Great Western Coffee Shop

Considering the recent problems with National Express along with the complaints of poor investment in UK railways in rolling stock and electrification, the question of nationaisation has been coming up not only in many topics on many different railway forums but also in the media. The question I ask is nationalisation really the way forward as some people think and what would you have nationalised or run privately in the UK.

I feel complete nationaisation is not the solution to the current railways. Ensureing Network rail, leasing companies and maintenance facilities are nationalised should help to create a system where costs are reduced in maintenance due to lack of profit margins whilst we also rid ourselves of the current farce of leasing companies unwilling to buy stock to lease as it is not profitable. The FOCs should remain privately owned as some have been successful, however DBS should be forced to handover closed maintenance depots to network rail who can then reopen some for all rail companies to use for a fee. This would enable new FOCs to start up possibly whilst also giving new Open Access operators access to maintenance facilities at reasonable prices.

Pasesenger services are difficult to work out if they should be run as franchises or as a nationalised network. Maybe the solution would be a nationalised network but working closely with Open Access operators with OA cherry picking routes to a degree but only if passengers were to benefit overall through the OA operator running the services instead of a nationalised railway.

This is just one idea I have on how to potentially solve some of the problems on the railways dealing with the years of underinvestment, a fragmented system along with dealing with some of the failures and positives of both the privatised and nationalised railways.

It would be nice to hear the views of others on the subject, be it from an occasional traveller to someone who has worked their whole life on the railways. It would also be nice if we could find out if some ideas suggested in the topic are realstic such as my idea for Network rail maintenance facilities avaialable for all to use for example. I hope this topic can be used to inform people on what can be a very interesting subject instead of what has the potential to be a topic that can cause heated debate so can we maintain respect for what other people post please.

(I'm sorry if this topic is in the wrong place or not needed. Please delete or move topic if needs be)

A couple of points from me, matt473 (albeit in reverse order!):

- Yes, this topic is in the right place, and indeed it may well prove to be 'needed' here!

- This forum's 'acceptable user policy' (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1761.0), to which every member signifies their agreement when they join, should ensure that your request is met.

Thanks for raising such an interesting topic!  ;) :D ;D

I think I've expressed my views before. No way back, it wouldn't be permitted anyway. I'll go into detail later.

This is what I would do:

Have 5 companies or regions: Great Western, London Midland, North Eastern, Eastern, Southern. Routes would be handed out to maximise competition. e.g. Chiltern route would be GW; WCML would be LM. e.g.2 GWML would be GW; WoEML would be SN, etc.

They would not only operate the trains, but also the infrastructure.

Franchises would be no less than 20 years - but they could still be stripped early a la Connex/NX etc.

Everything else would be nationalised, with uniform branding across the whole country like in Scotland currently. Basically - British Rail font for all signage, and a standard livery with colour differences for the regions. Hmm, Brown for GW, Purple for LM, Green for SN........ ;D

Are you John Major in disguise? Because that's what he wanted to do before he was persuaded to carve it up into fragments instead.

I prefer your model to the current situation, but a few points I would make are:

1) I don't think that we need another round of upheaval at the moment.  Any changes should be gradual and carefully thought out/tried out before being introduced nationwide.

2) There is no reason to assume that a one-size fits all policy is the way to go.  Certain self contained routes/networks (and Merseyrail is always suggested here. but there are plenty of others - the cornish branchlines, the S. Wales valley lines for example) could be re-vertically integrated and others kept with NR.  I am sure it would be healtly for NR to loose its staus as monopoly suplier of infrastructure. 

3) the current franchise system is a mess.  All the profit passes to the private sector but hardly any of the risk.  The terms are too short to allow investment.  But longer terms will entail more risk for the franchisee and therefore a less good deal for the tax payer.  I think you either need to go complely private and sell off the routes or you need to have First and the likes running their trains on a contact basis only- like London buses)

4)The rolling stock leasing situation is a mess.  TOCs should be allowed to buy their own stock outright and longer contracts would encourage this.

5) It may seem a small thing but the ticketing and fares system is in complete and utter disrepute.    The TOCs have demonstrated an inability to be fair, consistant or even logical on fares.  And some of the Competion rules and fare capping make it hard for them to be those things even if they wanted to.  Confusion and customer abuse (ie extortionate "reservation fees", ^1.60 for a cup of tea or ^20 for a days parking - all the kind of tricks Ryanair specialises in) is endemic.  Responsibility for setting all walk on fares must be removed from the TOCs and given to someone else (NR, ATOC, PF, DfT? or perhaps local/regional authorities for local fares) who need to start from scratch and develop a far less complicated system with uniform rules on upgrades, penalties, buying on board, breaking journeys, compensation and peak time restrictions.  We currently have a system where huge amounts of public money are used to to pay for upgrades and them private companies set fares that discourage propper use of that infrastruction. (ie, WCML - ^8bn of taxpayers money spent to give Manchester a 20 minute "walk up" frequency to London,  then Virgin sets high walk up fares with loads of restructions at the same time as selling very cheap AP fares which mean that for many people, the only option is AP, which is fine, but way bother with a walk up frequency is most passengers are limited to travelling on a single train?).  On a smaller scale Bath is currently arguing over a new bus lane along the old midland railway line.  The plan has signifiant flaws and is not cheap (up to ^20m), but when you ask folk what improvement they would like to see to their buses or when you ask drivers what would tempt them out of their cars the reply is usually "cheaper bus fares".  But the council cannot set the fares nor can it use ^20m on subsidising fares (nor do they know if the fares First set are in any way reasonable - imformation on First's costs and margins is "commercially secret").  So their only real option (apart from going nothing) is to build this new bus road at a great cost and once it is build the buses will be run by a private firm (probably First which has a repuation in Bath for being very expensive) who will set their own fares.  So the Council can't even promise that the new buses will be cheap enough to attract the huge number of uses needed to justify teh costs and acually achieve the reduction in congestion promised.



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My view is that Btline has the basis of the solution with the additons by Tim.

The essence of the railway is that it is a vertically integrated system and every line requires one fat controller who is totally reposible for everything that goes on between the boundary fences for the line they are responsible for.

It's funny that although we pioneered railways we don't seem to learn from history. They tried open access with the Stockton and Darlington in 1825 it was a disaster with fights and scuffles breaking out at passing loops. Good job it mostly horse worked and mostly freight. Thus when the First Intercity railway in the form of the Liverpool and Manchester opened in 1830 it was a completely intergrated company and eventually became part of one the then largest joint stock companies in the form of the LNW.   

I am not too bothered who provides the fat controller for each line that could be private or nationalised body, however it will require some firm direction regarding running powers for other companies to run services on other lines.

Therefore what I do think is required is a much stronger ORR to plan enhancements including a rolling programme of electrification and other capacity enhancements.

I also agree with Tim that fares need to be sorted out. I would suggest a national system of tariff unions for all local public transport fares. Probably hexagonal areas rather than annular like London and long distance fares set with slightly higher advanced fares say ^30 instead of ^20 and cheaper walk on fares. There was a suggestion on the board of three levels with trains colour coded as to what fare applies. That seems worth exploring.

From ^20 to ^30 = 50% increase = slightly higher  =  ???

It is understandable for people who commute to perhaps feel a little hard done by when they see the level of some advance fares. But what are these fares actually for ? They are to get people who probably wouldn't travel by train at all, onto trains that would probably run empty. Not forgetting of course some reduction of overcrowding by shifting people from peak hour trains to off peak. They are not there purely to annoy someone paying a higher fare. "Normal" fares are not pitched at that level to subsidize the "advance" traveller.
People don't complain about the full price of a sandwich in Tesco when they sell them off at 50p at the end of the day - or do they ?

I use the SWT BTM to W'loo service from Warminster. When the train arrives it is not very busy, usually with about 20 people waiting here. I would hazard a guess and say that many are on cheap advance tickets. It arrives as 3 coaches, at W'loo it is 9, all pretty full ones.
The advance fare from Warminster is ^18 ret, if there are 50 people on the train (generous estimate) at this point with half on advance fares, a "slight" increase of ^10 brings in an extra ^250, say a similar number on the other "half" of the train from the West, that's ^500.
9 coaches at Waterloo fairly full, say 80%, = 450 passengers (based on SWT's figs for seats on a 159). ^500 divided by 450 doesn't give much of a "cheaper walk on fare": about ^1.10 off, that really is a "slight" reduction.
That relies on the very generous assumption that everyone on an advance ticket, especially if it's a couple, carries on using the train and doesn't decide to use the car after all.

Last week my wife and I went to Birmingham via Worcester, our single advance tickets to Worcester were ^2.95 (railcard) - a walk up passenger without a railcard would have paid ^23, if we couldn't have got that advance fare we would have driven.

If all advance fares were done away with, it could well have the opposite effect to what people might think - reduction in income could increase "normal" fares and reduce the number of services available.

One of the utter calamities of the privatised railways which NR is slowly unpicking is the amount differing standards that all the various maintenance companies set up to carry out their works; there were something like 42,000 line standards at one time.

As a Nation we need the common infrastructure owner, maintainer and operator however NR needs to be kept on its toes to ensure to get its cost down

Though if that is the case dirt cheap advance fares would not be available on trains running in the rush hour, which they are (except for HSS).

He wasn't able to due to an EU directive requiring that track and trains be separated at least for accounts.

There's a surprise. EU meddling had to be involved somewhere in all this.

It's about time we tell the EU where to go. The only reason I would vote Tory is to stick two fingers up at Brussels. They have NO right to meddle in our affairs when we pay the amount we do. Of course, I support UKIP's proposal to enter into a trade agreement with the EU (like Switzerland) but end all political ties. The EU is the most corrupt "democracy" in the western world. They won't be happy until they've dragged the UK to mirror a typical EU state, enforcing the Euro and total metrification on us.

For once, I agree  :D

I wouldn't be so certain you would get that result with Cameron.

Not wishing to drag this into a political discussion but there are some of us who are passionate European Union supporters. Think of the millions of inward investment (Falmouth line upgrade being just one example) that wouldn't have occurred. The EU costs the UK next to nothing in real terms, when looked at in the whole (less than Surrey CC actually). The fallacies around astound me. I regard the EU as a safety net too, not letting Westminster get away with things. I don't want a Norway situation for the UK (comments on PMs please not in thread)

Back to Rail in the UK ....

I want to see the whole system given longer franchises, with the reclassification of services in England (and cross borders) into Inter City and regional.

No IC franchisee would be permitted to operate local services. I'd imagine around 6 IC franchises, out of Paddington, Euston, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and Waterloo and Cross Country. Future HS services would be run as separate franchises.

Wales and Scotland would manage their own networks apart from the IC services which would come under the above regime.

Regional Franchises would cover commuter and local services elsewhere, which would include the possibility of local authorities clubbing together to compete to run local franchises in their respective areas.

The Network would continue to be run by Network Rail except for services which were run exclusively and logically on RF lines where the maintenance of the infrastructure could pass to the RF. Signalling would be operated by NR throughout though. (Devon and Cornwall would see St Ives, Falmouth, Looe, Gunnislake, Barnstaple and Exmouth as candidates for infrastructure management.) Newquay and Paignton would remain with NR as IC services run on them. I'd give the possibility of a Stock Exchange listed NR another go too.
 
ROSCOs would continue to operate but I would hope that with longer franchises that the Franchise holder would actually own their own stock and be able to operate a secondary market so as the reliance on them would reduce.

Freight operations would be operated as now but with free paths made available off peak to drive overnight freight.

Open Access would be encouraged over IC lines with RF operators encouraged to compete over some IC lines experimentally. Some IC weekend services could be operated 'out of region' by other IC operators (think NEXC operating a weekend service between Bristol and Paddington) where surpluses and deficits are shown.

With due apologies to some working in the industry I do not want to see the potential of the bad 1980's of a union stranglehold over the network ever again.

 

Sorry, but I think that's rubbish.

Any "investment" from the EU is only our money coming back! We'd have more capital for investment if we were not paying ^106,000 a minute (latest calculation) to Brussels. You call the EU a safety net, when actually it is red tape! It creates bureaucracy and affects our lives

Well we're quite good at homegrown bureaucracy actually - often being by far the most enthusiastic enforcers of EU policies - and if you think the Treasury would be spending the money on things like the Falmouth branch, were we not in the EU, dream on.

As the Philosophers would say, "It depends what you mean by Nationalisation...."

A BR Board (BRB), run (down) by Dft, used to balance public expenditure capital savings and to limit railway use in favour of roads......, well, no,.... although it was cheaper, technically competent and performed better (for the money spent) than the present, albeit improving, mess.

A BR plc, as a Chartered Company, with a public golden share and a technically competent Board, tasked with running IC, NSE, RR and Freight Sectors to optimum levels with state funding dependent on delivery, with  a required ROCE (return on Capital Employed) would work. The company should have the choice as to what was purchased privately and how. My guess is that (like similar operations) it would do its light and medium work in-house but would contract out specific tasks (as BRB did). Franchised TOC's  could still work but as Service Contractors not revenue risk bearers. This would use the TOC's for what they do best, organise and run services, not cope with recessions.This is why Merseyrail works so well. Marketing should be on a Sector basis, so FGW, VWC and ?EC would appear a single simple IC entity again. NSE is already peeping above the parapet with the ON branding.

The essence of quality is a single mind both resourced and held accountable for a task, i.e point enablement and point accountability.

Dream on....

OTC

Is there a source for that, or did you make it up?

Calculation by Gerard Batten MEP.

Would that be the same Gerald Batten MEP who is described on his website as a "founder member" of the UK independence party, by any chance? So we can expect his calculations to be entirely unbiased. Just because someone who has an agenda (putting it mildly) has cooked up a number doesn't mean that it's correct.

Equally, even if we give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming that his calculation is correct, that number is utterly meaningless unless it's given some context. Just to pluck a couple of examples out of the air, what is the cost to the UK of central government/local government/the Welsh Assembly by the same methodology? How does that relate to the supposed cost of the EU?

Ahh.

My view is that we should have larger regional franchises that are at least 20 years, by having IC and regional/NSE all under one franchise then the profitable routes would subsidise the un-profitable routes, therefore no or very little public subsidy.
The TOC's should be set a minimum service level which should include capacity spec and be given more freedom to get on and run their business BUT also be given all the risks, for instances where capaicty and performence become sacrificed to save money etc then the TOC's should be fined heavily and if the same issue re-occurs 3 times then the franchise should be removed (3 strikes and out), I also believe that the successful bidder for any franchise should also pay a "Deposit" type payment up front to the DFT so that if they decide to do an NX then they lose it when they walk away.

There would be no premiums or subsidies for any franchise but certain routes could be subsidised on an individual basis, maybe a percentage of profit could be taken by the DFT.

The infrastructure would still be owned by NR but with nearly all work taken in house so no expensive contractors.

Would that really be the case though?  A company may prefer to pay more of it's profits to shareholders rather than use them as subsidy for un-profitable routes.

That's how BR worked. IC made profits, which were used to subsidise the loss making London commuter services, and some rural branch lines.

BR was owned by the government and didn't have shareholders to pay.

It did, it had one a very greedy one and went by the name of HM Government at the slightest hint of a BR profit the Government would say thank you very much BRB oh and now here is lest funding so no insentive for the BRB to even think about making a profit

If nationalisation means that everything will be the same colour - I'll vote for that.
Have just seen a train leaving Warminster, 4 coaches; front two (158) in FGW blue/pink, rear two (150) in Arriva turquoise/cream - Yuk !

I don't think it does.   I was brought up in the late '60s with green trains.  They started getting yellow ends and turning blue and when most of them were blue they started going blue and cream.  I think the repaints were less frequent (so there wasn't as much of my fare going on re-liverying), but even in those days it seemed that just as the fleet was starting to look nice and uniform, it changed!

Apart from the Arriva units, the loco hauled, and the SWT unit, aren't FGW now more or less all in the same colour scheme?

It was, of course, the Conservative government that set up the current arrangement with regard to the UK rail industry. Moreover, its anti-protectionist stance and free market principles meant that it was also one of the driving forces behind the transformation of the E.U. into a single market, whence comes the E.U. policy regarding the rail industry mentioned earlier.

In an ideal world, the network would have been centrally planned and built in the first place, designed to meet the needs of the nation instead of evolving piecemeal, with lines routed to suit landowners and competing companies. For those who prefer it, competition could then have been introduced in a logical way. 

But if there were no subsidies then they would have to use the money to pay for the non-profitable services!

If there were no subsidies from the Government out of our taxes, a great many miles of the network would have to close.

Or they could simply decide to run fewer services and keep the profits.

I see your point, but not sure I completly agree.  Surely some lines need different standards to others and this is what NR provides anyway (ie higher standard for high speed, well used, important lines).

Also not sure you need the same owner of everthing to get the same standard of maintainace.

NR as a monopoly provider would be better kept on its toes if there was another infrastructure owner to compare its performance with.  I am in no way suggesting that each depot is split into a different company - just that one or two pieces of revatively self contained network are handed to someone else to look after as an experiment. 

I agree with you here BTline.  personally I think we should leave the EU.  However, the EU does not require that stack and trains are split into different companies.  It only requires that the two aspects of the railway are separetely accounted for.  This is so that the costs of infastructure are transparent to make it easy to calculate what level of track access charge is leveies to operators of international trains.