Nationalise the railways!

[Josquius]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26909713

East Coast Line: RMT in legal battle over franchise

Rail unions have launched a legal battle over the way the government is proceeding with three rail franchises.

They want a judicial review into the reprivatisation of the East Coast line, and the extensions to the Thameslink and Great Northern awards.

The RMT, Aslef, and TSSA say members' jobs and conditions, and the interests of the wider public, are at risk because of the lack of consultation.

The Department for Transport said it would "vigorously defend" the claim.
'Ideologically driven'

The three unions are seeking a judicial review, as they believe the Coalition government is rushing through the privatisation of the East Coast line before the 2015 General Election.

The franchise is due to start in February 2015 and is expected to run for a maximum of 11 years.

FirstGroup has been shortlisted to run the franchise, along with a joint bid from Eurostar and French firm Keolis, and another from Virgin and Stagecoach.

But union officials say that ministers have "cut corners" and have not carried out a proper consultation with themselves or passenger groups.

"The British public have a right to openness and transparency when it comes to the ideologically driven attempt to sell off Britain's most successful rail-route to the speculators and chancers after two previous private sector failures on the same line," said RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash.

A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: "We will vigorously defend this claim and remain committed to the franchising programme. As these legal proceedings are ongoing it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage."

The line has been publicly run since 2009 - by Directly Operated Railways, an arms-length company overseen by the Department for Transport - after National Express handed back the franchise amid financial problems.

It meant that two successive operators had failed to make the line - which runs between London and Edinburgh, with connected services to Inverness and Aberdeen - commercially viable, and its improved performance in recent years has come under public ownership.
'Invest and innovate'

In October, as part of the franchising process, the government released data which suggested total passenger journeys on the line had increased by a million to 19.1 million under public ownership while revenue had risen by 11% to £692m.

The government has previously said the line has now been "stabilised" and they want to "rekindle the spirit of competition".

And in January rail minister Stephen Hammond said: "Giving passengers more will be at the heart of the new East Coast franchise.

"For our railways to continue to grow we need strong private sector partners who can invest and innovate in ways that deliver a world class service."

I'm  watching this one with interest. Failing to renationalise the railways was one of the big fuck-ups of Labour's time in power.  It really does seem the government is racing to sell it off before the next election for ideological reasons (like so much of what they're getting up to).

[Tamas]

I have travelled the forever-state owned Hungarian railways. And I have travelled the evilcapitalist British railways.

My conclusion: you are crazy.

[Syt]

I'm not an expert, but from everything I've heard the privatization of the railways in the UK has seriously degraded service, quality, and security all over the board.

[Liep]

I have travelled the forever-state owned Hungarian railways. And I have travelled the evilcapitalist British railways.

My conclusion: you are crazy.

A wild claim would be that you'd also prefer state owned British railways over privately owned Hungarian railways. Because, you're not crazy.

[Gups]

I'm not an expert, but from everything I've heard the privatization of the railways in the UK has seriously degraded service, quality, and security all over the board.

That's because people have forgotten how bad  it was when it was nationalised.

Not to say that the privatisation wasn't done in a mind-boggling inept manner.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not an expert, but from everything I've heard the privatization of the railways in the UK has seriously degraded service, quality, and security all over the board.

Also privatisation was done to regional monopolies who still receive enormous subsidies from the state

I'm not desperately attached to nationalisation but I think we definitely need a reorganisation/rationalisation of the privatised services. Especially because trains matter a lot more to our economy than they used to. There are more journeys and more passengers, more commuters, more people using them for tourism than ever before and they're not as well run as they could, there's not enough competition to get any benefit from privatisation and there's not been enough investment in infrastructure.

Also I think regional models like TFL for, say, Liverpool and Manchester or West Yorkshire round Leeds could help with growth there. Especially in Liverpool and Manchester, which both have decent councils and leadership at last.

[Josquius]

Privatised railways can work very well when they're done properly, such as in Japan, with true privately owned and ran railways.
But that ship sailed long ago in the UK with the initial consolodations and nationalisations, now it would be utterly criminal to sell off our railways to private companies, and there isn't really any room for new private railways to develop. Instead you have the government taking care of all the expensive parts of operating our railways but letting the profits go into the hands of private companies.
Particularly annoying is this stupid ideological rant that privatised railways somehow leads to competition magically creating better services- despite the fact that by design most routes are only served by one company
We really should renationalise the railways, the East Coast example dispels the myth that nationalised automatically equals bad.

[Jacob]

I have travelled the forever-state owned Hungarian railways. And I have travelled the evilcapitalist British railways.

My conclusion: you are crazy.

I think the bigger factor is British vs Hungarian in this case.

[Tamas]

Train tickets are very expensive but I seem to be getting a very good service in exchange. Frequent trains, which are not in a run-down state, decent information system, stations and trains secured by CCTV etc.

I challenge you Brits to travel around a bit on the Hungarian railways. Would appreciate what you have far more.

But of course if the current system costs too much it should be rationalized. But the idea that fully nationalising something will help make the economics more rational is very laughable. Even in a subsidized private setup, at the end of the day, even after most of the subsidy stolen via creative bookkeeping, you have owners who want profits and whose budget has limits.
There is no greater tool for corruption than a gargantuan state-run enterprise such as railways, since a huge amount of money goes around to a myriad of big and small things, and with the unlimited source of the state budget behind it, there is no limit to what can be stolen.

[Jacob]

We'll, I've travelled on a private busses in Madagascar, and the service was vastly inferior to the public busses I've travelled on in Europe.

Should we conclude that public is better than private when it comes to bus services?

[Tamas]

I have travelled the forever-state owned Hungarian railways. And I have travelled the evilcapitalist British railways.

My conclusion: you are crazy.

I think the bigger factor is British vs Hungarian in this case.

It is a factor for sure, but I am willing to wager that people born in the UK are not genetically more angel-like than Hungarians, they merely have preferred more sensible, and long-term viable systems.

The thing is, with state owned stuff, there is always the danger of descending into what Hungary and other eastern countries have made of them. The only thing stopping that from happening is that actors keep being sensible in the amount they abuse the system. And by actors I mean everyone, from the state-appointed director to the local repairmen at the Bumfuckshire Depot.
That's quite a risk to take, for no proven advantage.

[Tamas]

We'll, I've travelled on a private busses in Madagascar, and the service was vastly inferior to the public busses I've travelled on in Europe.

Should we conclude that public is better than private when it comes to bus services?

We can conclude that probably cheaper is worse than more expensive.

[Jacob]

It is a factor for sure, but I am willing to wager that people born in the UK are not genetically more angel-like than Hungarians, they merely have preferred more sensible, and long-term viable systems.

The thing is, with state owned stuff, there is always the danger of descending into what Hungary and other eastern countries have made of them. The only thing stopping that from happening is that actors keep being sensible in the amount they abuse the system. And by actors I mean everyone, from the state-appointed director to the local repairmen at the Bumfuckshire Depot.
That's quite a risk to take, for no proven advantage.

I can see how your experiences in Hungary have made you suspicious of public endeavours, but I don't buy your slippery slope; and I don't think the Hungarian experience is a good baseline for judging human nature and political culture across the world.

I definitely agree that totalitarian regimes are prone to clientism and corruption, and the transition to freer societies can definitely be botched. But as the oligarchs of Russia have proved, it's not public or private that makes the difference, it's the social acceptance of corruption.

I mean, do you really believe that if Orban went and privatized the railways and other currently public institutions that it would not be an orgy of kickbacks and plundering the assets of the state for the benefit of a select few? And would Orban's cronies running the show make for better service?

[Sheilbh]

The main modern British experience of national rail is France or Germany. It's misleading but it ain't awful.

[Jacob]

The Danish National Railways are state owned, and are pretty decent and corruption free. Both Canada and Denmark have numerous examples of well functioning state-run enterprises and bodies that are not the locus of clientism and corruption, and are not treated as piggy banks to be raided by well-connected oligarchs.

I don't expect that it's a genetic difference; perhaps it is one of political and public culture? In any case, I don't think it's reasonable to apply the lessons from the apparent clusterfucks in Hungary to well functioning modern states.