8 ms·

It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles

It implies railways were les safe post privatisation. This is misleading. There were more accidents and deaths, but that was because of a huge increase in miles travelled. Deaths per billion kilometers fell consistently before and after privatisation. A lot of the problems lie in tracks and their maintenance, and the tracks were re-nationalised many years ago. It is not efficiently run (see HS2!). They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid. Train drivers can be paid as much as aircraft pilots. Their ability and willingness to strike affects both costs and people's willingness to rely on public transport. The big constraint is lack of subsidies. it probably makes little difference whether the system is privately owned but tightly regulated, or publicly owned so much as willingness to subsidise it. This is also shown by the failure of franchises taken back into public ownership to improve.

fergie 1y ago
> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them. They consequently became more expensive. A somewhat fun side effect of the free market, especially given the prevailing assumption that moving public sector employees into the private sector would drive down their pay and conditions.
- RobinL 1y ago
  Is that true? My understanding is they command very high wages because their unions are strong and they have a lot of leverage: by striking they can impose extremely high costs on the wider economy (not to mention bad press for politicians).
  - thesuitonym 1y ago
    These two things are related.
  - cedilla 1y ago
    Labour shortages makes finding scabs hard.
  - fergie 1y ago
    Yes. This was literally a case study for my Sociology degree in the '90s. (I would also mindfully say that there is a lot of subtle political propaganda in the UK around this issue- the powers that be want the public to blame train drivers for the failures of privatisation)
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      That doesn't convince me. Companies commonly handle situations like this just fine. I know because I have seen it. I think you are the one who fell for the propaganda here.
      - fergie 1y ago
        Your informative, water-tight argument has convinced me.
        qcnguy 1y ago
        But you haven't made an argument, so you're in no position to criticize. You asserted that "train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them" and then didn't back this strange claim up, just said "I'm right" in different words. A sociology degree isn't convincing btw.
      - toyg 1y ago
        > I know because I have seen it Companies may or may not handle strikes properly. If it were that easy, industrial interests (and their emissaries, like Reagan and Thatcher) would not have spent more than a century trying to break unions.
        terminalshort 1y ago
        You missed the context. I am agreeing with you. This is the argument I'm responding to: > train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    Our ports in the US, which affects the cost of endless goods, are still running with 1950's level tech because the unions are so strong (and have heavy mob ties).
    - dh2022 1y ago
      What is stopping other ports in the US from adopting 2025 tech and growing to the point where existing ports have to get new tech or become obsolete?
      - Workaccount2 1y ago
        The mob part.
        thaumasiotes 1y ago
        The mob used to be a major issue in American politics. Today it isn't. Are you arguing that it's grown more powerful with that change?
        Workaccount2 1y ago
        I'm arguing that if you are someone who tries to bring change to the ports, like the developer contracted by the government to do an assessment, you will get a visit, most likely at your home. They won't kill you or rough you up, but they will tell you what your assessment will find. And reiterate that they are at your house, where your family lives.
      - renewiltord 1y ago
        You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been.
        thaumasiotes 1y ago
        > You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been. In that case, there's no obstacle. This is exactly what happened with containerization, and guess what? The ports that did containerize, including some ports constructed from scratch specifically because existing unionized ports blocked containerization, replaced the ports that didn't.
  - phatfish 1y ago
    I want someone who cares to be driving the train I'm on. They also require in person participation which make outsourcing hard. I'm fine with self driving when the line is designed for it. It will be a very long time before existing lines are self driving, and its not because on unions. Not really sure why people like moaning about train drivers. Are they jealous a train driver is making more than them? While in the case of tech workers they sit quietly and watch their £65k jobs go to India.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    Unions that can shut down important parts of society can and do get paid about as much as they want. This is much more like blackmail than doing right by the working man. Did the train drivers somehow not have this power before privatization?
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    If that's the case, then it would be the case whether the railways are privatized or not (making the case for nationalization vs privatization).
- tialaramex 1y ago
  The idea is usually to de-skill workers and also to try to make their contractual terms worse. In one very small way I actually sympathise on the railways, let me be specific, this is a long story: The person driving the train clearly needs to learn how to drive that particular model of train, I think that's likely true basically everywhere. The UK's railway systems are however also reliant on drivers knowing the route. A driver must be familiar with exactly the rails their train will pass over to get from A to B, knowing what to expect ahead for some distance at all times. So it's possible that Jim, who is sat in a coffee room right now can drive a 450, but he doesn't know the Waterloo to Portsmouth via Southampton crazy bypass that's in place due to track work, so he is not able to drive the Portsmouth train that's right there, full of passengers and will now instead be cancelled because the scheduled driver did not arrive. In many of the world's railway systems route knowledge is not crucial (it might be good but it's not required). However, because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away the modern rulebook also requires that the Guard have route knowledge. In contrast to the driver this is much less valuable, but it means that now your Portsmouth train maybe has to be cancelled because although the driver intended was available or the standby could do your route, the only available Guard knows the ordinary Portsmouth route, not the weird one. I think this is a situation where we should fix systems instead rather than hoping that route knowledge for guards makes it work. But this means the guard is arguably de-skilled and less valuable than before.
  - amluto 1y ago
    That ding, ding and away issue seems straightforwardly solvable with a small amount of technology (the train could refuse to go without the signal saying it’s okay) or something like the Japanese pointing and calling system, or even both. Frankly, something like positive train control or the European Train Control System should be table stakes at this point. It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash.
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      > It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash. This is a question that's occurred to me in a different context. In Shanghai, there are subway stations where the passenger area is separated from the tracks by a floor-to-ceiling wall, making it impossible to drop something onto the tracks, fall onto the tracks, or get pushed onto the tracks. There are also stations where there's no wall, and anyone can just shove you onto the tracks at any time. The presence of a wall is highly predictable: newer stations have them, and older stations don't. Should the older stations be renovated? That would be an increase in safety. It would also be a pretty substantial expense to address a mostly nonexistent problem. The wall is a good idea and it makes sense to include it when you're constructing a new station. But that doesn't mean it makes sense to add it to an existing station.
- glenstein 1y ago
  Definitely an interesting wrinkle. I wonder, though, if it's still cheaper to have extremely overworked but well paid staff, and few of them, versus adequate staff and normal pay.
noir_lord 1y ago
> Train drivers can be paid as much as aircraft pilots. Yes and that's as it should be, a fully loaded high speed intercity train has more souls on board than most commercial aviation planes (apologies pet peeve of mine because our media keeps banging on about how "overpaid" train drivers are when in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid). A bad day at the office for me is I break production and cost the company some money, a bad day at the office for them is considerably more serious - it's a lot of responsibility.
- tome 1y ago
  Hang on a minute. How do you square your claim that it's as it should be that train drivers can be paid as much as airline pilots, with your claim that everyone else is underpaid, including, presumably, airline pilots?
  - 113 1y ago
    Where's the contradiction?
    - tome 1y ago
      See sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915649
    - noir_lord 1y ago
      They are been pedantic by pointing out that the set "everyone else" excluding train drivers would still include pilots rather than reading it as intended which would conventionally and implicitly exclude pilots. It is what it is with some people.
      - tome 1y ago
        Thanks for trying to help me understand. I'm not sure if I do yet. Can I check my understanding? Did you mean, when you said > in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid that train drivers and pilots are fairly paid, whereas everyone else is underpaid?
FridayoLeary 1y ago
[flagged]
- afavour 1y ago
  > It's not a stressful job and like you said they get paid pretty well I’m curious as to the criteria there. A train driver must, surely, be more stressed than a software engineer? They’re in charge of a moving vehicle that carries hundreds of people. And yet software engineers will still often make more than train drivers do.
  - RobinL 1y ago
    Salaries don't tend to be strongly correlated with bad working conditions or stress. In most industries (like software development) it's just supply and demand, and I imagine there are more people willing and able to work for £65k as a train driver than as a software developer. It's a bit different for train drivers because of the strong unions; my guess is that explains their high salaries more than lack of supply. (Median total reward for TOC train drivers is £66,043) https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/review-of-rail-industry-employment-costs-06-10-2022_1.pdf https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/review-of...
    - afavour 1y ago
      Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Saying "it's low stress therefore shouldn't attract a high salary" doesn't add up to me. I don't necessarily know what the right salary is but it's shift work (and you don't get to choose your hours), you're in charge of a lot of people's safety, there's a non zero chance you'll watch someone die in front of you (if they jump on the tracks). It's... not nothing. And if we're looking at how much economic benefit a given job provides a country a train driver is surely a large multiplier.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - FridayoLeary 1y ago
MangoToupe 1y ago
[flagged]
- brookst 1y ago
  Does that mean investment is also inefficient?
  - nielsbot 1y ago
    how is that related?
    - brookst 1y ago
      Profit is literally the return on investment. Would you invest your money in a startup that guaranteed no profit? Profit is essentially interest. The only reason new and growing companies get funded is because the EV of future profits (including the probability of losing everything) is higher than just stuffing that same money in S&P 500.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Yes; absolutely.
lambdas 1y ago
> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid I must be an engineer for a different Network Rail
oersted 1y ago
There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. I think it is reasonable for subsidies to be structured just like private investments rather than a donation. The public should reap the rewards of the money they invest in their country through taxes, just like wealthy investors do. It's a question of perspective. I've spent my life in countries where I've seen my taxes being spent relatively well, I feel the benefits of it daily both as a private citizen and a founder. Everywhere I've lived, when transport, utilities, healthcare and education, even part of the media, were publicly managed, they were simply better and cheaper. But I understand that this is not universal and that most governments don't operate effectively for their taxpayers. And that, yes, if the whole system is set up for it, private solutions can also thrive and be superior. I suppose it's hard to privatize public services effectively in an ecosystem that doesn't support private enterprise as much.
- jhonof 1y ago
  > There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. Interestingly, Quebec in Canada has been loosely following this model recently and it's working great. Long video but interesting if you like infrastructure stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlHqqA0onn0&t=532s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlHqqA0onn0&t=532s TLDR: CDPQ invests on behalf of the Quebec Pension Plan, and has been building infra on behalf of the pension plan across Quebec (and Canada) to great success comparatively.
  - ant6n 1y ago
    CDPQinfra deals in Quebec are wonky at best.
  - BJones12 1y ago
    Those infrastructure "investments" will almost certainly not generate the same return for pensioners as putting the money in an index fund.
    - Arrath 1y ago
johnjames87 1y ago
Great reply
TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
This is incorrect. The biggest accidents - Potters Bar, Hatfield, Southall - happened in the years immediately after privatisation, before passenger numbers had grown much. The problem was more that - in typical privatised fashion - the industry was treated as a cash grab, and property speculation and other side quests got more management attention than running a safe railway. That first incarnation was so bad it was quickly nuked, and replaced with the hybrid arrangement we have today, which has a much better safety record, but is still comically expensive and inefficient. And franchises very clearly have improved, so that's incorrect too. Delays and cancellations are down across the network, and that's before the system is reintegrated. https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2025/oct/13/most-of-great-britains-major-rail-operators-are-back-in-public-hands-is-it-working https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2025/oct... The biggest disaster of privatisation was the loss of more than a century of engineering and management culture and knowledge. The UK invented tilting train technology, and it was given away to foreign corporations instead of being licensed and exploited in the UK. This is the pattern behind all UK privatisation. Foreign countries and shareholders benefited hugely, while prices of essential services exploded, and service quality degraded.
- xnorswap 1y ago
  I remember reading an article in the journnal of the RSS about whether it was actually less safe or whether it was just statistical clustering. I don't however remember the conclusion! I've tracked down the article to https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/4/1/15/7029744?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/4/1/15/7029... but I don't have access.
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    It says there’s no evidence for that hypothesis.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - 1y ago
wasmainiac 1y ago
Sources? This just sounds like union busting propaganda. “Trust it’s bad”
woodpanel 1y ago
> This is misleading Well, what do you expect? Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung is a far-left NGO (the N stands for "Near"), the official trust of the German political party Die Linke.
iso1631 1y ago
HS2 is nothing to do with the nationalised rail maintenance, that's just an example of the inability for the UK (and indeed most of the western world) to build large projects, a lot of corruption, a lot of outsourcing, and an infinite money tap.
Dennip 1y ago
Something you are not accounting for is that rolling stock is fully private still, and a huge huge chunk of the profits. Operators don't make much money, the govt owns and runs the rails themselves, but the rollling stock is where a lot of the money goes
Reason077 1y ago
> “It is not efficiently run (see HS2!).” Sure, but HS2 has little to do with Network Rail, the government entity that owns and operates most of the UK’s existing rail infrastructure. There’s a whole other inefficient bureaucracy (HS2 Ltd) behind HS2!
dijit 1y ago
This is incorrect on all counts and it strikes me as scary that its the top comment. Train workers consistently strike, not because they are not well paid (though nowhere near airline pilots- though that is in free-fall), but because cuts to staff lead to safety issues. The profits of the train system has never been higher, and the salaries of workers has stagnated in real terms for more than a decade.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

fergie 1y ago

> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid This is in fact an interesting by-product of privatisation: train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them. They consequently became more expensive. A somewhat fun side effect of the free market, especially given the prevailing assumption that moving public sector employees into the private sector would drive down their pay and conditions.

RobinL 1y ago
Is that true? My understanding is they command very high wages because their unions are strong and they have a lot of leverage: by striking they can impose extremely high costs on the wider economy (not to mention bad press for politicians).
- thesuitonym 1y ago
  These two things are related.
- cedilla 1y ago
  Labour shortages makes finding scabs hard.
- fergie 1y ago
  Yes. This was literally a case study for my Sociology degree in the '90s. (I would also mindfully say that there is a lot of subtle political propaganda in the UK around this issue- the powers that be want the public to blame train drivers for the failures of privatisation)
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    That doesn't convince me. Companies commonly handle situations like this just fine. I know because I have seen it. I think you are the one who fell for the propaganda here.
    - fergie 1y ago
      Your informative, water-tight argument has convinced me.
      - qcnguy 1y ago
        But you haven't made an argument, so you're in no position to criticize. You asserted that "train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them" and then didn't back this strange claim up, just said "I'm right" in different words. A sociology degree isn't convincing btw.
    - toyg 1y ago
      > I know because I have seen it Companies may or may not handle strikes properly. If it were that easy, industrial interests (and their emissaries, like Reagan and Thatcher) would not have spent more than a century trying to break unions.
      - terminalshort 1y ago
        You missed the context. I am agreeing with you. This is the argument I'm responding to: > train drivers became rarer due to shareholder reluctance to train and recruit them
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  Our ports in the US, which affects the cost of endless goods, are still running with 1950's level tech because the unions are so strong (and have heavy mob ties).
  - dh2022 1y ago
    What is stopping other ports in the US from adopting 2025 tech and growing to the point where existing ports have to get new tech or become obsolete?
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      The mob part.
      - thaumasiotes 1y ago
        The mob used to be a major issue in American politics. Today it isn't. Are you arguing that it's grown more powerful with that change?
        Workaccount2 1y ago
        I'm arguing that if you are someone who tries to bring change to the ports, like the developer contracted by the government to do an assessment, you will get a visit, most likely at your home. They won't kill you or rough you up, but they will tell you what your assessment will find. And reiterate that they are at your house, where your family lives.
    - renewiltord 1y ago
      You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been.
      - thaumasiotes 1y ago
        > You try it, you get a visit. Same way it's always been. In that case, there's no obstacle. This is exactly what happened with containerization, and guess what? The ports that did containerize, including some ports constructed from scratch specifically because existing unionized ports blocked containerization, replaced the ports that didn't.
- phatfish 1y ago
  I want someone who cares to be driving the train I'm on. They also require in person participation which make outsourcing hard. I'm fine with self driving when the line is designed for it. It will be a very long time before existing lines are self driving, and its not because on unions. Not really sure why people like moaning about train drivers. Are they jealous a train driver is making more than them? While in the case of tech workers they sit quietly and watch their £65k jobs go to India.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  Unions that can shut down important parts of society can and do get paid about as much as they want. This is much more like blackmail than doing right by the working man. Did the train drivers somehow not have this power before privatization?
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  If that's the case, then it would be the case whether the railways are privatized or not (making the case for nationalization vs privatization).
tialaramex 1y ago
The idea is usually to de-skill workers and also to try to make their contractual terms worse. In one very small way I actually sympathise on the railways, let me be specific, this is a long story: The person driving the train clearly needs to learn how to drive that particular model of train, I think that's likely true basically everywhere. The UK's railway systems are however also reliant on drivers knowing the route. A driver must be familiar with exactly the rails their train will pass over to get from A to B, knowing what to expect ahead for some distance at all times. So it's possible that Jim, who is sat in a coffee room right now can drive a 450, but he doesn't know the Waterloo to Portsmouth via Southampton crazy bypass that's in place due to track work, so he is not able to drive the Portsmouth train that's right there, full of passengers and will now instead be cancelled because the scheduled driver did not arrive. In many of the world's railway systems route knowledge is not crucial (it might be good but it's not required). However, because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding-ding,_and_away the modern rulebook also requires that the Guard have route knowledge. In contrast to the driver this is much less valuable, but it means that now your Portsmouth train maybe has to be cancelled because although the driver intended was available or the standby could do your route, the only available Guard knows the ordinary Portsmouth route, not the weird one. I think this is a situation where we should fix systems instead rather than hoping that route knowledge for guards makes it work. But this means the guard is arguably de-skilled and less valuable than before.
- amluto 1y ago
  That ding, ding and away issue seems straightforwardly solvable with a small amount of technology (the train could refuse to go without the signal saying it’s okay) or something like the Japanese pointing and calling system, or even both. Frankly, something like positive train control or the European Train Control System should be table stakes at this point. It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > It should be difficult or impossible for a driver unfamiliar with a route to cause a crash. This is a question that's occurred to me in a different context. In Shanghai, there are subway stations where the passenger area is separated from the tracks by a floor-to-ceiling wall, making it impossible to drop something onto the tracks, fall onto the tracks, or get pushed onto the tracks. There are also stations where there's no wall, and anyone can just shove you onto the tracks at any time. The presence of a wall is highly predictable: newer stations have them, and older stations don't. Should the older stations be renovated? That would be an increase in safety. It would also be a pretty substantial expense to address a mostly nonexistent problem. The wall is a good idea and it makes sense to include it when you're constructing a new station. But that doesn't mean it makes sense to add it to an existing station.
glenstein 1y ago
Definitely an interesting wrinkle. I wonder, though, if it's still cheaper to have extremely overworked but well paid staff, and few of them, versus adequate staff and normal pay.

noir_lord 1y ago

> Train drivers can be paid as much as aircraft pilots. Yes and that's as it should be, a fully loaded high speed intercity train has more souls on board than most commercial aviation planes (apologies pet peeve of mine because our media keeps banging on about how "overpaid" train drivers are when in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid). A bad day at the office for me is I break production and cost the company some money, a bad day at the office for them is considerably more serious - it's a lot of responsibility.

tome 1y ago
Hang on a minute. How do you square your claim that it's as it should be that train drivers can be paid as much as airline pilots, with your claim that everyone else is underpaid, including, presumably, airline pilots?
- 113 1y ago
  Where's the contradiction?
  - tome 1y ago
    See sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45915649
  - noir_lord 1y ago
    They are been pedantic by pointing out that the set "everyone else" excluding train drivers would still include pilots rather than reading it as intended which would conventionally and implicitly exclude pilots. It is what it is with some people.
    - tome 1y ago
      Thanks for trying to help me understand. I'm not sure if I do yet. Can I check my understanding? Did you mean, when you said > in reality their pay is fair for the responsibility it's everyone else who is underpaid that train drivers and pilots are fairly paid, whereas everyone else is underpaid?

FridayoLeary 1y ago

[flagged]

afavour 1y ago
> It's not a stressful job and like you said they get paid pretty well I’m curious as to the criteria there. A train driver must, surely, be more stressed than a software engineer? They’re in charge of a moving vehicle that carries hundreds of people. And yet software engineers will still often make more than train drivers do.
- RobinL 1y ago
  Salaries don't tend to be strongly correlated with bad working conditions or stress. In most industries (like software development) it's just supply and demand, and I imagine there are more people willing and able to work for £65k as a train driver than as a software developer. It's a bit different for train drivers because of the strong unions; my guess is that explains their high salaries more than lack of supply. (Median total reward for TOC train drivers is £66,043) https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/review-of-rail-industry-employment-costs-06-10-2022_1.pdf https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/review-of...
  - afavour 1y ago
    Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Saying "it's low stress therefore shouldn't attract a high salary" doesn't add up to me. I don't necessarily know what the right salary is but it's shift work (and you don't get to choose your hours), you're in charge of a lot of people's safety, there's a non zero chance you'll watch someone die in front of you (if they jump on the tracks). It's... not nothing. And if we're looking at how much economic benefit a given job provides a country a train driver is surely a large multiplier.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- FridayoLeary 1y ago

MangoToupe 1y ago

[flagged]

brookst 1y ago
Does that mean investment is also inefficient?
- nielsbot 1y ago
  how is that related?
  - brookst 1y ago
    Profit is literally the return on investment. Would you invest your money in a startup that guaranteed no profit? Profit is essentially interest. The only reason new and growing companies get funded is because the EV of future profits (including the probability of losing everything) is higher than just stuffing that same money in S&P 500.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Yes; absolutely.

lambdas 1y ago

> They are expensive, but that is partly because rail workers are well paid I must be an engineer for a different Network Rail

oersted 1y ago

There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. I think it is reasonable for subsidies to be structured just like private investments rather than a donation. The public should reap the rewards of the money they invest in their country through taxes, just like wealthy investors do. It's a question of perspective. I've spent my life in countries where I've seen my taxes being spent relatively well, I feel the benefits of it daily both as a private citizen and a founder. Everywhere I've lived, when transport, utilities, healthcare and education, even part of the media, were publicly managed, they were simply better and cheaper. But I understand that this is not universal and that most governments don't operate effectively for their taxpayers. And that, yes, if the whole system is set up for it, private solutions can also thrive and be superior. I suppose it's hard to privatize public services effectively in an ecosystem that doesn't support private enterprise as much.

jhonof 1y ago
> There is a middle ground that is quite common across Europe: a private company that has the government as a shareholder. Interestingly, Quebec in Canada has been loosely following this model recently and it's working great. Long video but interesting if you like infrastructure stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlHqqA0onn0&t=532s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlHqqA0onn0&t=532s TLDR: CDPQ invests on behalf of the Quebec Pension Plan, and has been building infra on behalf of the pension plan across Quebec (and Canada) to great success comparatively.
- ant6n 1y ago
  CDPQinfra deals in Quebec are wonky at best.
- BJones12 1y ago
  Those infrastructure "investments" will almost certainly not generate the same return for pensioners as putting the money in an index fund.
  - Arrath 1y ago

johnjames87 1y ago

Great reply

TheOtherHobbes 1y ago

This is incorrect. The biggest accidents - Potters Bar, Hatfield, Southall - happened in the years immediately after privatisation, before passenger numbers had grown much. The problem was more that - in typical privatised fashion - the industry was treated as a cash grab, and property speculation and other side quests got more management attention than running a safe railway. That first incarnation was so bad it was quickly nuked, and replaced with the hybrid arrangement we have today, which has a much better safety record, but is still comically expensive and inefficient. And franchises very clearly have improved, so that's incorrect too. Delays and cancellations are down across the network, and that's before the system is reintegrated. https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2025/oct/13/most-of-great-britains-major-rail-operators-are-back-in-public-hands-is-it-working https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2025/oct... The biggest disaster of privatisation was the loss of more than a century of engineering and management culture and knowledge. The UK invented tilting train technology, and it was given away to foreign corporations instead of being licensed and exploited in the UK. This is the pattern behind all UK privatisation. Foreign countries and shareholders benefited hugely, while prices of essential services exploded, and service quality degraded.

xnorswap 1y ago
I remember reading an article in the journnal of the RSS about whether it was actually less safe or whether it was just statistical clustering. I don't however remember the conclusion! I've tracked down the article to https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/4/1/15/7029744?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/4/1/15/7029... but I don't have access.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  It says there’s no evidence for that hypothesis.
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wasmainiac 1y ago

Sources? This just sounds like union busting propaganda. “Trust it’s bad”

woodpanel 1y ago

> This is misleading Well, what do you expect? Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung is a far-left NGO (the N stands for "Near"), the official trust of the German political party Die Linke.

iso1631 1y ago

HS2 is nothing to do with the nationalised rail maintenance, that's just an example of the inability for the UK (and indeed most of the western world) to build large projects, a lot of corruption, a lot of outsourcing, and an infinite money tap.

Dennip 1y ago

Something you are not accounting for is that rolling stock is fully private still, and a huge huge chunk of the profits. Operators don't make much money, the govt owns and runs the rails themselves, but the rollling stock is where a lot of the money goes

Reason077 1y ago

> “It is not efficiently run (see HS2!).” Sure, but HS2 has little to do with Network Rail, the government entity that owns and operates most of the UK’s existing rail infrastructure. There’s a whole other inefficient bureaucracy (HS2 Ltd) behind HS2!

dijit 1y ago

This is incorrect on all counts and it strikes me as scary that its the top comment. Train workers consistently strike, not because they are not well paid (though nowhere near airline pilots- though that is in free-fall), but because cuts to staff lead to safety issues. The profits of the train system has never been higher, and the salaries of workers has stagnated in real terms for more than a decade.

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