renationalising railways

I doubt that nationalisation is likely to make the trains cheaper or less crowded. According to the link I posted, the reverse.

Kim19

In order of importance it would certainly be water for me. That affects all of us whereas trains have limited consumers. That certainly does not make them unimportant, just further down the pecking order.

I’m not denying the importance of clean water but to say that trains have limited consumers is a tad understated.

There were 1,570 million rail journeys in the year to 31 December 2023. (Source Office or Rail and Road). That’s an average of almost 2.5 journeys for every one of the population.

Some people travel to work every day by train. I did so for 44 years. I live 35 miles from Central London. My local station serves around 15,000 passengers a day. That’s 5.5. million a year. Many secondary school children use the train to get to local schools.

The cost of an annual season ticket from here including London Travel Zones 1-6 is now £6,300 - or £7,236 if you can only afford to pay monthly which is probably most people. An employee paying basic rate tax plus NIC needs to earn an extra £10,000 a year just to pay the cost of getting to work.

Higher wages equals higher employer costs - which are passed onto customers. Higher rail fares make everything more expensive for everyone and aren’t conducive to encouraging people into work.

We keep hearing about the people aged 50-66 who are now absent from the workplace. I know several people who have retired in their 50s and did so because the cost and stress of commuting to London each day took its toll. They all say that if fares were cheaper, trains less crowded and services more reliable they would have continued to work.

Here it is again.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13347539/Labours-plan-nationalising-railways-costs-billion.html#:~:text=Labour's%20plan%20to%20nationalise,Starmer%20was%20warned%20last%20night.

They are even assembling some of the new trains in Newport.
tfw.wales/info-for/young-travellers/magnificent-train-journey/our-new-trains#:~:text=The%20brand%2Dnew%20Class%20197s,as%20Holyhead%2C%20Fishguard%20and%20Liverpool.

Your link doesn't work, GSM.

Urmstongran

Bring back British Rail. Said nobody ever.
And if the Labour run nationalised rail network in Wales is anything to go by, don't hold your breath for improvements. 4 x almost 40 year old 153's on the premier route from Cardiff to Manchester.

www.herefordtimes.com/news/business/23145747.new-trains-introduced-south-wales-manchester-route/
Where are the trains you mention coming from Urmstongran? There’s a huge redevelopment plan taking place, and many more trains are being replaced now, I know the Rhondda had their new ones a few weeks ago.

Can't see these foreign countries letting go easily

Once their contracts have ended they really don't have any option.

Bring back British Rail. Said nobody ever

Speak for yourself, Ug. I've been saying it for years. My only consolation has been that my main line is nationalised..

Some comments here about the reality of nationalisation of the railways.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13347539/Labours-plan-nationalising-railways-costs-billion.html#:~:text=Labour's%20plan%20to%20nationalise,Starmer%20was%20warned%20last%20night.

Travel in Europe not always the cheapest , they also have their strikes, breakdowns and non appearing trains.
Just done a quick bit of research
From family in Germany to family in Holland, 2 hour journey from trainline, cheaper than D Bahn
£80.48 ret, 1st class £66
From my home town to Leeds 2 hour journey
£35.90 ret, 1st class £69.11. Believe me some of the trains are very dirty, and full of graffiti on some lines. Although I do like the double decker trains.
An interesting exercise, family like us does have rail card, but again more expensive than mine.
Not sure re answer to nationalisation, Beeching messed up the railways, Major also, new Labour didn't want them back, but the East Coast line continues to do well. Can't see these foreign countries letting go easily , they'll lose all that profit from us.

Bring back British Rail. Said nobody ever.
And if the Labour run nationalised rail network in Wales is anything to go by, don't hold your breath for improvements. 4 x almost 40 year old 153's on the premier route from Cardiff to Manchester.

It’s nationalised in Wales already, and development of the rail infrastructure is an important part of the wider Transport for Wales Plan. I’m glad that another opportunity for private investors to rip off the public is to be closed down in England too.
Nationalising rail doesn’t mean that other failed privatised services won’t also come back into public ownership, they definitely will, but each comes with different complications and costs to achieve, and as MaizieD says, rail is relatively straightforward to do as it’s franchised.

Germanshepherdsmum

I have heard no mention of the phenomenal cost of renationalisation. And yet I watched Emily Thornberry being interviewed yesterday, saying that there would be no uncosted policies.

There won't be a 'phenomenal cost' to rail re nationalisation. All it needs is to take the franchises back into public ownersip when their contracts end. The east coast main line is already (for the second time since the tories took over) in public ownership. I haven't been following it too closely this second time, but the first time it had a high degree of customer satisfaction and returned a profit to the treasury.
The Northern Rail franchise is also currently nationalised.

I will vote for that, then it’s direct responsibility we get the service that we pay for, whether it makes any difference I doubt. Certainly won’t be cheaper and we will know who to blame.

Water Companies next but that is going to be much more expensive

RunaroundSue

I never go by train now but in the 60's my husband and I were always going off on day trips with our children, they loved the train journeys and are now, like their late father, always visiting the vintage trains and museums with their children. What I would like the governments to sort out is the buses, make every town have a 100% bus route where buses never miss or do not come at all and provide 100% toilet facilities in all major stores by giving stores money to build and upkeep toilets.

There are many reasons why buses do not turn up. Not a simple matter. Driver sickness, broken down, roads so choked with cars,buses are late arriving, emergencies on the bus, ad infinitum.

RunaroundSue

I never go by train now but in the 60's my husband and I were always going off on day trips with our children, they loved the train journeys and are now, like their late father, always visiting the vintage trains and museums with their children. What I would like the governments to sort out is the buses, make every town have a 100% bus route where buses never miss or do not come at all and provide 100% toilet facilities in all major stores by giving stores money to build and upkeep toilets.

Labour are intending to take back the buses into community ownership.

I never go by train now but in the 60's my husband and I were always going off on day trips with our children, they loved the train journeys and are now, like their late father, always visiting the vintage trains and museums with their children. What I would like the governments to sort out is the buses, make every town have a 100% bus route where buses never miss or do not come at all and provide 100% toilet facilities in all major stores by giving stores money to build and upkeep toilets.

GrannyGravy13

It’s a no from me.

If anything is to be prioritised for nationalisation it should be water & sewage.

Well it's a yes from me but after water and sewage.

I I also agree about the water/sewerage companies but

The point of the railways being nationalised is that most of the contracts are due for renewal over the next few years, and that is what will be most affordable for the economy which we can all agree us in a dreadful state.

Labour has to be pragmatic in its up hill struggle with the economy.

In order of importance it would certainly be water for me. That affects all of us whereas trains have limited consumers. That certainly does not make them unimportant, just further down the pecking order.

Labourlist plans outlined

labourlist.org/2024/04/labour-party-policy-railways-trains-public-ownership-louise-haigh/

Scotland never went down the privatisation route for railways and water/sewage which makes me happy. We have other issues but at least that's something

Yes, but we could talk a lot about the phenomenal cost of privatisation that has placed shareholder profits over investment, customer service and value for money.

Nationalising rail should be a priority along with water and social care. We must start somehere in what will be a very long road to recovery after the damage Conservative policy has done to this country.

Rail travel in Britain is considerably more expensive that other countries and we are entitled to question why bu,t of course, we already know the answer.

Conservative MP, the late Robert Adley, a leading opponent of the plans made by John Major's government for the privatisation of British Rail, described it a "poll tax on wheels”.

Since then, some £31 billion has leaked out of the network into the hands of the private sector. Until the cost-of-living crisis, when fare increases were decoupled from retail price index inflation (funny that), fares were consistently 15-20 percent higher in real terms than when the rail was publicly owned.

Why? Because, splitting a business into privatised companies each with its own shareholders, pricing structures and layers of management was always a recipe for unnecessary expense and complexity.

The sheer notion that the cost of a long journey, paid for in stages over the same rail tracks, where one never leaves the train, can be less expensive than buying one end-to-end journey is ridiculous. The cost of bought-on-the-day tickets makes it prohibitively expensive to travel by train.

The fact that I can fly to Edinburgh in just over an hour for a third of the price of a six hour rail journey is simply not competitive in terms of time or money.

Everything needs to be simplified to make passenger and rail freight more attractive and less expensive and to make the whole business of running Network Rail more transparent.

A big yes!

(I agree about water too but don't see it as an either/or maybe it depends where you live).

its become an impossible mess booking and travelling and yet we need alternatives to road use desperately.

When John Major nationalised them it was like he had to make his mark by doing a "Thatcher" - well it was the most stupid idea ever in our tiny country where obviously central planning is the most efficient way. .

100% agree GrannyGravy13 and Grannybags. As soon as I read the headline I said "No! Start with water and sewerage" I accept the railways are in need of some decent management, but water and sewerage directly affect our health.

On a different tangent it should be illegal to borrow money to pay shareholder dividends. Thames Water wouldn't be in the state it is now if it hadn't borrowed to pay dividends. Years ago I had shares in Egg Bank. They never made a profit, I never received a penny in dividends and then the shares were compulsorily 'bought back' at what I believe was the price I'd paid originally. Fair enough, it was a gamble I took when I owned the shares.