4 ms·

> privatizing critical infrastructure like this is doomed to fail It worked great for rail in Japan, so I’m not sure that’s the obvious lesson to learn.

dash2 2y ago
It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.
- pantalaimon 2y ago
  This has been true for Germany too. Passenger numbers are at an all-time high, but that's part of the problem - the infrastructure is at it's limit, but building new infrastructure is met with strong resistance by locals. e.g. the planned relief for the notoriously overcrowded Hamburg - Hannover track got effectively canceled, and this is only about the get worse with increased traffic from the new tunnel to Denmark that is set to open by the end of the decade.
- daghamm 2y ago
  Are you sure about that? I still remember "traingate", the smear campaign that followed Jeremy Corbyn (1) and how leaked CCTV video proved him right much later (2). (1) https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-empty-seats-to-make-crowded-train-protest-virgin-public-transport-ownership-labour-leadershiop/ https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-em... (2) https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traingate-footage-proves-corbyn-told-truth-traingate-55552/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traing...
- GordonS 2y ago
  I think very few Brits would agree that rail privatisation has "worked". Poor and old carriages, overcrowded, slow, late trains, and generally a lack of investment. Oh, and ridiculously high fares (often well over air fares!), which seem to increase above inflation every.single.year.
  - dash2 2y ago
    Some of us remember pre-privatisation as being a lot worse: carriages were older, trains were slower and there were less of them, staff were ruder and didn't care about their customers, announcements were inaudible. Fares were probably lower though.
    - GordonS 2y ago
      Unfortunately I'm old enough too :) Yes, it's true that things were pretty grim. I remember being embarrassed when a colleague from Norway travelled with me in a filthy, worn train carriage stinking of piss :( But IMO that doesn't excuse the lack of poor management since then. Things could be much, much better.
      - dash2 2y ago
        I think the question is, will nationalization make things better? Historically, the UK has not done very well with nationalized industries. Maybe this time will be different.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  Passenger numbers were generally CLIMBING in the 80s, Intercity was massively popular and successful, which was the reason for sectorization - let the bits that should be funding the system as a whole succeed, and let the bits that need subsidies fail. Sectorization was, of course, the prelude to privatization.
  - dash2 2y ago
    Here is evidence that you are mistaken: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2023.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_... This is only a Wikimedia page, so if you have better evidence that contradicts it, feel free to present it. But note that it cites trustworthy sources.
heraldgeezer 2y ago
It HAS NOT worked great for Sweden. Source: I live in Sweden there was a DN article recently about it. Here it is https://archive.is/zaGtb https://archive.is/zaGtb Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240721074607/https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/jarnvagen-vittrar-sonder-mitt-framfor-vara-ogon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240721074607/https://www.dn.se... (Its all too segmented, the trains, the track all different companies now nobody sees the full picture) and https://archive.is/MztnY https://archive.is/MztnY Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240726054426/https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sj-far-riva-friends-arena-om-de-vill-ha-mer-tagdepaer/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240726054426/https://www.dn.se... (The land is not enough to fix trains and the land next to it was reserved but somehow sold to build a sports arena because the train land section became a company that had to post good numbers) I hear UK is not too happy about their rail too. https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k?si=yNWcAUZ69nN1B29O https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k?si=yNWcAUZ69nN1B29O Seems like it just does not work to separate rail and traffic like that.
- daghamm 2y ago
  Came here to say this. Alos, one important thing that happened in Sweden was that the part that was not privatised was also ran like a for profit company. The railway infrastructure "CEO" basically stopped a lot of repair work and long term projects and was able to show some very good numbers to the goverment, which they very much liked. 10-15 years later things started falling apart, by which time she was long gone.
  - soco 2y ago
    If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and follows all the Wall Street bad practices... So much for obstinately calling it "not-privatized", when by all practical matters it is.
- TimK65 2y ago
  100%. That was a whole series of articles in DN about how the Swedish railways have been run into the ground. Separating maintenance from operations is a terrible idea and has never worked well on any railway that I'm aware of.
notTooFarGone 2y ago
Japan did it differently than the EU counterparts: >The most basic, fundamental difference between the British and Japanese railways is how they were privatised. In Britain, the tracks were split from the trains. from a ft article I apparently can't link The split of infrastructure and the invisible hand of the train operator market seems to be a correlation.
a_bonobo 2y ago
It's actually a different system - Japan's network was privatised and split into competing companies with all shares publicly traded (bar some exceptions), the Deutsche Bahn was privatised into a single, state-owned company. As such it is beholden to slow, non-deciding German governments, including investments into the network.
- kaashif 2y ago
  But if it's state owned, surely it's not privatised? In what what is the ownership private if it's 100% public?
- senorrib 2y ago
  How is that privatized, then? If it’s state-owned, the only thing that changed was the legal framework that applies to the entity, none of the incentives of privatization actually applying to it.

dash2 2y ago

It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.

pantalaimon 2y ago
This has been true for Germany too. Passenger numbers are at an all-time high, but that's part of the problem - the infrastructure is at it's limit, but building new infrastructure is met with strong resistance by locals. e.g. the planned relief for the notoriously overcrowded Hamburg - Hannover track got effectively canceled, and this is only about the get worse with increased traffic from the new tunnel to Denmark that is set to open by the end of the decade.
daghamm 2y ago
Are you sure about that? I still remember "traingate", the smear campaign that followed Jeremy Corbyn (1) and how leaked CCTV video proved him right much later (2). (1) https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-empty-seats-to-make-crowded-train-protest-virgin-public-transport-ownership-labour-leadershiop/ https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-em... (2) https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traingate-footage-proves-corbyn-told-truth-traingate-55552/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traing...
GordonS 2y ago
I think very few Brits would agree that rail privatisation has "worked". Poor and old carriages, overcrowded, slow, late trains, and generally a lack of investment. Oh, and ridiculously high fares (often well over air fares!), which seem to increase above inflation every.single.year.
- dash2 2y ago
  Some of us remember pre-privatisation as being a lot worse: carriages were older, trains were slower and there were less of them, staff were ruder and didn't care about their customers, announcements were inaudible. Fares were probably lower though.
  - GordonS 2y ago
    Unfortunately I'm old enough too :) Yes, it's true that things were pretty grim. I remember being embarrassed when a colleague from Norway travelled with me in a filthy, worn train carriage stinking of piss :( But IMO that doesn't excuse the lack of poor management since then. Things could be much, much better.
    - dash2 2y ago
      I think the question is, will nationalization make things better? Historically, the UK has not done very well with nationalized industries. Maybe this time will be different.
NikkiA 2y ago
Passenger numbers were generally CLIMBING in the 80s, Intercity was massively popular and successful, which was the reason for sectorization - let the bits that should be funding the system as a whole succeed, and let the bits that need subsidies fail. Sectorization was, of course, the prelude to privatization.
- dash2 2y ago
  Here is evidence that you are mistaken: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2023.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_... This is only a Wikimedia page, so if you have better evidence that contradicts it, feel free to present it. But note that it cites trustworthy sources.

heraldgeezer 2y ago

It HAS NOT worked great for Sweden. Source: I live in Sweden there was a DN article recently about it. Here it is https://archive.is/zaGtb https://archive.is/zaGtb Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240721074607/https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/jarnvagen-vittrar-sonder-mitt-framfor-vara-ogon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240721074607/https://www.dn.se... (Its all too segmented, the trains, the track all different companies now nobody sees the full picture) and https://archive.is/MztnY https://archive.is/MztnY Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240726054426/https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sj-far-riva-friends-arena-om-de-vill-ha-mer-tagdepaer/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240726054426/https://www.dn.se... (The land is not enough to fix trains and the land next to it was reserved but somehow sold to build a sports arena because the train land section became a company that had to post good numbers) I hear UK is not too happy about their rail too. https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k?si=yNWcAUZ69nN1B29O https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k?si=yNWcAUZ69nN1B29O Seems like it just does not work to separate rail and traffic like that.

daghamm 2y ago
Came here to say this. Alos, one important thing that happened in Sweden was that the part that was not privatised was also ran like a for profit company. The railway infrastructure "CEO" basically stopped a lot of repair work and long term projects and was able to show some very good numbers to the goverment, which they very much liked. 10-15 years later things started falling apart, by which time she was long gone.
- soco 2y ago
  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and follows all the Wall Street bad practices... So much for obstinately calling it "not-privatized", when by all practical matters it is.
TimK65 2y ago
100%. That was a whole series of articles in DN about how the Swedish railways have been run into the ground. Separating maintenance from operations is a terrible idea and has never worked well on any railway that I'm aware of.

notTooFarGone 2y ago

Japan did it differently than the EU counterparts: >The most basic, fundamental difference between the British and Japanese railways is how they were privatised. In Britain, the tracks were split from the trains. from a ft article I apparently can't link The split of infrastructure and the invisible hand of the train operator market seems to be a correlation.

a_bonobo 2y ago

It's actually a different system - Japan's network was privatised and split into competing companies with all shares publicly traded (bar some exceptions), the Deutsche Bahn was privatised into a single, state-owned company. As such it is beholden to slow, non-deciding German governments, including investments into the network.

kaashif 2y ago
But if it's state owned, surely it's not privatised? In what what is the ownership private if it's 100% public?
senorrib 2y ago
How is that privatized, then? If it’s state-owned, the only thing that changed was the legal framework that applies to the entity, none of the incentives of privatization actually applying to it.