A good time to renationalise the railways

[Sweetpea]

With banks being nationalised almost daily and the national debt now soaring well over the 40% which used to be Gordon Brown's target, what about the railways? Could it not be possible to slip them back into the public sector, something that many people would love to see happen?
There is undoubtedly a strong case to be made, since the railways may soon find themselves in financial difficulties. In recent years, passenger numbers have soared and the government has let a series of franchises on the basis that revenue will continue growing at 7-8% per year. This has partly been predicated on fares rising above the rate of inflation, and partly on an expectation that passenger numbers will continue growing.
So far there has been little sign of the impending recession, with patronage on the railways continue to increase, though at a slower rate. However, railways are very dependent on the general state of the economy and there is no doubt that passenger numbers will soon level off and start to go down. The above-inflation fares rises of 6% – with some rising by 11% – that will be imposed in January will probably be the turning point.
That will leave the train operators, and ultimately the government, in a real pickle. Many train operators are paying heavy premiums for the right to run services and if they plunge into the red, they will do an Oliver Twist on the government. Ministers have repeatedly said that they will not renegotiate franchises and that if big operators such as FirstGroup, Stagecoach or National Express throw in the towel on one franchise, it would have to hand back all its other ones as well. In a rational world, that would be the perfect opportunity for the Department for Transport to say, sorry guys, we are going to bring the franchises back in-house and effectively renationalise the railways.
That is to underestimate the absolute antipathy that New Labour has to nationalisation. The reluctance to step in over Northern Rock and the initial plan to take out only preference shares rather than normal stock which gives the government a say over the running of the banks in today's huge recapitalisation, demonstrates this. The recently sacked transport minister, Tom Harris, told me in an interview earlier this year that if New Labour had inherited British Rail, it would have privatised it. That was not, incidentally, the reason for his departure – being too rightwing has never been the cause of a New Labour minister's dismissal.
In fact, what New Labour refuses to let on is that the railways are effectively largely publicly-owned anyway. Network Rail, which owns the infrastructure, is a company without shareholders that is dependent on government backed debt (to the tune of £20bn), for its survival. It receives billions in annual grants direct from government and is, to all intents and purposes, a state-run enterprise.

Christian Wolmar: A good time to renationalise the railways | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk


OH, yes pleeeaassee!! It's a bloody shambles as it is.

Our little station used to boast about 15 people on the 7.30 am train, now it's more like 50. The two train arrives already full as it has come all the way from Birmingham. It is stuffed to overflowing when we all get on.

Why don't they put on more carriages? Because two of the stations it serves, only have room for two carriages. They can't isolate the doors so they cannot even ask people to get on the first two carriages.

At another major station, one stop up, there are about four different rail companies. Tickets are NOT interchangeable between them, which causes many problems.

[poppy]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

[Haqa]

Oh yes please!! Since privatisation the railways have just gone to the dogs!

H.

[terrywit]

did I ever mention one of the mental idea's I have in the grey matter is the hull - withernsea bullet train?

[Churchill]

Does anyone think that the government can manage the railways any better? sheesh!

[Sweetpea]

At least it would be under one umbrella, as it is now, well, it couldn't be worse.

[Haqa]

Originally Posted by Churchill

Does anyone think that the government can manage the railways any better? sheesh!

This one? No, but there are plenty more fish in the sea...

H.

[Bruv]

All of a sudden we are all socialists ?

[Haqa]

Originally Posted by Bruv

All of a sudden we are all socialists ?

No, but we are relatively intelligent and observant. We observe that the railways DON'T work privatised, and we reason that we might want to return to the (albeit imperfect) previous system which worked better.

H.

[Bruv]

Back to the relatives again ?

Asking the wrong questions sometimes gives you the answer you are looking for.....
(Thats deep)

You cannot have a successful Rail system in isolation.
All the time the government throws money at ribbons of concrete strangeling the countryside......there will never be decent rail and bus services