't how BR was run for the final decade and that isn't how any nationalised railway would be run in the twenty first century.
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Sodor anymore.
Look at the NHS or schools - they don't simply swap resources around willy-nilly - everything is costed for, everything comes from one budget or another.
1990s BR could swap around resources if it wanted to but you'd have to allocate costs from Railfreight to Provincial if a freight loco was called up to haul a local train.
There's also the issue of staff only being trained on certain types of train and on certain routes - you're not going to just point at a redundant locomotive in a siding and assume that someone will be able to drive it on a certain route. The world is much more complicated nowadays (and will remain so even if nationalised).
The problem with a railway is that for most people who commute its a 4th emergency service. The customer needs that service no matter what. Its a life dependent thing on a financial and mental level.
People who buy lots of products rely on those products - where do you draw the line? Shall we nationalise all taxis, since people rely on them?
Then re-nationalise the gas and electricity companies.
Nationalise all supermarkets and farms.
Nationalise the pharmaceutical industry.
Nationalise all house building.
Arguably all more important things than a delayed or crowded train.
True.
The railways were all built as private corporate enterprises, and remained so from 1825 to 1948. Did they magically become a public service upon nationalisation? Or were they already, but run by private companies?
I think they magically became a "public service" when people were trying to find an excuse not to close their local branchline in the 1960s.
According to stats reported by the media and polls the desire once again seems to have shifted to the public wanting the railway operators to be nationalised again.
So presumably if we had a referendum on that tomorrow, the railways would once again be nationalised by the vote.
Polls show that "the public" want lots of things that politicians don't suggest. The Death Penalty for one. Do you want to go down that road towards lynch mobs?
It's also questionable whether we should let the BR of the past taint a possible future state owned railway operation as well. Who says resource would be starved this time around? Public pressure would have more of a say nowadays.
The Government can face down Police Officers, Teachers, Fire Fighters and Doctors and Librarians because they are weak (compared to the state).
So Austerity has seen big cuts to essential public services - tens of thousands of fewer public servants in these essential roles.
Are you telling me that a Government willing to see crime rise as a price to pay for removing front line policing would be trusted to keep rural branch lines open? Sorry pupil funding is going down in real terms and we don't have enough trained Doctors to keep patients alive, but we'll keep funding the Heart Of Wales?
Without the muscle of Stagecoach/ First etc, rail would be at the mercy of Government cuts, left right and centre.
