To think that nationalising the railways again is actually a brilliant idea?

[BowieFan]

Read an interesting article today that said we are currently giving more in subsidies to private companies to run our railways each year than we ever spent when British Rail was actually owned by us.

When the East Coast franchise expired, we took it back into public ownership and it received the best scores of any rail service in all of the UK, based on customer satisfaction. Now that it's in private hands, it's going back down again. Also, we didn't even run it at a loss - we made a profit on it!

Public support for nationalising the railways again has always been high, and East Coast shows we can do it and do it well. So why are the media demonising the Lib Dems, Labour and the Greens for wanting to renationalise it all? It baffles me.

Why should we be paying sky high fares with all the profits going to shareholders?

Railways were actually privatised in 97 under Blair. Labour could have reversed decision but chose not to.
Interestingly East Coast also had a female MD, the only one of all the (25) Train Operating Cos.

The railway act was '93 so the privatisation process completed in 97 not introduced under Blair. Reversal would have been complex. But really Blair was ideologically not that far from thatcherite toryism, PPP anyone!

misson

Really? State-owned transport and utility seems to work absolutely fine in other countries. Indeed, our trains now are being run by a state, just not ours.

Energy companies especially shouldn't be in private hands. It was much better when it was Manweb/Norweb etc.

amicissimma

I used it too. I'd much rather have British Rail back than the system we have now, where if I want to visit my brother, I can't use the wayfarer ticket, because even though we are in the same county, the 20m of railway track for the station near his house is actually owned by the neighbouring operator. If it was all British Rail, we wouldn't have stupid issues like that.

I think people would put up with a slightly dirty train if it meant not 500 people squeezed into three carriages.

Yes. Nationalise.

Yanbu

Yes, take away thefranchises as they fall due and create worker-and passenger accountable co-ops/ trusts, rather than having a government-controlled British Rail run by civil servants. Like Welsh Water.

I'd love that, although as long as we have the Tories in power it won't happen. If the PLP gets their way and gets rid of Corbyn, they won't do it either.

Anyway, if Uncle Rupert dies, maybe we'll see some genuine left wing support again.

YANBU.

I am in favour of bringing the railways back into private ownership. Not as one single entity though, so decisions can be made as locally as possible as they are for transport in London or with the trams in Manchester, for example. So the Welsh Assembly could run Welsh Rail, Scottish Parliament that in Scotland, and some parts of the English network run by local authorities (Cornwall, Isle of Wight, a few others no doubt). By doing this decisions on trams, subsidised buses and roads could be made by the same body as decisions on local rail services, and there would be more chance of integrated timetables and tickets.

In Scotland we have the abysmal Scotfail. It's nice eryn by abellio the trains are broken and really filthy with next to no rolling stock so crammed with folk. They don't run on time, get cancelled at short notice and the majority of staff are dicks (in 20!years I have encountered 3 nice staff), the fares go up again in January but service won't improve.

I watched a bbc program about the railways when they were first starting(Ruth goodman and 2 other guys). They said that competing companies ran on the same lines so would try and out do each other, now that won't help when signals fail or something blocks the line, but it would encourage the train companies to do a better job because passengers could choose to use someone else.

It feels like they can do what they like because there's no alternative , we can all drive into cities every morning.

Also I swear fares are so high just to offset the delay repay that they constantly have to issue (I can't wait for the 15 min rule, but will probably mean high increases come January )

I can't use the wayfarer ticket, because even though we are in the same county, the 20m of railway track for the station near his house is actually owned by the neighbouring operator. If it was all British Rail, we wouldn't have stupid issues like that.

Don't bet on it. Staying with a friend in Germany, I had to pay quite a bit more for a day ticket, because he lives just a station or two outside the VRR (Ruhr-Rhine travel area, a bit like Network South-east.)

(Quite impressed my phone translated Ruhr-Rhine to Ruhr-Rhine-Palatinate, even though that wasn't what I wanted. It usually autocorrects to gibberish.)

Hmm, that's probably true, although if it were just four bodies operating (Scotland, England, Wales, NI) it would be a far better system than we have now.