Quote:
|
Originally Posted by danielf
Yes, I mentioned this earlier. The cost of rail travel in the UK is absolutely shocking. And I can't understand why. Perhaps rail travel on the continent is subsidised more (most European countries have national railways), but I doubt that's the only reason.
|
I think Government subsidies is certainly one important factor. The problem is that the UK's railways have suffered generations of "institutional neglect" by governments who weren't interested in them, wanted to close them down, saw them as a way of making a quick buck or as "somebody else's problem".
Consequently the amount of money we're paying for them now is the result of all those years of under-funding and neglect and, of course, the longer you leave a problem, the more it costs to fix.
Privatisation has shown itself to be an utter disaster and what we really need now is a government brave enough to bite the bullet and take them back into public ownership but in a way that will result in them being dealt with in a *sensible* manner.
Labour have sort of got the right idea by introducing Network Rail and making it a non-profit making company, but they did it in the wrong way by "re-nationalising through the back door" and thus pi$$ing off everyone who had shares who got shafted with a deal that was much less than their shares were worth.
IMO the entire network, rail, signals, engines, rolling stock, the works should be run by *ONE* Not-for-profit[1] company which can devote its time and energy into fixing the problem *with* sufficient government money to do a proper job that won't take 20 years to finish.
Only *then* IMO are we liable to end up with a rail system that is worthy of the country that *invented* the thing in the first place...!!
[1] NB Not-for-profit does not mean "doesn't make a profit" it means that any extra money earned goes back into the rail system, not to share-holders or to executive bonuses.