--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote: > >
The vast majority of people who commute into
> central
> > London from the suburbs come by train
>
> This argues for a strong commuter network into
> central London
Actually I was making the argument that this is the one bit of the network that the government can't afford to let fail.
> not for a strong national network.
England's a bad example to use. Nobody has ever tried seriously to run a strong national network here. Occasionally a government has tried to keep up the pretense, but that's all. It's been underinvested in and the trains have never been terribly reliable, or frequent. Plus a lot of trains are squalid (as were the train stations until recently. One thing Railtrack did do was improve them).
The privatisation had nothing to do with running a decent railway, commercialisation, etc. Just a poison pill for the next government.
--- news at kippona.com wrote: > "Cian O'Connor"
<cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
> > Also the newspapers have been covering the
> collapse of
> > the rail networks in far greater detail than
> something
> > which only affects a small minority really
> deserves. I
> > think the rail network is pretty much dead now,
> but
> > the government is going to take a lot of damage
> over it.
>
> Are there any passenger railroads, anywhere, that
> are self-financing and
> profitable? I doubt it. What's wrong with trying
> to privatize,
> failing, and then re-nationalizing? It seems pretty
> reasonable.
Nothing. It won't happen directly, though the government's proposal is sort of a kludge to allow them to ideologically get away with it. They plan to turn the rail infrastructure into a coop, with ownership vested in the various rail companies. As a non-profit it will supposedly raise capital with bonds. I don't how workable this is in practise. I suspect we'll end up with a rump (concentrating on intercity routes, and the major commuter lines), with everything else left to rot.
There are various reasons why they won't nationalise it. The major one, imho, is that the treasury wants to keep the debt of the government's books, so that they can pretend the government has less debt. I've heard it argued that this was one of the major reasons for the privatisation of the 80s. I wouldn't go that far, but it is significant. The other reasons is that labour is being "business friendly". Nationalisation would (apparently. Don't see it myself) apparently send out the wrong signals. Also if it's a private company, they can (theoretically. They're always going to get blamed for it, no matter who runs it. However Tony Blair is nothing if not optimistic about the powers of spin) shirk responsibility for its failures.
--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote: > >
(For example,
> > if I was travelling alone from London to
> Manchester or Glasgow, I'd take
> > the train - our inter-city airlines are pretty
> primitive.
>
> Really? OAG lists six airlines (British Midland,
> Ryanair, Go, British
> Airways, Easyjet, and ScotAirways) flying LON->GLA
> for a total of 51
> non-stops in each direction each day. They are all
> roughly scheduled
> for about 1:15. Even with airport transfers, surely
> it beats even the
> fastest train (seems to be Virgin, just over 5 hours
> total via Euston;
> most othars are about 5:30) by several hours.
Recently (last 2 years or so) people have started flying, because the trains are totally unreliable, and the cost of trains have gone up to absurd levels. Flights cost roughly the same as the train journey. Virgin seem to have admitted now that their trains get to the destination when they feel like it (if they make it at all. Plenty don't). Prior to that, most people would have caught the train as it was much cheaper.
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