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Nah, because of the awful way the privatisation is managed. Not that I think it should be privatised anyway, but really had to be it is hard to imagine it being

Nah, because of the awful way the privatisation is managed. Not that I think it should be privatised anyway, but really had to be it is hard to imagine it being setup in a way that benefits the passengers less. The killer is that there are still significant subsidies involved, so we pay through the nose for bad service due to the way privatisation is arranged and also pay extra through indirect taxation too. In fact, even adjusted for inflation we pay more for the railways via taxation now than we did when they were a publicly funded industry. Funfunfun. A quick reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financing_of_the_rail_industry_in_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financing_of_the_rail_industry...

mytailorisrich 3y ago
The subsidies go mostly to the infrastructure and currently that number is high because it includes the cost of the shambolic HS2. Indeed, Network Rail is still a state-owned company. But the majority of the expenses (trains, staff, etc) are borne by the operators and paid for by the fares. I agree that the way privatisation has worked is poor, though.
- dspillett 3y ago
  But the way it should work is that the franchises pay in to maintain the infrastructure that they use, which is itself privately owned. The subsidies were well above pre-privatisation levels long before HS2, largely due to a couple of major incidents in 2000 or soon after (showing that the claims privatisation could fund a safe rail system was at best grossly incorrect and at worse an outright lie by those bidding for the franchises). The public purse should not be raided more after privatisation than before, surely?
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    Well no, the infrastructure is not really privately-owned since Network Rail is owned by the government. But I agree that in an actual privately-run system franchises should cover all those costs. Of course that would mean even higher fares. In any case, railways are expensive and need significant investment. In terms of financing the question is then to find the the sweet spot between fares and public spending (i.e. taxes). Neither privatisation nor nationalisation are silver bullets. As is often the case it is a question of good management and customer focus. That being said, it is hard to imagine a system with real competition because of the very nature of railways, which tend to be natural monopolies. That being the case, state ownership may make sense, with the caveat that it should be well managed along private sector standards.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

The subsidies go mostly to the infrastructure and currently that number is high because it includes the cost of the shambolic HS2. Indeed, Network Rail is still a state-owned company. But the majority of the expenses (trains, staff, etc) are borne by the operators and paid for by the fares. I agree that the way privatisation has worked is poor, though.

dspillett 3y ago
But the way it should work is that the franchises pay in to maintain the infrastructure that they use, which is itself privately owned. The subsidies were well above pre-privatisation levels long before HS2, largely due to a couple of major incidents in 2000 or soon after (showing that the claims privatisation could fund a safe rail system was at best grossly incorrect and at worse an outright lie by those bidding for the franchises). The public purse should not be raided more after privatisation than before, surely?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Well no, the infrastructure is not really privately-owned since Network Rail is owned by the government. But I agree that in an actual privately-run system franchises should cover all those costs. Of course that would mean even higher fares. In any case, railways are expensive and need significant investment. In terms of financing the question is then to find the the sweet spot between fares and public spending (i.e. taxes). Neither privatisation nor nationalisation are silver bullets. As is often the case it is a question of good management and customer focus. That being said, it is hard to imagine a system with real competition because of the very nature of railways, which tend to be natural monopolies. That being the case, state ownership may make sense, with the caveat that it should be well managed along private sector standards.