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I read in a lot of articles that it is actually more terrible for a lot of tracks after privatisation in the UK. What happens is that companies focus on the mo

I read in a lot of articles that it is actually more terrible for a lot of tracks after privatisation in the UK. What happens is that companies focus on the most profitable tracks, so the other ones are not well maintained. An example: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/05/the-guardian-view-on-rail-privatisation-going-off-the-tracks https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/05/the-gu...

C1sc0cat 8y ago
And when franchises change the outgoing franchisee just milks it for the last two years or so - which lead to the complete fracking disaster of the thames link.
ownagefool 8y ago
I'm not sure that article say's it's worse than pre-privatisation, just that it's not great now and they're right, I pay over £400 a month to sit on the floor for a train that turns up when it wants to. It's not exactly amazing. But, as a counter: https://www.ft.com/content/d192b1b4-458b-11e5-af2f-4d6e0e5eda22 https://www.ft.com/content/d192b1b4-458b-11e5-af2f-4d6e0e5ed... Now indeed, the terrible service in the past was most likely due to underfunding, but recent history suggests we'll consistently vote in a Government that starves national infrastructure then sell it off to it's mates, so it's hard to see public ownership lasting and resulting in success.
nickik 8y ago
Its always easy to pick you some things that are worse. But the UK train system was terrible and getting more terrible constantly year after year with total stagnation of new lines and other advancements. You can just as easily point to a number of other metrics that 'private' or whatever you want to call it British system has actually improved. The people dislike of anything to do with privatization ends up people and journalist just looking for the problems. But the problems they find are not actually that much worse then the problems they had before.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

And when franchises change the outgoing franchisee just milks it for the last two years or so - which lead to the complete fracking disaster of the thames link.

ownagefool 8y ago

I'm not sure that article say's it's worse than pre-privatisation, just that it's not great now and they're right, I pay over £400 a month to sit on the floor for a train that turns up when it wants to. It's not exactly amazing. But, as a counter: https://www.ft.com/content/d192b1b4-458b-11e5-af2f-4d6e0e5eda22 https://www.ft.com/content/d192b1b4-458b-11e5-af2f-4d6e0e5ed... Now indeed, the terrible service in the past was most likely due to underfunding, but recent history suggests we'll consistently vote in a Government that starves national infrastructure then sell it off to it's mates, so it's hard to see public ownership lasting and resulting in success.

nickik 8y ago

Its always easy to pick you some things that are worse. But the UK train system was terrible and getting more terrible constantly year after year with total stagnation of new lines and other advancements. You can just as easily point to a number of other metrics that 'private' or whatever you want to call it British system has actually improved. The people dislike of anything to do with privatization ends up people and journalist just looking for the problems. But the problems they find are not actually that much worse then the problems they had before.