5 ms·

I agree privatisation did indeed cause a massive revamp of train usage, and I feel like the nostalgia is sometimes rose-tinted and misplaced because 80s BR by a

I agree privatisation did indeed cause a massive revamp of train usage, and I feel like the nostalgia is sometimes rose-tinted and misplaced because 80s BR by all accounts was pretty bad even in the context of the UK in the 80s. On the other hand, from about the 90s onwards there was a huge increase in London employment relative to the rest of the country, and also a huge (5x or more over that time) house price increase in London. This pushed a lot of people into the commuter belt. and As you basically cannot drive into London from there, those miles can only be provided by rail. It would be interesting to know how much of the effect is in the South east, and how much is showing labour migration into a rail-centric region after industrial sectors outside the South-east were dynamited in the 80s. And privatisation does usually have a cycle: influx of cheap capital in a boom phase, followed by a slow ratching squeeze as you struggle to exceed that great initial growth every year thereafter.

jstanley 1y ago
Could you have it backwards? Viable rail transport could have increased the amount of people who can work in London, and increase the radius in which they can live.
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  Indeed, it's possible. It's probably a mutual thing, and the existing rail-centrism of London would certainly have helped fuel the financialisation of the UK economy. You couldn't build Canary Wharf if no one could get to it. London always had the better railway lines anyway, privatisation or not. In particular, radial London commuter lines mostly escaped the Beeching cuts. Post-industrial financialisation in London was the crown jewel of the 90s economic strategy. So it feels (feels/reals alert) unlikely that it was specifically the railways being private that led to the boom, but injecting private investment right then could well have been some grease on the wheels. Of course every private cash injection comes with the long term squeeze as the initial YoY becomes hard to sustain over decades.
  - eru 1y ago
    > London always had the better railway lines anyway, privatisation or not. Well, they were first privately built, anyway. At least most of them.
- pjc50 1y ago
  It was always viable? It may not have been as comfortable or safe (slam-door trains) as people liked, but it was always crucial to London working for the 20th century. Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines. I'm not sure it injected any capital either, subsidy was maintained throughout? Arguably paying dividends while receiving public subsidy has been taking capital out of the system.
  - eru 1y ago
    Well, a well run mature company should return money to shareholders. That's why shareholders give money to companies in the first place. > Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines. I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
    - twic 1y ago
      They did. Then later on nationalised them again.
      - robocat 1y ago
        New Zealand sold the national network to Toll of Australia, who slowly ran it into the ground (I suspect one underlying problem is that it just wasn't at all profitable). Labour later bought it back from Toll (costing about $550 per working person). Passenger service is a very minor component of the national service (mostly the interisland ferry, which is a complete cockup). Upthread comment: >[privatisation is] one of the UK's most hated things the government has ever done In New Zealand, a lot of the political fallout from privatisation came from older people who love trains and talk a lot of crap about how good they are. They are uneconomic in New Zealand, regardless of how efficient people think they should be. Voters don't like reality (few have any working knowledge of business), and most politics seems to be about finding alternative acceptable ways to present reality to voters.
        immibis 1y ago
youngtaff 1y ago
BR was deliberately underfunded throughout the 70s / 80s prior to privatisation They did some fantastic work on high speed trains etc but it was all scrapped

jstanley 1y ago

Could you have it backwards? Viable rail transport could have increased the amount of people who can work in London, and increase the radius in which they can live.

grues-dinner 1y ago
Indeed, it's possible. It's probably a mutual thing, and the existing rail-centrism of London would certainly have helped fuel the financialisation of the UK economy. You couldn't build Canary Wharf if no one could get to it. London always had the better railway lines anyway, privatisation or not. In particular, radial London commuter lines mostly escaped the Beeching cuts. Post-industrial financialisation in London was the crown jewel of the 90s economic strategy. So it feels (feels/reals alert) unlikely that it was specifically the railways being private that led to the boom, but injecting private investment right then could well have been some grease on the wheels. Of course every private cash injection comes with the long term squeeze as the initial YoY becomes hard to sustain over decades.
- eru 1y ago
  > London always had the better railway lines anyway, privatisation or not. Well, they were first privately built, anyway. At least most of them.
pjc50 1y ago
It was always viable? It may not have been as comfortable or safe (slam-door trains) as people liked, but it was always crucial to London working for the 20th century. Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines. I'm not sure it injected any capital either, subsidy was maintained throughout? Arguably paying dividends while receiving public subsidy has been taking capital out of the system.
- eru 1y ago
  Well, a well run mature company should return money to shareholders. That's why shareholders give money to companies in the first place. > Privatization didn't increase capacity, did it? It certainly didn't build any new lines. I don't think they privatised the rails themselves, only the trains.
  - twic 1y ago
    They did. Then later on nationalised them again.
    - robocat 1y ago
      New Zealand sold the national network to Toll of Australia, who slowly ran it into the ground (I suspect one underlying problem is that it just wasn't at all profitable). Labour later bought it back from Toll (costing about $550 per working person). Passenger service is a very minor component of the national service (mostly the interisland ferry, which is a complete cockup). Upthread comment: >[privatisation is] one of the UK's most hated things the government has ever done In New Zealand, a lot of the political fallout from privatisation came from older people who love trains and talk a lot of crap about how good they are. They are uneconomic in New Zealand, regardless of how efficient people think they should be. Voters don't like reality (few have any working knowledge of business), and most politics seems to be about finding alternative acceptable ways to present reality to voters.
      - immibis 1y ago

youngtaff 1y ago

BR was deliberately underfunded throughout the 70s / 80s prior to privatisation They did some fantastic work on high speed trains etc but it was all scrapped