Playing with trains/ HS2 & 3

[Serial_Apologist]

Its BAD news.
As many have pointed out, the state run East Coast makes a profit and is one of the best railway services in the country.
It proves that state ownership can work well if done properly BUT apparently that's not what we need, so lets give it all away to a bus company

I'm not a capitalist (i'm NOT a Marxist either Scotty) but this seems to be bad business sense and driven by dogma.

Well fwiw what Marxism tells me is the reasons why there is little more shaming to the ruling class than to be told that they themselves are surplus to requirement when it comes to running services and businesses, when this is something they are quick to tell their workforces whenever their system goes into periodic overdrive leaving squllions of overproduction cluttering up the earth and lowering prices, including those for labour.

[teamsaint]

You could always lose weight by walking from Salisbury to Bristol to pick up the ticket, then try reclaiming the costs in shoe repair, I suppose...

How do you know I need to lose weight ?

Anyway, by a miracle of modern technology I can buy the ticket on line. I then can't collect from Clifton, (where I won't be and because there is no ticket machine) but instead not pick it up from the very probably out of service ticket machine at Salisbury, and then try to convince the guard that I am not a serial fare dodger, but in fact a regular , only a touch overweight(oh what a giveaway) occasional commuter.

Plus, my new shoes are M and S, and thus good for at least 10 years. At least that is what I am hoping.

[Serial_Apologist]

How do you know I need to lose weight ?

Anyway, by a miracle of modern technology I can buy the ticket on line. I then can't collect from Clifton, (where I won't be and because there is no ticket machine) but instead not pick it up from the very probably out of service ticket machine at Salisbury, and then try to convince the guard that I am not a serial fare dodger, but in fact a regular , only a touch overweight(oh what a giveaway) occasional commuter.

Oh well, that's all right then!

Plus, my new shoes are M and S, and thus good for at least 10 years. At least that is what I am hoping.

Mine haven't lasted that long. Nor the other pair, which are Clarke's. Not Kenneth's, mind...

SORRY thread-minders! As you were...

[Barbirollians]

Meanwhile the ECML has been handed over to Stagecoach who already run the Midland Main Line and Virgin who run the West Coast mainline - so all routes to the North will be in the hands of one associated company - I thought privatisation was about competition ?

[MrGongGong]

I thought privatisation was about competition ?

Nonsense
It's about giving away things you don't own to your mates in the city

[Serial_Apologist]

Meanwhile the ECML has been handed over to Stagecoach who already run the Midland Main Line and Virgin who run the West Coast mainline - so all routes to the North will be in the hands of one associated company - I thought privatisation was about competition ?

Capitalism was only ever about competition in its early Halcyon Adam Smithian days. By the time Margaret Thatcher came along (actually a long time before that) the big companies capitalism had produced had out-weighed the rest, notwithstanding halfhearted anti-cartellisation reinings in, and were in positions to set prices between them. Thatcher had this crazy idea of using Britain to start all over again, using "trade union power" as an excuse to get lots of little men (mostly) establishing their own non-unionised firms in back streets and on specially subsidised industrial estates. But the majority of them would, by the very nature of over-grazing and the fact of the Big Boys still to this day dominating global trade continuing to rule the roost, be destined to fail, putting the power back in the hands of finance capital, where London had, indeed, always "excelled".

[Dave2002]

Well at least it hasn't gone to the French, as I think one of the more way out papers was suggesting. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a...urning-profit/ - also seen in a printed form a couple of days ago in a shop.

I hope that Virgin and Stagecoach don't screw it up. Virgin on the WCML isn't too bad IMO, though in the last few years East Coast has been really good on the ECML. The whole process does seem flawed if East Coast under the current pubicly owned operator can return a profit, and also a good service at prices which are at least affordable for some of us.

[MrGongGong]

The whole process does seem flawed if East Coast under the current pubicly owned operator can return a profit, and also a good service at prices which are at least affordable for some of us.

It is flawed.
Pay a bribe to the government then run the trains.
Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

Many people want us to have nationally run railways, East Coast proves that this can be done well and even make money for US not a load of speculators and spivs

[Dave2002]

It is flawed.
Pay a bribe to the government then run the trains.
Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

Many people want us to have nationally run railways, East Coast proves that this can be done well and even make money for US not a load of speculators and spivs

Ah well, the ConDems want this all stitched up so that whoever they fancy can run the trains for the next N years (10?) even if the next government doesn't want those guys to do so. We're not allowed to have a real say in the matter, and there is the farce that "we're in a democracy, so we can vote in/out at the next election." Sure! Given that the earlier attempts by private companies were dismal failures, why couldn't this have at least been left until after the election - and also feature in the election "promises"? I think we've all got our own opinions about that.

Absolutely disgusting that the current East Coast operators were not allowed to bid.

[Dave2002]

Thatcher had this crazy idea of using Britain to start all over again, using "trade union power" as an excuse to get lots of little men (mostly) establishing their own non-unionised firms in back streets and on specially subsidised industrial estates. But the majority of them would, by the very nature of over-grazing and the fact of the Big Boys still to this day dominating global trade continuing to rule the roost, be destined to fail, putting the power back in the hands of finance capital, where London had, indeed, always "excelled".

The Telecoms industry deregulation in the US didn't work out too well either. It seems partly to have been a way of trying to break up Bell/AT&T, but the immediate effect was that a few large firms emerged, while a number of fairly hopeless small ones tried to make a go of it. After a few years the small ones had mostly gone to the wall, leaving the bigger ones, which - with hindsight - not too surprisingly, managed to merge themselves back into just a few companies, so in many ways the business is in a very similar state to what it was before everything was deregulated. The whole process has taken about 25 years.

In the UK BT is still the major player, though made a bit of a mistake with letting its mobile division go, which it is now trying to claw back to establish supremacy once more. It'll probably succeed too.

[aeolium]

A report by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee concludes that the government has no convincing case spending £50bn on HS2:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32041167

Previously, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee had concluded that HS2 plans were unrealistic, costly and lacked expertise:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/09/hs2-plans-unrealistic-costly-parliamentary-report

The most recent opinion poll I can find, a Sunday Times YouGov poll from October 2014, indicated that 55% of those polled opposed HS2 compared with 24% who were in favour:

http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/more-news/poll-shows-55-of-voters-oppose-hs2-only-lib-dems-seem-to-like-it-1-6380323

Yet of the seven parties involved in the upcoming election debate, I think only 2 - the Greens and UKIP - are opposed to HS2; the remainder are in favour and would take steps to implement the project if in power. When there is this kind of almost deliberate blindness to the considered and evidence-based reports of committees of both Houses of Parliament, as well as what looks like a clear absence of support from the public, it's hardly surprising that there is such a level of disenchantment with the political classes.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yet of the seven parties involved in the upcoming election debate, I think only 2 - the Greens and UKIP - are opposed to HS2; the remainder are in favour and would take steps to implement the project if in power. When there is this kind of almost deliberate blindness to the considered and evidence-based reports of committees of both Houses of Parliament, as well as what looks like a clear absence of support from the public, it's hardly surprising that there is such a level of disenchantment with the political classes.

Exactly!

[Frances_iom]

what's the public got to do with HS2 - it's designed to allow easy commuting into London hence the London start - any rational government would put the money where more useful in upgrading the Northern rail links along M62 corridor - if the Birmingham trains are overcrowded a simple + cheaper approach is to double capicity by removing 1st Class from the trains !

[Vile Consort]

what's the public got to do with HS2 - it's designed to allow easy commuting into London hence the London start - any rational government would put the money where more useful in upgrading the Northern rail links along M62 corridor - if the Birmingham trains are overcrowded a simple + cheaper approach is to double capicity by removing 1st Class from the trains !

Erm ... upgrading the Northern rail links along the M62 corridor has already started!

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/North_West_electrification.aspx

[Frances_iom]

Erm ... upgrading the Northern rail links along the M62 corridor has already started!

true - short links between electrified sections that should have been electrified years ago are finally being done - at a cost just a small fraction of cross-rail or the huge investment in London Transport
- the main links are just at the start of the study - quite a number of short links were handled by pacers - basically a decrepit bus running on rails and finally only just being got rid of 20 years past its use by date.
It would be good to see electrification return to Stalybridge - I recall travelling by electric hauled trains Manchester to Sheffield in the 50s in considerably more comfort than the rickety DMUs that ran the current service for many years afterwards - you could not work on these (in fact often lucky to even get a seat).