cheaper Rail anyone?

[OwL]

Just been reading this on MSN............

Interesting stuff but please keep any comments within the forum Code of Conduct because sometimes these articles can spark a heated debate!:


http://money.uk.msn.com/features/how-we-could-get-cheaper-rail-fares

[Sprintex]

We all know the main cause is the profit-on-profit-on-profit system of Privatisation we have now that just lines the pockets of shareholders, nothing to debate there


Paul

[PostModN66]

I thought from the topic it was a way of getting code 55 at a discount!       Jon

[Geoff]

If we never pumped money into other countries and kept our own country in modernisation there would be no need for fair increases, but we have to prop up other countries and hold hands with people who do not give 2 hoots about us.

[scotsoft]

I thought from the topic it was a way of getting code 55 at a discount!       Jon

       

[EtchedPixels]

Renationalising the network would save enough to bring fares down, improve services and return more money to the tax payer. In truth most of our railways are nationalised anyway - they belong variously to Deutsche Bahn (the German state) and SNCF (The French) plus a few others. Even in the freight market only Freightliner of the big ones is actually truely a private company. DRS is owned by the UK government through nuclear decomissioning, EWS is Deutsche Bahn.

So it's not even "privatised" for the most part it's simply subsidizing French and German railways, which is really really silly.

On the current subsidy levels British Railways would be scratching its head trying to think of enough projects to spend all the extra money on.

Other countries have re-nationalised to get their railways working again. The big ones that didn't have also scuppered the EU attempts to enforce the British disaster model on the entire EU.

Alan

[Leo1961]

I think experience shows that railways need to be run by a single entity, and that splitting it up, whether privately or publicly owned, is inefficient in day-to-day operations and extremely expensive in the long run.

The capital costs of anything railway connected need to be written off over a minimum of 20 years, which is completely outside the remit of the current franchise model.  And leasing just lines the pockets of the finance providers whilst providing sub-optimal resources at best due to compromises that have to made.

[NeMo]

Other countries have re-nationalised to get their railways working again. The big ones that didn't have also scuppered the EU attempts to enforce the British disaster model on the entire EU.

Who'd have thought the Daily Telegraph (or at least one its writers) would be arguing for re-nationalisation!

Cheers, NeMo

[1018509]

Depends when you travel. If you have to for work or business then you're stuffed but bargains are there.

Last week my daughter came to visit and she paid £34 single Bromley South to New Milton. Going home we got a first class advance single for £19 - standard single was £2 cheaper. That's nearly £5 (first) or £7 (second) cheaper than my retired TfL staff PTAC will get me.

Today PTAC day return Victoria via Clapham Junction £22 - accompanying child - my grand daughter - £2. Moral of this story - choose your time of travel carefully and/or get a railway job.

[RChook]

Moral of this story - choose your time of travel carefully and/or get a railway job.

Moral is : it is way too complicated trying to economically travel by train to anywhere that I want to go, from anywhere that I can get to.
And without the possibility that I am being ripped off !

(It is way beyond my brain power to comprehend the pricing structure )

Result is that I have not been near a (non preserved) train in decades
I just jump in my car when it pleases me, go where I want when I want (but I nolonger live in London ) simples.
I am a child of Beeching , (runs for cover >> )

[RChook]

I thought from the topic it was a way of getting code 55 at a discount!       Jon

Yer, me too ! LOL!
or a special offer from Wayne !!

,, goes back to sleep ,,

[NeMo]

(It is way beyond my brain power to comprehend the pricing structure )

And you probably don't understand how airline fares work either, but that's the model they're after. Hardly anyone turns up at Heathrow and demands a return flight to New York; they book ahead, possibly months ahead, and will review dozens of flights before picking one that fits their needs and budget.

Train operating companies want you to do the same thing, and to some degree so do London bus and tube train operators too: look at the price differences between regular fares and Oyster card fares (Oyster cards being, in effect, collections of pre-paid advance fares). I suppose the advantage is that the operating companies can distribute their resources better (i.e., trains, buses and staff) if they know precisely when most of their passengers are travelling. They can also encourage travellers who want cheaper fares to travel on less busy trains, which offsets the expense of running them (and is perhaps one way to ensure trains run through all the day instead of just at peak times).

The problem is of course that train travel is different to air travel. We don't take spur of the moment flights to go shopping or visit friends and we're often obliged to take train travel for work. By contrast we expect air travel to be expensive, a hassle, and generally unpleasant, but because it's only occasional, we put up with that as necessary to the outcome of international travel.

Ironically one of the train operating companies has made a £800 million profit and delivered a good service, East Coast, and it's owned by the government (albeit through a holding company). So the taxpayer gets that £800 million. Of course the government is anxious to sell this franchise off once more, which seems crazy to me given how the government surely could use all the money it can lay its hands on, but there you go. If you want to voice your opinions on this, write to the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick MacLoughlin, ideally via Department for Transport, Great Minster House, 33 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 4DR.

Writing to your MP can be surprisingly influential. They get very little snail mail these days but take letters very seriously because they show effort and passion about an issue (something e-mails don't necessarily, given how cheap they are how easily they can be sent out). At the very least you get the satisfaction of knowing you've contributed to the discussion rather than just whinged about the outcome.

Cheers, NeMo

[OwL]

What boggles my mind is why we are privatised. A model that really is not working or should I say benefitting the UK tax payer/public?

All this nonsense about EU rules telling us to do so.........

If I remember correctly both SNCF, NS , DB, SNCB are still state owned and running a better and cheaper service compared to the majority of UK rail companies.

[NeMo]

All this nonsense about EU rules telling us to do so.........

If I remember correctly both SNCF, NS , DB, SNCB are still state owned and running a better and cheaper service compared to the majority of UK rail companies.

It's actually a bit more nuanced than this. There certainly was an EU Directive (91/440 if you're interested) that basically meant there should be open access to railway infrastructure. In other words, a French railway company should be able to run trains across German tracks, and vice versa. Or put another way, if someone wanted to run their trains in Italy, they should have the right to do so, alongside the national Italian railway company.

Like a lot of EU legislation, the intent was reasonable: to get rid of the virtual monopolies on train travel within each country by allowing more than one train operating company to exist in each country, making competition easier. Prior to this EU directive, it would be impossible for a company to create its own trains running from, say, France to Greece, carrying freight or passengers and passing through multiple national rail networks.

But privatisation in the UK was driven by ideology; Conservatives fundamentally believe that by default the private sector does a better job at running things than the private sector unless there's an overriding reason (like national security) to believe otherwise. The need to reduce the amount of money the government was giving to the railways was another issue, and an important one. At the time it seemed like a huge amount of taxpayer's money being spent on something only a fraction of the country actually used on a regular basis. (In hindsight, given the size of subsidies now, it was arguably a bargain!)

Rail privatisation met the needs of the EU directive, and there probably is real competition in the freight sector; but I think it's debatable whether it created real competition so far as the traveller goes. Yes, there are two three operating companies on my stretch of the WCML, but Virgin, London Midland and Southern don't really offer comparable services, so choosing between them is Hobson's choice.

It is inexplicable to me why German and other state-owned but technically privately-owned railways can work extremely well, and profitably, yet the UK government can't come up with a comparable system here. It also annoys me greatly when the UK government of the day blames the EU for things the UK government gets wrong, but readily takes the credit for anything that the EU has helped it to do properly!

Cheers, NeMo

[OwL]

Thanks NeMo,

A very informative post and has answered my question.

I personally think that we should put passenger travel back in public hands, but encourage open access and privatization in the freight sectors.

The state owned railway should then look at operating to at least break even it's operation costs but at the same time collect payment from private rail companies and plough this back into railways.....

I think BR sectorisation proved how well was working before privatisation.

However what do I know?! The suits in Whitehall obviously know better