Rail renationalisation- do you support it?

[gsnedders]

In actual fact, Britain's trains are oldest since records began, figures show.

Records began in 2001, so that doesn't tell us anything compared with a nationalised railway.

I'd also question whether average of rolling stock is that interesting; a weighted average based on patronage is probably more interesting (a service with a 153 with a dozen passengers makes much less impact than a 800 with hundreds, but if you just count rolling stock they're equivalent).

 

[AndrewE]

That headline has more to do with making a political point than with being fully open with the facts (there was a little judicious selection of the numbers).

If in doubt, look at the numbers.

Regarding numbers... I wonder if you can tell us how the average rolling stock age is rigged please...

On a different tack, but still relative to the wisdom or otherwise of privatisation/franchising, the Guardian today (https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ion-privatisation-myth-councils-pfi-contracts) has this:

Start in Thurrock: there is nothing leftist about this council, controlled by minority Conservatives propped up by Ukip. In 2015 they bought out their Serco contract, bringing office services back in-house. Lyn Carpenter, the council’s chief executive, is blunt: “The contract was a disaster. Nothing was flexible, everything set in stone. If we wanted anything done differently, they said ‘That’ll cost you.’” In that inflexible 15-year contract, Thurrock says, everything was still done on paper, as Serco had no incentive to modernise. Escaping it was “quite a fight”. Thurrock paid £9.9m to buy out a £19m-a-year contract, but the cost was recouped through extra efficiency and saving “the £3.6m a year profit they were taking – money not spent locally”.

 

[J-Rod]

2. In my opinion, there needs to be a bigger move to loco hauled stock on mainline routes, rather than multiple units. I'm not saying, lets scrap the 390s, but I feel in hindsight, if the the order was today, it should have been 60 11 car 390s, and then instead of voyagers, have a fleet of 150 MK5s, and a few locos. This would allow a less constrained service, allowing for extra carriages to be added, dependent on demand. I like what TPX is doing about this, although I hear they won't be able to add and remove carriages, pending on demand.

I'm sure someone will say why this can't be so but I would have thought this would have been an obvious solution in many cases?

Also, as a general point - if the railway was re-nationalised the only people who would win are the lawyers. I doubt very much anything would get 'better' or indeed 'worse'!

 

[Railsigns]

Also, as a general point - if the railway was re-nationalised the only people who would win are the lawyers.

Incorrect. Passengers and tax payers stand to benefit significantly from lower fares and reduced public subsidies. Lawyers would likely lose business in the long term.

 

[J-Rod]

Incorrect. Passengers and tax payers stand to benefit significantly from lower fares and reduced public subsidies. Lawyers would likely lose business in the long term.

Incorrect.

When have you ever known a law firm lose out?!

 

[Clip]

I'm sure someone will say why this can't be so but I would have thought this would have been an obvious solution in many cases?

!

So how do you add or remove carriages when the demand isn't there for say, a 12 coach rake?

You then either have to remove it to a depot or use up paths/precious time by getting another loco in to take off a couple whilst it sits in the terminal and then in the pm peak you use up even more time doing the same thing in reverse!!

Whereas with multiple units they come in get cleaned and go again - much easier and cheaper and quicker

 

[AndrewE]

I'm sure someone will say why this can't be so but I would have thought this would have been an obvious solution in many cases?

I suspect a thesis, or even a book could be written about this. I much prefer loco-haulage but have come to accept that units seem to be the way it is! I think part of the reason is that with distributed power (better for regenerative braking, which saves lots of time and money on pad replacement) there isn't one loco any more - the french TGVs have a power bogie under the coach adjacent to the power cars and we know that Pendolinos have loads of powered axles along the train.
The Swiss did a study about 30 years ago to analyse the energy costs of flexible-length l/h trains and concluded that taking odd groups of coaches off outside the peak periods cost more energy in shunting than they would save by not hauling them round half-empty (to say nothing of the costs of the shunting locos and manpower to do it.) I like the compromise of flexible length EMUs that can be split and left on the buffer stop during the day before being picked up for the next peak services.

Also, as a general point - if the railway was re-nationalised the only people who would win are the lawyers. I doubt very much anything would get 'better' or indeed 'worse'!

I disagree, I think the lawyers would lose out badly in the longer term as there would not be the infinite number of inter-company contracts to draw up, then to argue about all over again.
We would all win because governments can borrow money much more cheaply than private financiers, and we wouldn't be paying people to do all the attribution for delay-repay, and compendating other TOCs for knock-on effects of late running etc.
Everything would be more flexible (because of the absence of the contracts) and one employer would find it easier to have spare staff than several small business units located in the same place. You could even get a sleeper train meeting a DMU somewhere remote in the Scottish Highlands and the crew could change cabs and work back home!
I sometimes think the people who are so enthusiastic about the current set-up are either making a lot of money out of it, or are so brainwashed and slavishly loyal to their blue banner that they either don't read the counter arguments or have some sort of mental block that prevents them from understanding what is said in these replies!

 

[Railsigns]

When have you ever known a law firm lose out?!

When their services are no longer needed. Any 'squabbles' within an integrated nationalised industry can be resolved internally without calling in the lawyers. The present fragmented shambles is a lawyers' paradise because there are so many different companies involved, each desperate to protect and maximise their own profits.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

When their services are no longer needed. Any 'squabbles' within an integrated nationalised industry can be resolved internally without calling in the lawyers. The present fragmented shambles is a lawyers' paradise because there are so many different companies involved, each desperate to protect and maximise their own profits.

What makes you think the nationalised railway will be "integrated" like BR was?
Publicly owned isn't the same as having a command operation with total control over everything that moves.
For a start there are all those pesky PTEs, Scottish and Welsh Governments, Airports, Transport for Timbuktu etc, who will all want their share of the pie.
Plus private sector manufacturers, maintainers, funders, open access and freight operators and contractors who will need legal protection from a monolithic "BR", even if the main TOCs are "nationalised".
Are you are going to buy all the stock back from Roscos and manufacturers, some of which has only just started on a 27.5 year DfT contract (publicly let by the government)?
I don't think we will be getting rid of lawyers in a hurry.

 

[AndrewE]

What makes you think the nationalised railway will be "integrated" like BR was?

He who pays the piper calls the tune?
As for the other stuff, it worked all right before...

 

[Dr Hoo]

I disagree, I think the lawyers would lose out badly in the longer term as there would not be the infinite number of inter-company contracts to draw up, then to argue about all over again.
We would all win because governments can borrow money much more cheaply than private financiers, and we wouldn't be paying people to do all the attribution for delay-repay, and compendating other TOCs for knock-on effects of late running etc.
Everything would be more flexible (because of the absence of the contracts) and one employer would find it easier to have spare staff than several small business units located in the same place. You could even get a sleeper train meeting a DMU somewhere remote in the Scottish Highlands and the crew could change cabs and work back home!
I sometimes think the people who are so enthusiastic about the current set-up are either making a lot of money out of it, or are so brainwashed and slavishly loyal to their blue banner that they either don't read the counter arguments or have some sort of mental block that prevents them from understanding what is said in these replies!

Do you have any meaningful data about the number of lawyers involved in the rail industry or the amount that legal work occasioned by the current structure is costing?

From my extensive experience in BR at all levels from station/yard/depot to HQ there were lots of legal aspects back then and we had quite a large legal department. From bread-and-butter issues like procurement, tenancies and claims up to seriously heavy stuff like agreements with PTEs and the Central Electricity Generating Board, not to mention statutory powers for level crossing closures and new lines there was loads to do.

Whilst it is undoubtedly the case that privatisation created a huge legal cost at the time (now 'sunk' of course) my impression is that the ongoing business of operating the railway is comparatively straightforward in legal terms. Matters such as access agreements and station leases are usually in templated form, albeit with 'schedules' to complete, but this can be done by non-lawyers. In control and train plannning offices things like spot-hire of crews and rolling stock as necessary is also fairly straighforward. We used to keep track of resources 'traded' between sectors even back in what was regarded by some as BR's 'Golden Age'.

And as for the old chestnut of delay attribution being wheeled out yet again. How many times does it have to be pointed out that this was invented by BR as soon as computing power and automatic data capture sensibly allowed it? This moved the industry on from tediously (and usually ineffectually) wading through control logs, train registers, guards' journals and so forth before sending out requests for reports that, if ever replied to, usually did little to help prevent a problem from recurring. Can one imagine a modern hospital with no records of blood pressure, temperatures and heart rate; no urine samples, no pathology labs or biopsies but doctors and surgeons left to just guess what might benefit the patients?

Delay Repay is nothing whatsoever to do with delay attribution and is anyway another example of how things have moved on in terms of rising expectations and standards of service that could not simply be ditched if there was a return to public ownership or vertical integration.

 

[DenmarkRail]

I can't see ticket fares going any lower, regardless of nationalisation. If a nationalised service returned (and let's be clear, it wouldn't be BR, just like how East Coast was not BR) the service would still have to turn a profit (else we'd get Beeching.2). The only way to turn a profit is to have a good pricing strategy. A nationalised service would still be a business

 

[Railsigns]

I can't see ticket fares going any lower, regardless of nationalisation.

Even the rabid right-winger who wrote this desperately biased piece in support of the privatised railway (link below) has to admit that nationalisation will result in lower fares, and he says his article is 'the truth', so who are we to argue?.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-a...the-rich-the-truth-about-rail-nationalisation

So even if we nationalised the railways and redistributed the profit they make, it would only result in a one-off fare drop of about four per cent.

 

[KAD]

There are some examples around the world of nationalised railways that function fairly effectively as a business and subsidise lower passenger fares by renting out commercial space in and around stations and even building office space or apartments above stations.

 

[Domh245]

Surely it'd just be a year without a fare rise and not really a fare drop? The reinvested profits would stave off one year's inflationary rise, but it'd then need to return to the current situation of (at least) inflationary fare rises - unless of course you also decide to start raising subsidy levels?

 

[AndrewE]

Do you have any meaningful data about the number of lawyers involved in the rail industry or the amount that legal work occasioned by the current structure is costing?

From my extensive experience in BR at all levels from station/yard/depot to HQ there were lots of legal aspects back then and we had quite a large legal department. From by trying to bread-and-butter issues like procurement, tenancies and claims up to seriously heavy stuff like agreements with PTEs and the Central Electricity Generating Board, not to mention statutory powers for level crossing closures and new lines there was loads to do.

I have to admit I have no detailed knowledge, but I can't imagine that there are fewer legal people involved now than when BR was one organisation, even if it did have an appropriately-sized legal department.

Delay Repay is nothing whatsoever to do with delay attribution and is anyway another example of how things have moved on in terms of rising expectations and standards of service that could not simply be ditched if there was a return to public ownership or vertical integration.

Sorry, I picked the wrong term, but you seem to admit that delay attribution consumes a certain amount of mapower...

Surely it'd just be a year without a fare rise and not really a fare drop? The reinvested profits would stave off one year's inflationary rise, but it'd then need to return to the current situation of (at least) inflationary fare rises - unless of course you also decide to start raising subsidy levels?

Forget "subsidies." Car tax is less now than in the past, and the fuel tax escalator has been cancelled too. We all pay for road construction, maintenance, lighting etc. but thewhole costs never appear in one set of accounts.
The government needs to enable efficient transport and has learnt that it just cannot be done by trying to accommodate cars in cities... and there is also the public health scandal of respiratory and circulatory disease attributable to vehicle emissions. So why try to price people off trains? By contrast, the railway is one industry and it is much easier to see the apparent overall cost... Do you thing the costs that we all pay for road accidents, personal injuries etc ever get added into the costs of roads in comparison with the "subsidies" given to rail?
I would think that a year or two of static fares would be very welcome.
I also strongly suspect that if you approached the workforce with the promise of a stable or growing industry, sensible long-term manpower planning and training programmes, plus proper terms and conditions of service and the guarantee of a considerate employer you would find that the current sky-high wages that can be demanded in the present free-for-all market would adjust back to more sensible levels.

 

[The Ham]

Even the rabid right-winger who wrote this desperately biased piece in support of the privatised railway (link below) has to admit that nationalisation will result in lower fares, and he says his article is 'the truth', so who are we to argue?.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-a...the-rich-the-truth-about-rail-nationalisation

They also point out that the richest people are much more likely to use the train. As such any fare reduction would just put more money into the offers of those who have a lot of money anyway.

Let's assume that by nationalising the railways that they managed to squeeze two years of fare freezes (possibly 10% in real terms due to inflation). What would that do to passenger numbers?

Chances are it would mean more people traveling by train. Which would mean that there would be significant need for more trains to cope with the extra demand.

That, given where the majority of people travel by train, would require significant investment in the Southeast. As most of the trains are already 20 or 12 coaches long in the peaks and platform lengthening (which could happen in a lot of other areas) wouldn't help a lot.

As such, unless the government is willing to stump up a lot of money for the likes of Crossrail 2 the train fares are likely to have to stay broadly as they are so as to not flood the network with passengers.

 

[Railsigns]

They also point out that the richest people are much more likely to use the train. As such any fare reduction would just put more money into the offers of those who have a lot of money anyway.

Let's assume that by nationalising the railways that they managed to squeeze two years of fare freezes (possibly 10% in real terms due to inflation). What would that do to passenger numbers?

Even if all that were true, the case for renationalisation remains overwhelming on account of greatly increased efficiency leading to either: a) a reduction in government subsidies, or b) the ability to achieve more with the same level of subsidy.

 

[Olaf]

Regarding numbers... I wonder if you can tell us how the average rolling stock age is rigged please...:

Read the article - as I said - they were selective with the data - principally by selecting a period that did not take account of recent deliveries including Thameslink, Crossrail and APT sets.

 

[Railsigns]

principally by selecting a period that did not take account of recent deliveries including Thameslink, Crossrail and APT sets.

Recent deliveries of APTs... You heard it here first, folks!

 

[Olaf]

Recent deliveries of APTs... You heard it here first, folks!

Sorry - yes my typo.

 

[The Ham]

Even if all that were true, the case for renationalisation remains overwhelming on account of greatly increased efficiency leading to either: a) a reduction in government subsidies, or b) the ability to achieve more with the same level of subsidy.

Interestingly those were the same arguments FOR privatisation when the trains were run by BR.

The problem with either side using that as a cornerstone to their argument is that it is based on assumptions that get overtaken by real world events.

For instance very few would have considered in the early 1990's that rail growth would have taken off on the way that has, which had lead to the number of new lines/projects that have happened in the last 10 years and will happen in the next few. (Even leaving aside HS2).

The running of the trains (i.e. the costs and income of the TOC's) covers their costs and then some (plus circa £750 million) however, even if you were to strip out the profits that the train companies are making (3% of £12.4 billion, the amount of income to the TOC's, is about £400 million) that would still be fairly small compared to the (excluding HS2 costs) of about £3.5 billion in other rail support. A lot of that will be on things like new electrification and other rail network improvements which would need to cost less under nationalisation than they do at present.

The problem is that either side can't be sure what that will look like in 10 years time (which is probably when a lot of the turmoil of the chance from private to public will have settled down, but certainly not all, even if it were to already be in progress). As such neither side can say that we'd be better off by doing one or the other.

Maybe over a 50 year period once there's certainly of staff levels with a rolling programme of using those staff to improve the network which means that theres a significant lower need for contractors then there could be a case for it resulting in getting more for less.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The running of the trains (i.e. the costs and income of the TOC's) covers their costs and then some (plus circa £750 million) however, even if you were to strip out the profits that the train companies are making (3% of £12.4 billion, the amount of income to the TOC's, is about £400 million) that would still be fairly small compared to the (excluding HS2 costs) of about £3.5 billion in other rail support. A lot of that will be on things like new electrification and other rail network improvements which would need to cost less under nationalisation than they do at present.
.

The TOC's only account for 25%-33% of the profit taking from the industry though.....

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Incorrect. Passengers and tax payers stand to benefit significantly from lower fares and reduced public subsidies.

That is an extremely optimistic opinion. Normally either passengers or tax payers suffer. To give both a better deal would require huge efficiency savings, and there is no rational reason to assume re-nationalisation will produce those results.

I recommend that you take a close look at what effect holding down fares has had on TfL's finances. It's a cheap and easy policy for an irresponsible politician. It's not cheap and easy for the railway.

 

[Clip]

Even the rabid right-winger who wrote this desperately biased piece in support of the privatised railway (link below) has to admit that nationalisation will result in lower fares, and he says his article is 'the truth', so who are we to argue?.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-a...the-rich-the-truth-about-rail-nationalisation

Maybe you should research who the journalist is before you call him a rabid right-winger because it appears he may not be as rabid nor as right wing as you assumed( which I'm guessing you assumed because he didn't agree with your thoughts on the matter yes?)

James Ball, Britain, is an award-winning data journalist working on the Guardian's investigations team. He was a core journalist on several of the newspaper's data-driven investigations, including the publication of the NSA files received from Edward Snowden, the Reading the Riots project, its reporting on the WikiLeaks' Guantanamo Bay files, and the Guardian's extensive reporting relating to the ICIJ's Offshore Leaks series.

Before joining the Guardian, he worked with Channel 4 Dispatches, Panorama, Al Jazeera and ITN with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and was a freelancer working for WikiLeaks during its publication of 250,000 US embassy cables. In 2012, he was awarded the Stern Fellowship, and worked for four months on the national security desk of the Washington Post, reporting on the state-sponsored trade of online hacks, electronic sanctions in Syria and Iran, and serious security failings of the TSA.

He is a lecturer on City University's Interactive and Investigative journalism courses, and the co-author of two books: WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era and The Infographic History of the World.

plus it needs to be noted that he states a one off drop - that in no way means the fares would not rise again which we all know will.

 

[Railsigns]

That is an extremely optimistic opinion. Normally either passengers or tax payers suffer. To give both a better deal would require huge efficiency savings, and there is no rational reason to assume re-nationalisation will produce those results.

No, it's just common sense. If you make a change which you expect will improve efficiency but the opposite occurs, then the obvious action is to reverse that change because it hasn't delivered. If you believe otherwise, then the onus is on you to explain why this would not apply in this case.

The rational reasons as to why we can expect efficiency savings of around £1.2 billion per annum are clearly explained in the 'Rebuilding Rail' report.

 

[AlterEgo]

What actually changes if we re-nationalize? As far as I Can see the same people will do the same jobs and expect the same pay.

The only benefit I can see is sharing rolling stock. IF you could get infrastructure in house under a BR banner that would be a benefit as long as the government would support the continuous modernizing rollouts.

There will be fewer jobs due to economies of scale.

 

[Domh245]

Roger Ford's latest e-preview touches on the cost of privatisation and why costs have gone up. Quoting the relevant parts:

Reading a recent Transport Times on-line blog, I came across this passage: ‘The successes of Britain's rail franchising system are well established. Intense competition at the bidding phase has helped turn £2bn of Government subsidy to the TOCs in 1997 into a net premium today’.

That claim about turning subsidy into premium originated with the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). But with it being repeated by the UK Head of Transport at a leading international accountancy firm, I thought it was time for a fact check.

All it needed was two tables comparing the financial situation of the railway then and now. For the dawn of privatisation I chose 1996-97 and at £1.95 billion the subsidy to the TOCs was near enough the even £2 billion quoted by RDG. That subsidy, plus the TOC’s fare box revenue formed the bulk of the railway’s income.

I’ve also thrown in a table of the subsidies to be paid by the TOCs in the first and final years of their original seven year franchises. In chart form, this reveals why, at the time, consultant Michael Schabas was forecasting that the privatised railway would become subsidy-free in the foreseeable future.

Of course, even before Railtrack self-destructed, costs were rising. Railtrack’s revenue requirement for the second Control Period (CP2, starting in 2001) was ‘substantially higher’ than for the initial five years of privatisation.

Due to the ‘exceptional nature’ of some of these costs the Franchising Director decided that they would be covered by a direct grant. Payment of the grant would be ‘unconditional’ and accounted for as revenue ‘so that they are equivalent to additional fixed track access charges’.

Note that final sentence. The grant was supplementing access charges. In broad terms, the effect of the new settlement was to increase subsidy to just over £2billion at the start of CP2
My second table, recording the financial situation in 2015-16, shows that after two decades the railway’s finances have become much more convoluted. While the TOCs collectively the TOCs pay a premium to Government of around £690 million, that is before the direct grant is taken into account.

When the grant is included the net subsidy is 30% higher compared with 1996-97. This is no mean achievement by the TOCs given that over the two decades infrastructure costs have increased by 140%.

But as for turning a subsidy into a premium, the cold numbers don’t lie. To pretend otherwise is to deny the dominant issue: the inability of first Railtrack and now Network Rail to control costs and the fact that the passengers are paying for this incompetence through rising fares.

What I take away from reading that is that it isn't the inefficiencies of privatised TOCs but the fact that running, maintaining, and improving the railway is costing far more than anticipated. Reversing the "change which you expect will improve efficiency but the opposite occurs" won't make the railway cheaper to run all of a sudden.

 

[Comstock]

There will be fewer jobs due to economies of scale.

that is classic mid 20th century economic thinking- 'monopolies are more efficient because you avoid duplication'. In the case of the railways it might well be correct.

Of course I don't like the thought of people losing their jobs, but if the railways are expanding generally that might not be the case anyway.

 

[The Ham]

The TOC's only account for 25%-33% of the profit taking from the industry though.....

Which is why I said:

A lot of that will be on things like new electrification and other rail network improvements which would need to cost less under nationalisation than they do at present.