UK Rail services to come under unified state control.

[caravanman]

The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s.
It will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will set timetables and prices, sell tickets in England and manage rail infrastructure.

Rail services to come under unified state control

 

[NS VIA Fan]

The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s.
It will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will set timetables and prices, sell tickets in England and manage rail infrastructure.

Why not just call it INTERCITY

 

[railiner]

Even more interesting than the article, were the heated comments afterwards...thanks for posting!

 

[caravanman]

Sadly the Conservative party wish to sell off or privatise eveything, including the railways has produced a fragmented and silly situation.
They will never call it "Re-nationalisation", and they will still allow private companies to operate, but a national system, or Network Rail as was, is a step back towards a sensible rail plan, in my opinion...

 

[cirdan]

Sadly the Conservative party wish to sell off or privatise eveything, including the railways has produced a fragmented and silly situation.
They will never call it "Re-nationalisation", and they will still allow private companies to operate, but a national system, or Network Rail as was, is a step back towards a sensible rail plan, in my opinion...

Despite all its problems, privatisation has led to an increase in ridership, with in pre Covid times more journeys being made by rail than ever before in history, including in pre-Beeching times. The rate at which lines closed tailed off rapidly with privatization and there have even been a trickle of lines reopening.

British Rail on the other hand seemed to see its role in managing decline and retrenchment of an ever shrinking system.

Privatization was far from roses of course and a lot of things went terribly wrong. But I think its misguided to want to turn the clock back.

 

[jiml]

Despite all its problems, privatisation has led to an increase in ridership, with in pre Covid times more journeys being made by rail than ever before in history, including in pre-Beeching times. The rate at which lines closed tailed off rapidly with privatization and there have even been a trickle of lines reopening.

British Rail on the other hand seemed to see its role in managing decline and retrenchment of an ever shrinking system.

Privatization was far from roses of course and a lot of things went terribly wrong. But I think its misguided to want to turn the clock back.

Statistics tend to get lost in the greater grievances with the recent system. However, my British friends would agree with your analysis.

 

[MARC Rider]

Despite all its problems, privatisation has led to an increase in ridership, with in pre Covid times more journeys being made by rail than ever before in history, including in pre-Beeching times. The rate at which lines closed tailed off rapidly with privatization and there have even been a trickle of lines reopening.

British Rail on the other hand seemed to see its role in managing decline and retrenchment of an ever shrinking system.

Privatization was far from roses of course and a lot of things went terribly wrong. But I think its misguided to want to turn the clock back.

As they say, "correlation is not causation." You'll need more data to demonstrate that privatization was the cause of the increased ridership. Other explanations are population growth and the fact that by the 1990s, rails travel was again being seen as a viable transportation alternative, as traffic congestion was getting worse and environmental awareness was increasing. In fact, if you look at the ridership graph you posted it appears that ridership bottomed out in the early 1980s, and was starting to rise again, even under the publicly owned British Rail.

 

[jiml]

Even more interesting than the article, were the heated comments afterwards...thanks for posting!

They're fascinating when we're detached from the reality, but the similarities are not lost in North America. Just substitute a few names and terms in the US or Canada.

 

[jis]

I think the causation comes from privatization going hand in hand with increased subsidies. Not that it had to be that way. But in fact that is how it worked out. Increased subsidies and additional private investment led to a flood of new equipment and restored and additional services.

 

[caravanman]

I honestly can never understand how a private firm, run to make money, can provide a better service for less cost than a railway run by the state to simply break even? As Jis said, maybe if the increased subsidies (taxpayer funded) were invested in the original system passenger numbers would have risen too?
Having worked for BR back in the day, I mourn the loss of so much goodwill and cameraderie amongst the work force.

 

[jiml]

I honestly can never understand how a private firm, run to make money, can provide a better service for less cost than a railway run by the state to simply break even? As Jis said, maybe if the increased subsidies (taxpayer funded) were invested in the original system passenger numbers would have risen too?
Having worked for BR back in the day, I mourn the loss of so much goodwill and cameraderie amongst the work force.

I have friends and relatives who worked for CN before it was privatized who would agree with you on the work environment. It was a "career" then rather than just a job.

 

[20th Century Rider]

I honestly can never understand how a private firm, run to make money, can provide a better service for less cost than a railway run by the state to simply break even? As Jis said, maybe if the increased subsidies (taxpayer funded) were invested in the original system passenger numbers would have risen too?
Having worked for BR back in the day, I mourn the loss of so much goodwill and cameraderie amongst the work force.

Remembering my first experience on British Rail... when I was a kid back in the late 60's. It was amazing. Then a little later on with the Virgin Train that went from the north clear to Penzance. Delightful service including food and drink. I guess there was a lot of 'stress' behind the scenes with the 'bean counters' juggling the pound to make it all work. It will be interesting to see what happens when the pendulum swings back to 'nationalization.'

But as I've shared before... the British Isles have in place a track and passenger rail infrastructure that is beyond dreaming for what is in the USA. State supported... federal supported... cut this and cut that... dah da dah dee dee. Like a glide path to oblivion.

 

[JontyMort]

As they say, "correlation is not causation." You'll need more data to demonstrate that privatization was the cause of the increased ridership. Other explanations are population growth and the fact that by the 1990s, rails travel was again being seen as a viable transportation alternative, as traffic congestion was getting worse and environmental awareness was increasing. In fact, if you look at the ridership graph you posted it appears that ridership bottomed out in the early 1980s, and was starting to rise again, even under the publicly owned British Rail.

I would agree with that. If you look at that graph, the decline up to about 1970 was almost inevitable, given the increase in car ownership, but 1990 was about on a par. The decline after 1990 was caused by the early 1990s recession. The Intercity part of the business was in good shape at that point. That is not to say that privatisation has not had its successes. Frequency on most lines is at all-time high.

 

[cirdan]

I honestly can never understand how a private firm, run to make money, can provide a better service for less cost than a railway run by the state to simply break even? As Jis said, maybe if the increased subsidies (taxpayer funded) were invested in the original system passenger numbers would have risen too?
Having worked for BR back in the day, I mourn the loss of so much goodwill and cameraderie amongst the work force.

I think there was never actually a policy to massively increase subsidies and investment.

On the contrary, at privatisation there was a lot of talk about gliding into profitability.

I think part of the story is that private enterprises are better than state entities at lobbying and pushing ahead with proposals, and reminding the government of its earlier promises. And if you have a setup with a government who like to promise things and an industry that holds them to account for those promises, that's how you get money flowing.

In BR days the scenario might have been:

BR: We need some money to improve this or that service, or renovate this or that station
Govt: Sorry mate, no money
BR: OK, fair enough

I remember the days very well that you might have visited and railfanned some country branch line and at some point got to talk to the station manager or depot foreman or somebody. And asked him how he saw the future of the line. The response would invariably have been, "ridership is dropping year by year. It's not a question of whether we give up but of when". That sort of attitude could develop into a self fulfilling prophecy. Why ask for millions to refurbish some bridge if you don't believe the line will still be here in 15 years. I think these days attitudes are far more upbeat.

 

[cirdan]

I would agree with that. If you look at that graph, the decline up to about 1970 was almost inevitable, given the increase in car ownership, but 1990 was about on a par. The decline after 1990 was caused by the early 1990s recession. The Intercity part of the business was in good shape at that point. That is not to say that privatisation has not had its successes. Frequency on most lines is at all-time high.

I think the Intercity part of the business was in good shape financially. But that was obtained by pushing up prices (sometimes at he cost of ridership) and spinning off unprofitable services to regional operators, while often hiding costs and passing them on to other sectors. It was a paper exercise to make the prospect more appealing for privatization.

Maybe parallels here to what Amtrak is trying to do on the NEC?

 

[caravanman]

I guess there are always at least two ways to look at any issue. Saying that privatisation was better because they asked for and got more taxpayers money does not mean that the principle of public ownership was flawed, imho.
I fear for the NHS too, the same Tory govt. hands on the purse strings to choke services and then hive off to firms, to make money out of healthcare.
Dunno, if everything under the private model works so well, why do train companies fail, need public money bail outs?
Why is the Govt. now overseeing a reappraisal?
(Someone of a cynical mind might suspect it has to do with the huge losses of revenue due to Covid... Another example of private profits and public debt? )

 

[cirdan]

I think you can find plenty of examples of state-run systems that fail, of private systems that are a success. But also plenty of examples that suggest the complete opposite.

The differentiator here is not private vs public but a government that believes a properly run rail system is worth supporting and that will pull all the strings to make it happen, versus a government that doesn't understand the need for a rail system and will spend just enough so they don't lose too many votes.

In my view one of the big advantages of a private system (well, part private, because the UK system is subsidised and coordinated by the government) is that you have the power of comparison and competition. Not competing services but competition of ideas and approaches. A big monolithic and entrenched government agency (as also a big monolithic entrenched private corporation) has the tendency to get lazy. If it doesn't want to do something it will say it cannot be done and then find some logic to support that. But if you have another operator walk up and say, give us the contract, and we can find a way to make it work, that keeps operators on their toes.

If some private company is making money by pushing back the envelope and doing more with less, then my answer is that they're welcome to that money.

 

[cirdan]

Dunno, if everything under the private model works so well, why do train companies fail, need public money bail outs?

Because the government got greedy. Some services were running with negative subsidy. In other words, operators were pushing money back to the government. Over time there wasn't enough money in the kitty to pay for investments or to survive lean years or unexpected downturns in traffic, caused for example by a recession.

The pertinent question here is, why did the private operators sign up to such a risky deal? Some actually signed up for details that assumed a year on year increase in passengers just to cover the year on year increase in negative subsidy.

I think in some cases at least they knew what they were doing and they had emergency exit clauses in their contracts to protect them against precisely such scenarios.

When they used these clauses, the press misrepresented this as failure.

 

[neroden]

The ridership graph looks exactly the same in countries which didn't privatize. In fact, it looks the same for Amtrak and passenger rail in the US -- declining from the end of WWII throughout the 1980s (with a short blip of ridership during the oil embargos), then rising starting in the 1990s. Despite Amtrak policy being fairly competent in the 1980s and quite incompetent for most of the 1990s.

So I think the cause has very little to do with policy and more to do with broader social changes: the rejection of car culture starting in the 1990s.

 

[cirdan]

The ridership graph looks exactly the same in countries which didn't privatize. In fact, it looks the same for Amtrak and passenger rail in the US -- declining from the end of WWII throughout the 1980s (with a short blip of ridership during the oil embargos), then rising starting in the 1990s. Despite Amtrak policy being fairly competent in the 1980s and quite incompetent for most of the 1990s.

So I think the cause has very little to do with policy and more to do with broader social changes: the rejection of car culture starting in the 1990s.

According to this website (in French), pre-COVID train passengers in France are up by about 35% since 2000. In the Uk they more than doubled in the same period.

And this despite lots of new high speed lines having being opened in this period, while the UK system was largely stable.

Scroll down to figure 5

Transports de voyageurs − Tableaux de l'économie française | Insee

 

[MARC Rider]

Good old "Mr. Capitalism Invisible Hand" Adam Smith even said that there was a limit to what private enterprise could do better. I believe his example was government operation of lighthouses, which he said should remain operated by the government. There are some functions that are better off being run by the government. I suspect the Tories aren't suggesting that the Royal Navy should be privatized, nor do they think that British defense be trusted to "Her Majesty's Royal Private Mercenary Corporation" or whatnot. I mean, Hessian mercenaries worked real great for King George III.

While it's, of course, possible that private capital could fund and operate passenger rail, I think it's unlikely in the US due to certain cultural and legal aspects of our economic system, and I suspect things in Britain are similar. The problem is that capitalist managers are under a cultural and legal obligation to make as much money as they can as quickly as they can in any way they can. Technically, this is for the benefit of their shareholders, but, also, creative ("Hollywood") accounting means that even the shareholders can get stiffed. The other stakeholders, including workers and customers and the general public get nothing. As a customer of numerous capitalist enterprises, I see this up close every day. On the occasions when I am able to by a quality product at a fair, affordable price, produced and sold by well-treated workers and that doesn't cause environmental degradation, I consider it a lucky accident.

This attitude has deep roots in America. I believe that Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the New York Central Railroad, said, "the public be damned!" when someone took him to task for his monopolistic machinations that resulted in less than adequate railroad service out of New York City just when the new technology of railroads was getting up steam. Obviously, public ownership of an enterprise whose mission is to serve the public might have a better chance of meeting its mission than an privately owned enterprise whose mission is more or less to screw the public over.

 

[MARC Rider]

According to this website (in French), pre-COVID train passengers in France are up by about 35% since 2000. In the Uk they more than doubled in the same period.

And this despite lots of new high speed lines having being opened in this period, while the UK system was largely stable.

Scroll down to figure 5

Transports de voyageurs − Tableaux de l'économie française | Insee

You'll need more data to show that privatization had anything to do with this. It's possible that French rail passenger use was closer to market saturation in 2000 than was the case in Britain. In other words, there was less room for growth in France than in Britain. It's also worth noting that while the French built lots of new high-speed lines, they did this at the expense of their classic rail service, perhaps enough to slow overall ridership growth.

 

[cirdan]

You'll need more data to show that privatization had anything to do with this. It's possible that French rail passenger use was closer to market saturation in 2000 than was the case in Britain. In other words, there was less room for growth in France than in Britain.

I was responding to the argument that exactly the same growth could be observed in all rail markets, independently of privatisation.

I showed that this is not the case.