Trains: Are You Paying too Much? - C4 Dispatches 1st June 8pm

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Ah. I assumed when you mentioned Charing Cross you were going through London Bridge. I did say that the south-east is a particular problem, buth to cross over with another thread it's not one you can just put down to profiteering TOCs and the rest. To a great extent it's a facet of a much bigger problem, namely the UK's lopsided economy which concentrates far too much economic activity and thus far too many people in the south east, which in turn puts far too much pressure on the transport links in that part of the country.

Charring Cross (well, just behind it) is where all distances from London are measured

Of course the South East is a busy area, it's been this way for donks. The railways have been in private hands long enough for TOCs to come up with something to relieve the pressure, but they haven't, they're too busy counting their piles of cash.

FWIW I used to commute to school on Network Southeast, slam door trains. I know it never rained etc. but I genuinely cannot remember a train ever breaking down and I certainly wasn't regularly delayed, as 10 minutes or later in to school was an automatic detention, and I didn't get that many detentions. Something's changed and for the worse.

 

[Roadkill]

Of course the South East is a busy area, it's been this way for donks. The railways have been in private hands long enough for TOCs to come up with something to relieve the pressure, but they haven't, they're too busy counting their piles of cash.

FWIW I used to commute to school on Network Southeast, slam door trains. I know it never rained etc. but I genuinely cannot remember a train ever breaking down and I certainly wasn't regularly delayed, as 10 minutes or later in to school was an automatic detention, and I didn't get that many detentions. Something's changed and for the worse.

Of course the south-east's always been busy, but passenger numbers have shot up since Network Southeast days. Meanwhile, I think you're wearing the rose tints about punctuality. I've not seen figures specifically for the south-east but nationally the pattern was a sharp drop in the late 90s and early 2000s, followed by a recovery to roughly the same levels as in latter British Rail days (see the detailed McNulty Report, p.14). AFAIK the south-east has followed the same pattern. For an insight into some of the problems in the area in the past you could do a lot worse than read Stephen Poole's Behind the Crumbling Edge, his memoirs of working on BR in the south-east in the 70s and 80s. Rather than bemoaning a mythical decline in punctuality, a more pertinent question to ask would be why, despite the billions spent in the last two decades, the railways are achieving punctuality and reliability figures little better than BR...

As for the TOCs doing something to relieve the pressure, part of the problem is they don't have the power to do very much at all. They don't own or maintain the infrastructure, don't own the trains and don't have that much control over the timetable. You might then ask what the point of them is, which as far as I can see is getting somewhere nearer to the root of the problem!

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

You might then ask what the point of them is, which as far as I can see is getting somewhere nearer to the root of the problem!

This is kind of what most people bemoaning privatized rail are really moaning at. They don't seem to add any value, yet drain a shed of cash from the system.

 

[Roadkill]

This is kind of what most people bemoaning privatized rail are really moaning at. They don't seem to add any value, yet drain a shed of cash from the system.

This is true, but I think it's also a fact that a lot of people don't really understand how the industry works or who does what within it.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

This is true, but I think it's also a fact that a lot of people don't really understand how the industry works or who does what within it.

Most people on my line seem aware that SWT is not Network Rail and seem to suspect that Network Rail was deliberately kept in public hands to provide a patsy for all the ills of the whole scam.

 

[Roadkill]

Most people on my line seem aware that SWT is not Network Rail and seem to suspect that Network Rail was deliberately kept in public hands to provide a patsy for all the ills of the whole scam.

They'd be wrong about the latter: Network Rail was created out of the ashes of Railtrack, which was a private company!

 

[Dogsauce]

You can already get P@H tickets as well for some journeys, and they work the barriers (at least on VTEC). But I don't like them either, since you have to faff around with "ID".

The ID thing can be a massive pain. A few years back my gf at the time (in London) was supposed to be working in Manchester for the day on a Friday, so I was going to nip across from Leeds then travel back down to London with her for the weekend. She bought a pair of tickets for us with the print online thing, which wasn't any cheaper than collect at the station, but then her work cancelled the Manchester visit. I was still going to travel down alone, but because the tickets had been bought in her name I couldn't travel on my one. It seemed massively unreasonable, I even complained to the company and they still said piss off, not their problem, rules is rules. I could have easily done the collect at station but thought we'd save time at piccadilly being able to go straight to the train.

 

[Bungle73]

Most people on my line seem aware that SWT is not Network Rail and seem to suspect that Network Rail was deliberately kept in public hands to provide a patsy for all the ills of the whole scam.

Oh, and how is that? NR have full responsibility for the track and signalling so any issues with those can only be entirely down to them.

Also, from I've been hearing a lot of NR employees are not entirely happy with the way the company is being run, or more specifically the way they are being treated.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Oh, and how is that? NR have full responsibility for the track and signalling so any issues with those can only be entirely down to them.

Also, from I've been hearing a lot of NR employees are not entirely happy with the way the company is being run, or more specifically the way they are being treated.

suspect that Network Rail was deliberately kept in public hands to provide a patsy for all the ills of the whole scam.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

They'd be wrong about the latter: Network Rail was created out of the ashes of Railtrack, which was a private company!

Yeah, when they realised that lots of companies can't deliver a complete service they saw the part that fails most regularly, (not surprising since the infrastructure had been so run down), they made it public and kept it that way. Unlike East Coast.

 

[Roadkill]

Yeah, when they realised that lots of companies can't deliver a complete service they saw the part that fails most regularly, (not surprising since the infrastructure had been so run down), they made it public and kept it that way. Unlike East Coast.

It wasn't so much that as that Railtrack was on the verge of collapse after the Hatfield crash - which exposed not only its own mismanagement but also a legacy of underinvestment going way back into BR days - and putting it into administration and creating a new company from what was left was a more practical, and a more politically palatable, solution than bailing it out yet again.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

It wasn't so much that as that Railtrack was on the verge of collapse after the Hatfield crash - which exposed not only its own mismanagement but also a legacy of underinvestment going way back into BR days - and putting it into administration and creating a new company from what was left was a more practical, and a more politically palatable, solution than bailing it out yet again.

Why has NR not been privatized?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Anyway, better shoot, just had this land in the inbox...

 

[Roadkill]

Why has NR not been privatized?

There was never any intention to privatise it. You're right that a private company can't provide the 'full service,' in that under Railtrack it had quickly become apparent that no infrastructure company was going to be able to keep the network in good order and make a profit. The Labour government's calculation was that it would be better to socialise the losses whilst letting the profitable bits (and some non-profitable, tbf) remain in the private sector. That remains the case and will do for the foreseeable future, especially with NR's finances looking as shaky as they currently do.

Privatise the profits and socialise the losses - neoliberalism writ large!

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

This week for my commute:

Monday cancelled, next train delayed for 40 minutes, result = not worth going to work
Tuesday delays of 60 minutes, result = not worth going to work
Today, 5 car train instead of a 10 coach one, can't get on that, so wait for next train which comes rammed, have to take it or else not worth going to work.

Last night 45 minutes late home.

This morning another 5 car train, so again no one could get on.

Oddly of the morning shambles this week, three out of 4 have been SWT's fault, knackered rolling stock. Only Tuesday was trees on lines, so NR's issue.

 

[Dogsauce]

Privatise the profits and socialise the losses - neoliberalism writ large!

Isn't it also true that NR is set up in a way that it's technically independent of government, and as such can't benefit from the low borrowing rate the government can get? That must be costing them quite a bit. I think it was a Gordon Brown thing, like PFI, to keep the debts off the public books, despite still being public expenditure. Bit of extra cash for the bankers.

 

[Roadkill]

Isn't it also true that NR is set up in a way that it's technically independent of government, and as such can't benefit from the low borrowing rate the government can get? That must be costing them quite a bit. I think it was a Gordon Brown thing, like PFI, to keep the debts off the public books, despite still being public expenditure. Bit of extra cash for the bankers.

That was the case, but NR's debt was taken onto government books last year. Rumour has it there are crisis meetings going on behind the scenes over NR's financial position.

 

[Dogsauce]

That was the case, but NR's debt was taken onto government books last year. Rumour has it there are crisis meetings going on behind the scenes over NR's financial position.

Doubtless, as with hospital trusts, it will be presented as the organisation 'being in debt' rather than presented as being underfunded. I wish the news would stop using such language and doing the government's work for them.