4 ms·

> Separating track, rolling stock and station building into three different companies was nuts. Public subsidy plummeted after privatisation, until inadequate m

by jabl 8y ago

> Separating track, rolling stock and station building into three different companies was nuts. Public subsidy plummeted after privatisation, until inadequate maintenance was identified as cause of the Hatfield crash. Then reached never before seen peaks. They're still fiddling around to try and remove the systemic consequences of how it was privatised. Nothing that even slightly resembles the integrated transport The Netherlands can manage. Just curious, what are they doing in the Netherlands? One argument I've heard from people who seem to know more about railroading than me (not a very high bar to meet, but...) is that superficial similarities aside, tracks + trains as a business is very different from roads + vehicles. The track-train "interface" is much tighter and there are much bigger advantages to vertical integration (same entity owns and operates both tracks and trains). For a simple example, what is the "optimal" penalty that the train operator should pay to the track operator if a train breaks down, causing chaos in the entire network? I.e. how do you structure the incentives for the different companies so that the outcome for the entire system is optimal? For roads this isn't much of a consideration, if a truck breaks down other traffic can pass it. If so, it would mean the EU & UK approach of separating the track and train companies is very foolish.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Whether by accident, or design, The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. Buses that terminate at the train station, tram routes that serve both, park and ride that serves all. With compatible timetables and ticketing. After reading the piece about Delft cycle routes yesterday, I suspect a reasonable part was by design. I'm sure someone native can point out some major holes, but still from my UK perspective it seems to work very well. :) UK still happily has bus, train and tram routes that only sort-of join up, sometimes, often by accident. The bus might arrive at the station 5 minutes after the express leaves, etc. > tracks + trains as a business is very different from roads + vehicles I'm no rail expert either, but I'll waffle on a bit. :) It's much closer to air than road - you can't just throw more trains out there, they need slots, separation and compatible timetabling with the others. On a road you can just put out another bus and see which survives, they can even have the same timetable if you like. The problem I see with UK privatisation is the competition is a myth, but it's been made bloody complicated for the sake of it - for example "what is the "optimal" penalty that the train operator...". A single train operator gets a single regional franchise, yet at least three companies are involved in every route (track, train, buildings). The old train builders, station hotels, and catering had already been sold off. The old big 4 (GWR, LNER, LMS, SR) owned track, station and train, a train builder, the station hotel and caterer too - if they want to add a new route it wasn't a nightmare of inter-company contracts, or trying to persuade another company to keep the building staffed another hour, or to put new sign on a station wall. No penalties or silliness, just service embarrassment, maybe a government requirement or two. Only when you got to an interchange station did it become multi-company. Course that meant there wasn't much competition - well no kidding. Before the big 4 there was more competition, often from duplicate lines. Also more than one company running trains on lines, though one rail company always owned the infrastructure and rented a slot. So more coexistence than competition. We missed an opportunity several times to get the main lines electrified - West coast main line was asking for electrification for about 40 years before it got it. Same for expanding to 4 lines so slow and fast can run together more easily, and freight can expand. Beeching destroyed a lot of the joined up nature of our rail, and much of the branch network. We bought in too heavily to the car as the only answer. Thanks to the curse of being early, we may never get double decker trains - that would need countless bridges and tunnels being modified or rebuilt.
- tremon 8y ago
  Whether by accident, or design, The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. Buses that terminate at the train station, tram routes that serve both, park and ride that serves all. With compatible timetables and ticketing. The timetabling is partly by accident, I suspect -- or rather, it's a consequence of having high-frequency routes. Most inner-city buses and trams have a ride every ten minutes or less, so there's always an option that joins up. The NS (railway) does invest a lot of effort in matching their arrivals and departures with the most-used transfers, and I suspect regional bus services do the same. But I'm not aware of any timetable coordination between different operators. On the other hand, it's very rare for train stations not to be serviced by at least one other type of public transport, and that's definitely by design. Even inter-city bus routes have their termini at train stations rather than the city centers of the cities they connect.
- kmlx 8y ago
  > The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. The Netherlands is a very small country, almost half the size of Panama, with a mostly dead flat geography. It is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    UK is pretty densely populated as countries go. If you consider just England, actually slightly higher density than The Netherlands, though obviously not quite as flat.
    - kmlx 8y ago
      i'm getting 395 pop. density for UK, and 488 for the netherlands. nl is also the most densely populated country in the EU. on a world scale, netherlands is 31 out of 254 territories (incl. countries). i'd also add the WW2 devastation that allowed some of the European countries to overhaul huge parts of their infrastructure.
eloisant 8y ago
Netherland is a small country, they don't need bullet trains. The distance from Paris to Marseille is close to 800km, you'd better have a bullet train if you don't want the trip to take a full day.
- mcv 8y ago
  Netherland is small, but it's not an island. We have high-speed trains to France and Germany, and soon England. The Dutch part of the trip is generally the slowest part, though.
Vinnl 8y ago
> Just curious, what are they doing in the Netherlands? The Netherlands has a tracks company (ProRail) and several railroad companies, by far the largest one being National Rail (NS). That said, that's one of the most criticised points of the Dutch construction, and whenever something's wrong, there's a lot of finger pointing going around (although that seems to have lessened a bit recently). NS and ProRail would like to merge though.
dingaling 8y ago
> If so, it would mean the EU & UK approach of separating the track and train companies is very foolish. Yet it works fine for air travel, where the airports, air traffic services and airlines are all separate and charges are transparent.
- notahacker 8y ago
  The dynamics of air transport are very different though. Air transport involves hubs with carriers from all over the world flying into them. Rail lines typically involves one or two companies having access to a given piece of rail infrastructure (generally with natural or state-guaranteed monopolies on particular routes) so vertical integration makes a lot more sense, especially compared with a model where operating companies don't have the flexibility to push forward upgrade timetables they think are commercially necessary, but do get to capture profit windfalls from public investment.

by jabl 8y ago

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Whether by accident, or design, The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. Buses that terminate at the train station, tram routes that serve both, park and ride that serves all. With compatible timetables and ticketing. After reading the piece about Delft cycle routes yesterday, I suspect a reasonable part was by design. I'm sure someone native can point out some major holes, but still from my UK perspective it seems to work very well. :) UK still happily has bus, train and tram routes that only sort-of join up, sometimes, often by accident. The bus might arrive at the station 5 minutes after the express leaves, etc. > tracks + trains as a business is very different from roads + vehicles I'm no rail expert either, but I'll waffle on a bit. :) It's much closer to air than road - you can't just throw more trains out there, they need slots, separation and compatible timetabling with the others. On a road you can just put out another bus and see which survives, they can even have the same timetable if you like. The problem I see with UK privatisation is the competition is a myth, but it's been made bloody complicated for the sake of it - for example "what is the "optimal" penalty that the train operator...". A single train operator gets a single regional franchise, yet at least three companies are involved in every route (track, train, buildings). The old train builders, station hotels, and catering had already been sold off. The old big 4 (GWR, LNER, LMS, SR) owned track, station and train, a train builder, the station hotel and caterer too - if they want to add a new route it wasn't a nightmare of inter-company contracts, or trying to persuade another company to keep the building staffed another hour, or to put new sign on a station wall. No penalties or silliness, just service embarrassment, maybe a government requirement or two. Only when you got to an interchange station did it become multi-company. Course that meant there wasn't much competition - well no kidding. Before the big 4 there was more competition, often from duplicate lines. Also more than one company running trains on lines, though one rail company always owned the infrastructure and rented a slot. So more coexistence than competition. We missed an opportunity several times to get the main lines electrified - West coast main line was asking for electrification for about 40 years before it got it. Same for expanding to 4 lines so slow and fast can run together more easily, and freight can expand. Beeching destroyed a lot of the joined up nature of our rail, and much of the branch network. We bought in too heavily to the car as the only answer. Thanks to the curse of being early, we may never get double decker trains - that would need countless bridges and tunnels being modified or rebuilt.

tremon 8y ago
Whether by accident, or design, The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. Buses that terminate at the train station, tram routes that serve both, park and ride that serves all. With compatible timetables and ticketing. The timetabling is partly by accident, I suspect -- or rather, it's a consequence of having high-frequency routes. Most inner-city buses and trams have a ride every ten minutes or less, so there's always an option that joins up. The NS (railway) does invest a lot of effort in matching their arrivals and departures with the most-used transfers, and I suspect regional bus services do the same. But I'm not aware of any timetable coordination between different operators. On the other hand, it's very rare for train stations not to be serviced by at least one other type of public transport, and that's definitely by design. Even inter-city bus routes have their termini at train stations rather than the city centers of the cities they connect.
kmlx 8y ago
> The Netherlands seem much more able to have transport options that join up. The Netherlands is a very small country, almost half the size of Panama, with a mostly dead flat geography. It is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  UK is pretty densely populated as countries go. If you consider just England, actually slightly higher density than The Netherlands, though obviously not quite as flat.
  - kmlx 8y ago
    i'm getting 395 pop. density for UK, and 488 for the netherlands. nl is also the most densely populated country in the EU. on a world scale, netherlands is 31 out of 254 territories (incl. countries). i'd also add the WW2 devastation that allowed some of the European countries to overhaul huge parts of their infrastructure.

eloisant 8y ago

Netherland is a small country, they don't need bullet trains. The distance from Paris to Marseille is close to 800km, you'd better have a bullet train if you don't want the trip to take a full day.

mcv 8y ago
Netherland is small, but it's not an island. We have high-speed trains to France and Germany, and soon England. The Dutch part of the trip is generally the slowest part, though.

Vinnl 8y ago

> Just curious, what are they doing in the Netherlands? The Netherlands has a tracks company (ProRail) and several railroad companies, by far the largest one being National Rail (NS). That said, that's one of the most criticised points of the Dutch construction, and whenever something's wrong, there's a lot of finger pointing going around (although that seems to have lessened a bit recently). NS and ProRail would like to merge though.

dingaling 8y ago

> If so, it would mean the EU & UK approach of separating the track and train companies is very foolish. Yet it works fine for air travel, where the airports, air traffic services and airlines are all separate and charges are transparent.

notahacker 8y ago
The dynamics of air transport are very different though. Air transport involves hubs with carriers from all over the world flying into them. Rail lines typically involves one or two companies having access to a given piece of rail infrastructure (generally with natural or state-guaranteed monopolies on particular routes) so vertical integration makes a lot more sense, especially compared with a model where operating companies don't have the flexibility to push forward upgrade timetables they think are commercially necessary, but do get to capture profit windfalls from public investment.