Originally posted by ahinton
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As far as it goes is far enough - unless you're arguing that the Beeching cuts were a Good Thing. -
You didn't answer my question about that, so I'll have to answer it myself - they seem to do well enough when they're buying into our system:Originally posted by An_Inspector_Calls View Post
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers said 65 per cent of this country’s rail firms – 17 out of 26 – are foreign owned.
Nearly one in four operators are owned wholly or in part by Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway.
SNCF, the French state railway, part-owns six operators. three are wholly or part-owned by Dutch state railway Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
UK passengers can pay up to 10 times more for a season ticket to London than an equivalent journey in Italy and more than four times as much as in Germany.
The imbalance was revealed in a study by the Campaign for Better Transport last year. Since then British passengers have had another inflation-busting fare rise – the 10th year on the trot – as the Government tries to reduce its subsidy to the industry.
The RMT argues that profits earned in Britain through high fares and state subsidies are helping to subsidise fares overseas.
RMT boss Bob Crow also used the research to criticise plans to reprivatise the east Coast main Line – which was taken back into state control from National express east Coast in 2009.
Mr Crow told the RMT annual conference in Brighton: “This research blows apart the Government case for bulldozing through the early re-privatisation of the east Coast mainline.
“What they are actually saying is that any state can run our railways as long as it isn’t the British state.
“These european state railways are making profits and getting taxpayer subsidies in the UK. It means someone on a train in Newcastle is subsidising a passenger in Berlin.."
(You will want to point out that this information comes from the Campaign for Better Transport and the RMT, but it's filtered through the Express rather than the Guardian, so it must be true.)Comment
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Certainly one advantage of the franchise system is that sometimes you have a choice of which train company you use to get from A to B.
For example I travel the 200-mile journey from N. Cheshire to Glasgow a fair amount. Using Virgin the cheapest advance second-class ticket returns are in the region £50-£60. However the rather inaptly named Trans-Pennine Express also do a service which one can connect at Manchester and I've bought advance single tickets online both ways for £8.50 (inc railcard). I can't remember paying any more than £25 return using this method of travel.
It is true the trains are less comfortable than Virgin's and the trains are always packed which alone proves there is a demand for such a cheap and somewhat 'nastier' service! No jokes about Scotsmen please.
Of course one has to book well in advance and be flexible with timing, but at least the opportunity to decide is there for many travellers, which wouldn't be the case with a single-company system.Last edited by Guest; 31-10-13, 10:56.Comment
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No, indeed it shouldn't, but one point that I was making was that an even smaller proportion of such journeys are made in France than in UK, not least because its non-TGV/LGV network is so much smaller, despite France being a far larger country than UK; also, in most parts of rural France, there is not only far less train service but far less public transport of any kind than in UK - OK, some outlying parts of UK are ill served with any kind of public transport but more parts of rural France are ditto - where I visit in the southern Charente, there are no bus services for many miles and the only local train service is 10.5km distant and runs just three times daily between Bordeaux and Angoulême. I do not know the facts for sure, but it would not surprise me that the equivalent French proportion of "significant journerys" made by road is higher than that which you quote for UK.Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
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I wasn't arguing that, but passenger train services do have to be paid for somehow and used by passengers sufficiently in order to maintain them and justify their existence and, if there's insufficient tax revenues and possible far revenue to continue to fund maintenance of, let alone increases in, rural train services, some may struggle to survive.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
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No, I'm sorry, I don't accept that the franchise system is a bad way of running a railway. It involves a normal tender-enquiry process for the provision of a service over a number of years. Any number of such contracts are procured by tender enquiry in the private sector. They don't get every one of those enquiry processes right, of course, but from experience I'd guess they get most quite satisfactorily right. Where perhaps the Government cannot handle the process was in assessing bids (which was common to the two, and only two failures you cited) is they probably feel obliged to assess bids on price only. The private sector wouldn't do that. And that's a good reason to consider that the government should get involved as little as possible in the procurement of goods and services.Originally posted by jean View Post
My example of fare prices covered journey times through most of a morning period, all the fares at all times were the same, and I used no discounts.
The UK does have concessions cards for senior and disabled people, and anyone can buy a family card but you have to travel with a child under 5.
You must be desperate if you're citing Bob Crowe.Comment
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I don't make jokes about Scotsmen which, as I am one, is perhaps just as well, really.Originally posted by scottycelt View Post
The sheer complexity of the fare structure, whilst it can indeed have its advantages such as that which you cite here, acts for the most part as a discouragement to train travel to the extent that the phrase "it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive" (which, in my present location, I've adapted to "it's better to travel hopefull than by Arriva") might as well be revised in the worst cases as "it takes longer to find and purchase the best tickets than it does to make the journey". I take your point about different fares depending on which train companies' services you use, but I remain unconvinced that, were the whole lot run by one company, nationalised or otherwise, this aspect of train travel would improve merely as a direct consequenece of such mergers, because a single company could as easily maintain a Byzantine fare structure such as that which we have now between several companies.Last edited by ahinton; 31-10-13, 10:54.Comment
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But one might equally argue that it shouldn't get involved in armed forces provision because, likewise, this inevitably includes procurement of goods and services (and look what an expensive mess that's been!); in fact, you'd really have to extend your argument to cover state involvement in anything at all, really, since the NHS, the state education system, the police and armed forces et al, as well as localised facilities provided by local authorities, are all reliant in part upon the procurement of goods and services. Do you indeed argue that?Originally posted by An_Inspector_Calls View Post
In fact, I am also unconvinced that anyone, be it a franchise, a private equity firm or firms, a "community", national or local government or indeed anyone else can be guaranteed to run a national passenger train network that can be guaranteed to make at least sufficient profit to enable investment in maintenance and justifiable improvements, so I don't hold the view that franchise-owned-and-run is better than state-owned-and-run or vice versa. There is an ever increasing perception, especially in Britain, that rail passenger services are mostly for the rich and the reasonably well-off and the possible advent of HS2 probably aggravates and widens that perception.
There's an implied irony in the expression "as the Crowe flies", is there not?!...Originally posted by An_Inspector_Calls View PostComment
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Yes, and look at the mess the government has made of defence procurement - the aircraft carriers alone will do. Thankfully, there are signs they're getting better.
The franchises lease the rolling stock off the ROSCOs. You can read all about ROSCOs, TOCs, and MOLAs here:
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I did indeed suggest as much in my #113 above!Originally posted by An_Inspector_Calls View PostComment
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I suspect the devil is in that most.Originally posted by An_Inspector_Calls View Post
In Germany, these restrictions do not apply - that's my point.The UK does have concessions cards for senior and disabled people, and anyone can buy a family card but you have to travel with a child under 5.
How many people have a child under 5 on call every time they want to travel by train?
I note that you don't question the figures, though - neither did the Daily Express.You must be desperate if you're citing Bob Crowe.Comment
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I'd much prefer one reasonably-priced fare to a choice between an expensive ticket and a very expensive one.Originally posted by scottycelt View Post
Especially as if I missed the expensive train I was aiming for, I wouldn't be able to use my ticket on the very expensive one.Comment
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And you've not responded in any detail to my points about the East Coast franchise failure.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
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