| Renationalised Rail 10:27 - Dec 4 with 1702 views | NthQldITFC |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqlnrgjr79o
I know people who worship the great money-grabbing at any cost god, Profiteer, will try to use the oh so relevant 1970s as a stick to beat this with, but excluding soulless corporate predators from the equation has to be a good start. |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 10:32 - Dec 4 with 1664 views | homer_123 |
It's a step in the right direction.
Though, the observation that investment still needs to be made, is correct. |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 10:41 - Dec 4 with 1632 views | GeoffSentence |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:32 - Dec 4 by homer_123 |
It's a step in the right direction.
Though, the observation that investment still needs to be made, is correct. |
Without profits being sent off to overseas owners, I'd hope there would be more money available for investment. |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 10:42 - Dec 4 with 1621 views | homer_123 |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:41 - Dec 4 by GeoffSentence |
Without profits being sent off to overseas owners, I'd hope there would be more money available for investment. |
Indeed, that would be the right and obvious approach. | |
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| Renationalised Rail on 10:45 - Dec 4 with 1596 views | Blueschev |
The sandwiches were awful in the dark days of British Rail, apparently. They're delicious now of course, and great value for money. |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:47 - Dec 4 with 1579 views | homer_123 |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:45 - Dec 4 by Blueschev |
The sandwiches were awful in the dark days of British Rail, apparently. They're delicious now of course, and great value for money. |
The perfect metric to measure the effectiveness of a Rail Service. | |
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| Renationalised Rail on 11:07 - Dec 4 with 1513 views | hatch |
Worth noting that the railway has practically been nationalised by default since Covid, although no one would ever admit that.
The taxpayer has propped up and paid for the TOC national rail contracts with all revenue and costs managed by the DfT.
The costs of the British railway are eye watering and some of the ticket prices you come across are beyond ridiculous. But it’s not a profit making entity currently.
Bringing in Network Rail to GBR will be an interesting and likely beneficial step and hopefully we can reduce the number of staff required to manage rail contracts and just operate as one large business.
However, there’ll need to be some painful times with the trade unions I suspect to get the reform needed that will bring about efficiencies. For all the good they do, trade unions slow down change in the railway in my opinion and therefore prevent obvious cost savings (I’m not talking wages here, more like brand new trains not being released into passenger service for 5 years and sitting in storage because the trade unions don’t think the coffee cup holder is the right height for the driver in the cab). |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 11:22 - Dec 4 with 1476 views | Basuco |
| Renationalised Rail on 11:07 - Dec 4 by hatch |
Worth noting that the railway has practically been nationalised by default since Covid, although no one would ever admit that.
The taxpayer has propped up and paid for the TOC national rail contracts with all revenue and costs managed by the DfT.
The costs of the British railway are eye watering and some of the ticket prices you come across are beyond ridiculous. But it’s not a profit making entity currently.
Bringing in Network Rail to GBR will be an interesting and likely beneficial step and hopefully we can reduce the number of staff required to manage rail contracts and just operate as one large business.
However, there’ll need to be some painful times with the trade unions I suspect to get the reform needed that will bring about efficiencies. For all the good they do, trade unions slow down change in the railway in my opinion and therefore prevent obvious cost savings (I’m not talking wages here, more like brand new trains not being released into passenger service for 5 years and sitting in storage because the trade unions don’t think the coffee cup holder is the right height for the driver in the cab). |
It was a shock to me when it was revealed last year that the railways costs the Government (tax payers) £16 billion a year and that the private railway operators get a fixed payment to run the franchise while all ticket income goes direct to Government. As you say this is effectively nationalised but with a good lump of profit added. This is not how the newly privatised train service was "sold" to the British public back in 1993. Train operators have no incentive to run a decent service as they get paid whatever. |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 13:16 - Dec 4 with 1341 views | Pinewoodblue |
It was what happens going forward that matters.
Presumably some of-the suburban routes operated currently by GA will be handed over to Transport for London. Can’t see any point in each of the franchises, after taken over, running as stand alone companies. |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 13:42 - Dec 4 with 1300 views | hatch |
| Renationalised Rail on 11:22 - Dec 4 by Basuco |
It was a shock to me when it was revealed last year that the railways costs the Government (tax payers) £16 billion a year and that the private railway operators get a fixed payment to run the franchise while all ticket income goes direct to Government. As you say this is effectively nationalised but with a good lump of profit added. This is not how the newly privatised train service was "sold" to the British public back in 1993. Train operators have no incentive to run a decent service as they get paid whatever. |
Not strictly true. The DfT/govt pays all the TOCs that are under a National Rail Contract (NRC) a contract management fee if you like, and this is fairly nominal compared to what the TOCs were making pre Covid.
To earn the sort of money that will satisfy their shareholders (or those of their owning groups), the TOCs are set very rigid and tightly managed SLAs. This includes everything from performance (reliability and punctuality) to customer contact response times, customer service, and cost efficiencies.
For example, they introduced mystery shoppers on every network to ensure the customer satisfaction standards are being met in terms of guard performance, cleanliness, station wayfinding and presentation etc. TOCs need to hit stretch targets to then make the larger chunk of profit.
So in short, there is incentive to perform currently. However there’s costs associated with managing all the above from a DfT perspective. Costs above and beyond what were there pre Covid, the assumption being that they’re worth the added administrative costs to deliver a higher quality of service. | | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 14:03 - Dec 4 with 1242 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
Hard to see how anyone ever thought privatisation of the rail was a good idea (other than offloading some of the cost from the state. There is NO competition on most lines on which to drive down prices. The operators also don’t own a lot of the infrastructure- utterly half baked idea. At least with telecoms there’s genuine choice and competition- broadband I’ve not paid an increase in years by moving around.
Allowing operators to hand back unprofitable franchises was the massive kicker - privatise the profits, and nationalise the losses. |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 16:15 - Dec 4 with 1152 views | DJR |
| Renationalised Rail on 14:03 - Dec 4 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
Hard to see how anyone ever thought privatisation of the rail was a good idea (other than offloading some of the cost from the state. There is NO competition on most lines on which to drive down prices. The operators also don’t own a lot of the infrastructure- utterly half baked idea. At least with telecoms there’s genuine choice and competition- broadband I’ve not paid an increase in years by moving around.
Allowing operators to hand back unprofitable franchises was the massive kicker - privatise the profits, and nationalise the losses. |
Wasn't the joke when it was privatised that the regulator was called "OffRails"? |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 16:31 - Dec 4 with 1105 views | brazil1982 |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:41 - Dec 4 by GeoffSentence |
Without profits being sent off to overseas owners, I'd hope there would be more money available for investment. |
Profits ?! |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 16:41 - Dec 4 with 1079 views | eireblue |
| Renationalised Rail on 13:16 - Dec 4 by Pinewoodblue |
It was what happens going forward that matters.
Presumably some of-the suburban routes operated currently by GA will be handed over to Transport for London. Can’t see any point in each of the franchises, after taken over, running as stand alone companies. |
Yep, definitely don’t want to see trains going sideways. |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 17:01 - Dec 4 with 1052 views | OldFart71 |
Sadly our rail network has never been good. Expensive compared to other Countries and despite them supposedly spending billions never running on time, breaking down and unable to travel at times when needed. I much prefer travel by train than either driving or by bus but we recently travelled to Southampton from Ipswich and back and it cost nearly £340 that's without the taxi's at both ends to get to our destinations. | | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 18:36 - Dec 4 with 965 views | factual_blue |
| Renationalised Rail on 17:01 - Dec 4 by OldFart71 |
Sadly our rail network has never been good. Expensive compared to other Countries and despite them supposedly spending billions never running on time, breaking down and unable to travel at times when needed. I much prefer travel by train than either driving or by bus but we recently travelled to Southampton from Ipswich and back and it cost nearly £340 that's without the taxi's at both ends to get to our destinations. |
Ain't the private sector wonderful? |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 19:10 - Dec 4 with 929 views | BloomBlue |
Well let's hope it's better than the old British Rail. The biggest pile of shlt you'll ever find. The worst 'company' ever in the history of the UK when it came to customer service. |  | | |
| Renationalised Rail on 19:11 - Dec 4 with 926 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Renationalised Rail on 10:47 - Dec 4 by homer_123 |
The perfect metric to measure the effectiveness of a Rail Service. |
So you’re more interested in the snacks then? |  |
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| Renationalised Rail on 20:12 - Dec 4 with 847 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Renationalised Rail on 17:01 - Dec 4 by OldFart71 |
Sadly our rail network has never been good. Expensive compared to other Countries and despite them supposedly spending billions never running on time, breaking down and unable to travel at times when needed. I much prefer travel by train than either driving or by bus but we recently travelled to Southampton from Ipswich and back and it cost nearly £340 that's without the taxi's at both ends to get to our destinations. |
It’s a joke at the moment. Mrs Swanners and our youngest went to London and back a couple of weeks ago on the train. Well, they got there but couldn’t get back and had to book a coach instead. The coach was a fraction of the price and they said it was fine.
We use the trains a lot for holidays as we’re trying not to fly. Almost without exception all the European legs are fine and on time, but we inevitably have problems in the UK (and it costs more). You may have some old rolling stock in Eastern Europe, but I don’t mind that as long as it’s reliable. We had a lovely trip from Vienna to Lublijana a few years back with a full restaurant car, waiter, table cloths and proper tableware/cutlery. It was great, and on time. | |
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