Publicly owned rail services?

Yes please. I'll be brief - nationalise trains so hopefully we get a decent service (how do Europe do it? - on time regular etc) If you want to get people off the roads you need decent transport. Do the same with buses - where I live in Cheshire the bus company decided they weren't going to run services - they blamed covid but were rubbish too. Someone else has taken some routes. Scrap HS2 and the horrific costs and damage to the country side - just improve the trans pennine route. While I'm at it, lost all faith in Royal Mail - don't get mail for days. Please take that back too and give us a decent service - Rant for the day over thanks.

It depends very much on who is actually running the company whether private enterprise or public is best.

Absolutely true, grandtanteJE65 but all those privatised industries don't seem to be making much of a fist of it these days. Energy companies profiteering, sewage in our seas and rivers, chaotic railways.

Which ones are a sparkling success?

Well, public railways may be an advantage - the German and Spanish companies work well certainly, but the Danish State Railway is expensive and frankly not all that good.

It depends very much on who is actually running the company whether private enterprise or public is best.

I agree with Oppsadaisy on the railway issue. It was not Dr Beeching that axed the railways - the government of the day used the report to achieve what it wanted.
I'm not sure about the reason for the utilities though. My memory is that Mrs Thatcher sold off the assets of the country to get funds. Hence the fact some people think she was a good MP, as the country became relatively rich - yet now there are no assets to fall back on. Profits are given to shareholders rather than reinvested .
The break up of railways and bus firms has let to many villages being cut off .

We did that once before and the Unions held the Governement to Ransom and TOLD them what to do. No Democracy - No elected officials as the Unions used theri block votes to make sure that all their leaders weree Communists. I didn't like Thatcher BUT she did stop the Unions holding all the people to Ransom.

Not a popular view but I just think ALL public services, ie water, rail and bus travel, gas and electric should be nationalised, run and funded by the govt with properly budgeted and managed services and managers. I have no issues with “choice” and with private health and private schools, I don’t have issues with private enterprise BUT just don’t think this should apply to services as forementioned - what sort of govt sells off public services and allows foreign countries to run and managed them ?? The situation with our local rail and water services is dire.

Competition is good but these “sell offs” have benefitted only shareholders not paying customers.

I travel from the NW to the SW every month to visit my elderly mother. Once upon a time the CornishScot train ran, so I could get on the train at Crewe and get off at Truro, no changes. It is now a nightmare, with so many different ticket prices and up to three changes depending on which route. To get cheaper tickets often there is very little time to change trains. It is not fun, I rarely take much luggage with me, so that I can change platforms quickly. Another observation is that there are far more trains from the SW than there are up to the North. As the journey takes about seven hours minimum, I think that you have to have stamina for long distance train travel these days!

Hilarious, yes. Same staff who do a good job when they’re not on strike?

Germanshepherdsmum

I think infoman is saying same staff, same unions.

The staff appear to do an excellent job. infoman appeared to be implying that the services were rubbish because of the staff. I suggested that he was nor correct. He didn't mention unions.

Funny how people can read things completely differently...

I use LNER to go to London and it is a great service now it is Gov run again. I fall foul of Northern Rail and Trans Pennine Express ( at the moment) both companies are inefficient, under staffed and constantly late or non existent. I know which model I would prefer.
Why do European rail companies succeed and ours are disastrous????

Marples would never have asked Beeching to look at transport overall - he had too great an interest in road construction.

Yes thankfully I might get a train with no problems because how they run now is a joke. I used to get a direct train to sons now it’s 3 or 4 and having to go to complete different routes that’s if they turn up in the first place

I think infoman is saying same staff, same unions.

Yes, Dr Beeching was given a very restricted brief. If he had been asked to look at transport overall, then the outcomes might have been very different.

infoman

at the end of the day what ever the rail company calls itself, changes its colours on the coach's, and supply new uniforms
it will be the same staff,

although there MIGHT be SOME new Managers.
Nothing will change.

Well, infoman, the first time that the East Coast mainline railway was taken back into public ownership it ran at a profit (which was returned to the Treasury) and had a high degree of customer satisfaction. Whether it had exactly the same personnel as when it was privatised I don't exactly know, but I would think that most of the staff were retained, with some management changes. So maybe new managers have a positive effect.

I don't know how it is performing in its second 'renationalisation' but I haven't seen any complaints.

Our Government pays foreign countries to run our railways and if you look at Spain and France their trains are great and cheap because of UK tax payers

‘Decent’ and ‘publicly owned’ in the same sentence could be an oxymoron! And with 44% of all public spending being earmarked for the beleaguered NHS, I doubt that there is much left over for rail investment when one considers education, housing (joke!) social care etc. And of course the spiralling costs of the unsolved immigration question. Perhaps utilities, of which British Rail could have been considered one, should not have been sold off in the hysteria of the Thatcher years? I can’t see it has benefited the taxpayer or country very much apart from the wealthy who bought into them and maybe some of the public who were encouraged to buy shares (and council houses).

at the end of the day what ever the rail company calls itself, changes its colours on the coach's, and supply new uniforms
it will be the same staff,

although there MIGHT be SOME new Managers.
Nothing will change.

The chief problem with the privatised utility industries like water, gas, rail, etc., is they run on the profit motive so it makes sense for them to maximise shareholder profits and minimise investment in the business. All that is exacerbated by foreign, distant ownership which cares little about the service provided. They will never provide the service we expect until they are nationalised and public investment put in to upgrade them. The national finances are not like the housekeeping budget despite Thatcher's lie so the money can be found as it is for projects like HS2.

here here

Beeching did what he was told by Ernest Marples (Transport Secretary at the time) and Marples was heavily into road construction. They "claim" to have assessed passenger usage as the basis, but chose their times carefully, e.g. Ilfracombe was measured in the winter. He also made the error of assuming that if a local station was closed, the passenger would get in their car and travel to the nearest main line station. They didn't, they drove all the way. Since then, the infrastructure/alignments have been sold off of built on, so there is no way back. We will only have a main line set of railways and carrying more good by rail is a pipe dream as all the rail yards/siding that could have access to the road network have long gone. The bus service in anything but large town/cities is atrocious, so car is the only option!

Re closing stations, where I come from there have been quite a few stations reopened after being shut in the breeching era, in one of the cases, there have been a lot of houses built so a station is an attraction, another again lots of people that work in the bigger cities have moved there and 10 mins on the train is so much better than driving and looking for parking, and also one is for a tourist area, it brings in a lot of money to the area

The railway system has 2 types of asset, firstly the infrastructure, railway lines, signaling, buildings all with very long life. Secondly rolling stock and with a life of maybe 20 yrs.
If you want to run a railway system you could lease the rolling stock in some way, the infrastructure has to be continuously maintained. Currently that is done by Network Rail which is a government regulated company that does not pay dividends any surplus is reinvested.

Of course it’s an asset. Have I said otherwise? It’s simply not the usual type of asset which can be realised and therefore would not be valued in the usual way.

The CBI, who are opposed to the idea, on renationalising the railways:

… the government would be acquiring an asset on their balance sheet