Train Spotters Corner

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Ravenheart

Great to see lines re-opening, lets hope there's plenty more

Increasingly a few of the Beeching cuts are being reversed whereever possible as the amount of people using the rail network is growing exponentially year on year and hopefully in the next few years there will be even more lines re-opening.

[Ravenheart]

Bus driver post available in Southampton perhaps?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...s-gets-4358370

Awful reporting in the article though, maybe a new journalist is required too.

[denphone]

l am been through that route quite a few times and these big freight trains cannot just stop on a sixpence as you know RH and praise be to god that no one was killed or injured.

[denphone]

First Great Western set to get five-year contract extension.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29489170

[Ravenheart]

Saw this on twitter

They've started track laying at the north end of the Borders railway

https://twitter.com/bordersrailway/s...68981916106752

[denphone]

More bad news for the FirstGroup.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2014/...after-ten.html

[Ravenheart]

So we can't have our own state run rail operators but we can pay massive subsidies to the Dutch state railways to run Scottish services. The Europeans must be laughing at every new franchise renewal

Yes, because British Rail was doing a monster job of running our railways right before it got privatised...

[denphone]

And the still state owned East Coast railway shows what can be done when things are run properly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29127788

[Ravenheart]

State run East Coast PAID 225m back to the government after the private company were stripped of the franchise. it wasn't in shareholder pockets and it didn't vanish overseas to subsidise their national networks.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...-privatisation

Respectfully ... that's a heap of nonsense. East Coast has consistently lower passenger satisfaction ratings than its north-south competitor, (privately operated) Virgin West Coast, and returns half as much money to the exchequer per passenger mile than (privately operated) South West Trains. We have no way of knowing whether DOR's performance is as good as it should be on the route it operates as there has not been a recent competitive tender for it. Virgin and SWT both suggest, in different ways, that DOR could, perhaps should, be doing better.

It has taken massive private investment to bring back our railways from the brink of collapse, a state of affairs caused by British Railways and its 40-year addiction to government finance as a means of getting anything done - an approach which, for example, led to the APT project being cancelled because it didn't return on State investment quickly enough, only for the tech to be sold overseas, refined and then sold back to us as the Pendolino.

There's plenty of room for improvement in the way the system is franchised and regulated, but anybody who seriously claims that nationalisation is a better option, is either not old enough to remember how utterly crap British Rail was, or is suffering a really serious case of rose-tinted spectacle syndrome.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mart...b_3973007.html

[heero_yuy]

I can't imagine that we'd have the superb trains on Southern region if the state was still running it. Quiet, clean, punctual and roomy. Even the staff are cheerful and helpful. What's not to like?

[denphone]

l am just about old enough to remember British Rail and it was severely unloved and underfunded by successive governments of both political persuasions over many years and they were the ones who failed it in the end.

Rail privatisation since has failed nearly on every count as we have some of the highest fares and yet receive one of the worst services in Europe and sadly its always the passenger that picks up the bill.

Since privatisation, fares have increased above inflation for a large number of routes and the ticketing system is ridiculously complicated for many plus we have severe capacity problem's on large parts of the network and antiquated rolling stock which is still on many lines in large parts of the country so when some espouse that privatisation has been a great success then sadly they are very much a small minority as the vast majority are clearly very unhappy with things as they stand.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by denphone

Rail privatisation since has failed nearly on every count as we have some of the highest fares and yet receive one of the worst services in Europe and sadly its always the passenger that picks up the bill.
.

Perhaps you would prefer that the taxpayer picks up the bill as in the other EU countries? Of course that depends on how much tax you're prepared to pay to the state. Or should I rephrase: How much tax that others should pay to the state on your behalf?

Nothing comes for free and the state is notoriously inefficient when running any service. It might look good from the point of view of the fare paying passenger but it'll hit you in the pocket elsewhere when funds are diverted from, say the NHS, to give subsidised rail travel.

Originally Posted by denphone

l am just about old enough to remember British Rail and it was severely unloved and underfunded by successive governments of both political persuasions over many years and they were the ones who failed it in the end.

Rail privatisation since has failed nearly on every count as we have some of the highest fares and yet receive one of the worst services in Europe and sadly its always the passenger that picks up the bill.

Since privatisation, fares have increased above inflation for a large number of routes and the ticketing system is ridiculously complicated for many plus we have severe capacity problem's on large parts of the network and antiquated rolling stock which is still on many lines in large parts of the country so when some espouse that privatisation has been a great success then sadly they are very much a small minority as the vast majority are clearly very unhappy with things as they stand.

Den ... this is just boilerplate British commuter whingeing. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be offensive, but it is. This is just the standard stuff anybody who wants to moan about the railways says. Little, if any, of it is actually true. It just sounds like it should be true and so, far too often, it is assumed to be true and therefore goes unchallenged (like the nonsense about East Coast proving that state operation is better, when in fact, the statistics that are available, suggest the opposite).

Through-ticketing doesn't get any more simple than turning up at a staffed station and stating your destination. You can go online and do similar. "Confusing" ticketing arises from single-operator offers which *did*not*exist* under British Rail. If you don't want to be confused by any of those (often fantastic and very cheap) deals, the solution is simple - don't buy them. Stick to the straightforward (expensive) through-ticket, just like the good old BR days.

Regarding capacity issues - where do you think those issues arise, if not from the miserable failure by BR to plan strategic development? It was BR that pushed for network shrinkage, and yet now, private operators are clamouring for more capacity, longer platforms for longer trains, and even the re-laying of lines exterminated by Beeching.

Regarding government under-investment - what exactly do you expect is going to happen, when the railways are just another government department competing for limited funds alongside the NHS, schools, defence and the rest? The longer a government's spending list is, the higher taxes have to go to pay for it all. Who is supposed to pay all that tax? Money for building and running state railways does not grow on trees. Everyone pays for it, right out of their wage slip, every month.

Yes, some tickets on some routes are expensive. They are expensive because they are a truer reflection of what it actually costs to use the service. That cost is being paid by the service users who are *still*, nevertheless, benefiting from a pretty significant chunk of State subsidy. That subsidy comes from tax. Some of that tax comes from places like car owners' fuel bills. And so it goes on.

British Rail was a shambles, and a freaking lethal one at times, too.