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 Welcome posters old and new to a thread about the railway. More specifically the British railway and the sorry state of affairs it's currently left in. Since it's auspicious beginnings with Robert Stephenson and his 'Rocket' running over and killing a Member of Parliament in 1830, the British railway network has had many ups and downs. A product of the worst excesses of Victorian laissez-faire (before producing the 19th Century equivalent of the dot-com crash), the system has had many shake ups, reorganisations and changes. In 1948, Clement Attlee (aka Britain’s greatest Prime Minister) nationalised the rotting carcass of the 'Big 4', which were the remainder of the privatised British railway network as they stood post-war into British Railways, starting what would be four and a half decades of government mismanagement, balls ups and bad decisions which would eventually lead to the government of one John Major killing off British Rail with the Railways Act 1993. This remains, perhaps, the worst decision he ever made. Since privatisation, the British taxpayer now funds the railway to the tune of 5 times more than it used to do under British Rail. Add to this fares which have jumped inordinate amounts (being linked to RPI, we have recently seen fare increases of 8%) such that travelling by train was stated to be a 'rich man’s toy' by the Secretary of State. It is little wonder that renationalisation of the railway remains perhaps the most popular topics amongst the electorate of the UK that goes against the current political grain (and isn't racist). Much of this stems from the insanity of the privatised railway network, here is a diagram:  The worst part? This diagram of the jumble sale of conflicting interests, little oversight and private profit over public need is much simplified compared to the actual industry. So, for those not so familiar with the way this madness is run, let's do a run down of the major player in the British Railway system. The Department for Transport  The DfT are the central government organisation responsible for the railway network. They have oversight of all other forms of transport too (hence the name) but with regards to the railway they are perhaps most known for overseeing the franchising agreements which form the British railway. These are the contracts signed with private companies to run certain services on certain lines, and are probably where our problems start. The DfT is generally formed of civil servants, economists and very few actual railway people so the actual understanding of the industry by the department which runs it is fairly negligible. There are good people who work for the DfT, but they are so outweighed that the might as well not work there. Most recently, they released the 'McNulty Report', an investigation into why the industry was costing so much compared to railway companies on the continent. “Realising the Potential of GB Rail” as it is more formally titled is not a thrilling read, however if you do manage to slog through the hundreds pages you will be struck with one solid conclusion: the Executive Summary and the Conclusion in no way represent the actual body of the report. If the railway rumour machine is to be believed, the DfT took issue with the report which basically exposed the weakness of privatisation, mostly the employment and funding of hundreds of lawyers and largely superfluous staff to argue over contract disputes, which is a major money sink for the industry as every private interest fights against everyone else and the state-backed Network Rail to try and maximise profits, while nobody is really acting in the best spirit of the passengers. However, the report instead concluded (despite evidence in the report to the contrary) that there were too many staff and they were paid too much. As a railway employee, I and my bank balance can categorically argue against the latter assertion at least. Railtrack and Network Rail  Railtrack are such a maligned company in British politics that they are now used as a go-to example of bad privatisation by the press. Yes, you did read that correctly. Railtrack became what is known as the Infrastructure Manager at privatisation. They owned everything that wasn't rolling stock and the staff that went with it, a divorce of train and track far above and beyond the EU mandate that supposedly asked for it. This separation leads to many, many problems, but Railtrack itself is perhaps the biggest failing of privatisation. Crash after crash, budget overrun to budget overrun of the 1990s-2000s can be assigned to the piss poor decisions of Railtrack. Believing that railways weren't actually that complicated (I am doing a Masters Degree in Railway Engineering and can confirm that they are), rather just another business, Railtrack wrote its own death warrant. Failing to understand the industry they were led up the garden path by companies who claimed they could implement moving block signalling (still not implemented anywhere in the world properly) on the busiest line in the UK, that privatised maintenance based on contracts would continue the safety culture of the railway (the dead of Hatfield and Potters Bar rail disasters, of course, beg to differ) and that money was the best driver in an industry where safety critical decisions taken every day could kill people was a sensible idea. Unsurprisingly, this spectacular bunch of imbeciles failed. Labour, despite being elected on a promise to renationalise the British Railway network in 1997, managed to almost fulfil a manifesto promise in 2002 when it handed the control of the infrastructure of British Rail to Network Rail, a 'not for dividend' company backed by the British state (full disclosure at this point, they are my current employers). NR ever since has been fighting to bring the industry back to a level of respectability, and has in some quarters managed, but they are in many ways an island in a sea of poo poo. Current movements within the company hint that due to being far too good at actually getting poo poo done compared to private industry their monopoly will be smashed to let the free market rule once more. This is paranoid speculation on my part, but it is not too unlikely, particularly given the current bunch of arseholes we've got in government. The Train/Freight Operating Companies Train Operating Companies are the guys who actually run the trains you sit in when you come to Britain. They are all private interests, generally run by companies who made their money during the bus deregulations of the 1980s, with First and Stagecoach being the two biggest players. Let it not be said that the TOCs have not made improvements since taking over from BR. However, inevitably, these improvements are mostly cosmetic. Railway station bogs no longer resemble an open sewer, staff all have very nice new professional uniforms and many trains have had fairly cosmetic overhauls; but never let this detract from the fact that you are now a customer, not a passenger. For most 'customers', this has seen an aggressive campaign to capture fares (anyone who has had to deal with the unreasonable Revenue Protection Officers of the railway will attest to this) and a borderline contempt for people who travel. There are always hilarious platitudes made about the fact that there are cheap rail fares available, but only if you don't travel at time when everybody else is (thus, writing off every 9-5 worker in the UK), but generally the privatised companies act exactly as you would expect from companies who have a captive market who literally cannot leave. Prices go up and people simply cannot chose to move to other modes of transport. The biggest bugbear for most people is that companies are not competing in the way that free-market adherents want because it's not possible. While you may be able to theoretically be able to take three competing services from London to Birmingham, it in reality is not done. The price structure and pathing of trains means that the competition is now who travels on what services rather than the quality of services themselves. HS2, which I broadly support, will only make this worse, with social classes forced onto certain services simply by price. Rolling Stock Leasing Companies (ROSCOs) The great scam of the British railway is built on a fallacy of a free market and nowhere is this more prevalent than the ROSCOs. Certain trains will only work in certain places, no good taking a third rail train to Scotland, as they only work south of the Thames. Diesel trains have massive maintenance and fuel costs compared to electrics, so no need to use them where there are overhead wires. No use taking a high-speed electric train on the West Coast Main Line, as they won’t be able to get up to 125mph due to the cant unless they can tilt. These guys have a stranglehold on the industry, and their reasons for existence are increasingly dubious. Dickheads of various stripes have claimed that new trains would not have come into existence without the ROSCOs, point to the failures of crappy Pacer trains of the late 1980s and the much ballsed up Intercity Express Programme as to why we need private industry to drive new train development. WRONG. While the tilting Pendolinos are perhaps the crème of the crop, they represent a technology that was developed and trialled by BR 30 years previously. We are literally buying our own poo poo back off other people. While I cannot quote any sort of survey, any sensible person who has been in a BR Mark 3 or 4 coach vs. a 'modern' Voyager stock will tell you that the latter had terrible leg room, inadequate luggage space and while the underfloor diesel engines may give your arse a nice shuffle, the ride comfort is nothing compared to the older stock. Not mentioned in the above diagram, but perhaps the biggest players of all: the Railway Trades Unions  The railway is broadly covered by three specialist trade unions (with some areas covered by the Unison and other broad brush unions): the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA, my union), and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF). Born in the fire and blood of the late 19th Century, the modern railway unions are perhaps the most powerful unions which still operate in modern Britain, with the ability to bring the country to a complete standstill with relative ease. The RMT are the new bogeymen of British trade unionism, with their leader Bob Crow being regarded as an enemy of the British industry. This is perhaps most evident in the fact that the RMT have been successfully growing their membership across the industry, particularly targeting low paid manual jobs like train cleaners and forming up unions to fight back. Big Bob is a hate figure in the press but despite that is perhaps the most successful union leader in modern history. The inevitable showdown between him and the government will by the new Miners Strike (whether it'll be the 1974 or the 1986 version is yet to be seen). The TSSA are the white collar union who were always sold to staff on the basis of not being the more militant National Union of Railwaymen (the precursor of the RMT). However, the assaults on staff have meant they have taken a more hard line stance and have been coordinating strike action with the RMT on London Underground with major effect. There were talks of merging the two into one union but ideological differences prevailed and it fell through. Generally the represent the skilled technical, middle management and project staff. ASLEF is perhaps the best example of a powerful craft union in the country, as it is exclusively for train drivers. Doing incredibly well out of privatisation by playing ignorant potential employers off each other like a fiddle they have elevated train driving to likely the best paid blue collar profession in the UK. Holding powerful sway over the railway network, they generally get what they want before it comes to industrial action and are more off the radar than the RMT, but no less militant. Perhaps their greatest contribution to society in recent memory is getting a member booted out of the union for being in the BNP (a fascist party) for not conforming to the values of the organisation. So is it all a mass of crap? Yes and no. The structure of the railway industry is so imbecilic that even a minimal amount of scrutiny shows what a pile of shite it is, however, this is an industry that is never far from public conscious and is undergoing a major resurgence in investment. After being basically starved in the hopes it would die through the 1980s and 1990s, rail has done the opposite, now carrying more people and running more trains than any other time (despite the network being half the size it was in the 1960s). Eurostar, despite a shaky start, has basically destroyed short haul flights from London to Paris / Brussels and high speed is the new buzz word of the British railway. Announced this year, we are about to start design and construction of our first proper high speed link from London to Birmingham, before continuing to the north, This is a topic that has been analysed to death (not least, by me, here: http://demandnothing.org/high-speed-2-white-elephant-or-national-investment/) so we won't talk about it too long. However, there are other things afoot. We are about to see the electrification of the Great Western Main Line, from London to Cardiff, over the next 8 years, with the first electric services starting to run as soon as 4 years from now. This is a huge programme of investment, constituting many changes to quite old systems. Simultaneously we are seeing the installation of the European Train Control System, an interoperable signalling system which is to be standard across Europe as a driver of commerce (supposedly). While we have already seen Level 2 ETCS rolled out in the UK, it was on a comedy branch line and a real hash was made of it, second and third times should be fairly less painful, with the ETCS being overlaid on the existing system rather than simply replacing it. Operations on this will start on the north-south Thameslink route through London and on the Great Western Main Line by ~2016, then followed by the East Coast Main Line soon afterwards. Though much delayed, we will eventually see the High Speed Train, perhaps one of the greatest engineering achievements of British Rail, finally retired and replaced with the Intercity Express Programme trains (or the Hitachi SuperExpress to give it the name that nobody calls it). Rail is making a comeback, being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, but despite high levels of excitement in the industry as it resurges, nothing changes the fact that privatisation has put back all these achievements by about 10 years. British Rail was not a perfect company, and suffered greatly from inadequate, short-term and short sighted budgets, from hostile governments and a huge level of internal industrial hostility between powerful unions and grumpy management that held it back. However, it can be said that no matter how bad BR was sometimes, it somehow managed to be very good at simply getting poo poo done. Like the NHS, it worked with tight budgets to provide a highly efficient service that was value for money for the taxpayer. Perhaps the most laughable anecdote I have heard about privatisation was that when the 'dynamic business focused leaders' of Railtrack et al took over from BR management was that they looked everywhere to cut back and reorganise to make the running of the railway more efficient. They simply couldn't because no profit motive can drive efficiency quite like a government budget and the looming fear of being privatised. In conclusion: Bring Back British Rail (or modern equivalent form) This thread Chat about how terrible the British railway is and the foibles of privatisation. I can give more in-depth analysis of technology or the structural/organisational issues within the network. In addition to this, my actual day to day job is signalling design for Crossrail and the aforementioned Western Mainline Electrification programme. Generally though, I have a fairly broad knowledge of rail in the UK generally, so while this D&D not Ask/Tell, do feel free to ask questions. Note - I work on the main line railway NOT London Underground, so while I do know quite a bit about metro railways they are far from my area of expertise. Some further worthwhile reading: The Guardian Special Investigation into the West Coast Main Line upgrade which is a very good read. Christian Wolmar talking about McNulty. Wolmar is good and bad, he does talk some right old poo poo about technology sometimes, but his economics analysis is usually spot on. FINAL NOTE: No train spottery poo poo! While I do understand that people might want to post nice pictures of steam trains and such, bugger off and do it somewhere els, ta.
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May 7, 2012 11:09
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My local service is currently run by Greater Anglia, who took over from National Express East Anglia earlier this year. Comically, I saw absolutely no signs/advertisements/whatever that this change was happening. In fact, despite NEEA being terribly incompetent, last year they introduced new rolling stock, gave (most of) the existing trains a fresh lick of paint and implemented a new timetable that is more or less not a disaster. Greater Anglia have upheld the fine tradition of NEEA by ensuring that if there are delays/cancellations, it's trains to Stansted or Cambridge that will be the least affected. Literally, they'll cancel a train (my train  ) if it's running late enough that it'll delay a Stansted Express (priority service) or a Cambridge train. My station gets trains every 30 minutes, but God forbid those people get inconvenienced.On top of that, they still have a number of trains that are amongst the oldest in the country; so old that they don't actually have septic tanks on board. As in, every time someone flushes the toilet, the track gets decorated (as do any engineers working trackside - there are often engineers working trackside). Bozza talked about Revenue Protection Officers, but the ones on my line are terrible - they camp at station exits rather than getting onto the train, so in the morning, people just get off at a different station - in the afternoon, they call in the Police to back them up but they can't actually chase anyone who runs for it because that means they can't then stop other people getting through. Talking about weird infrastructure, the line that's run by First Capital Connect that goes from Moorgate to Alexandra Palace (and beyond) is, I'm told, unique in that it uses both overhead power lines and a third rail. The overhead for most of the line, the third rail for the section from Drayton Park to Moorgate, where the line goes underground. If you sit on the train at Drayton Park, you'll notice the train powering down briefly as the overhead connector (thingy) retracts and the third rail connector (thingy) extends. The weirdness is one of the reasons the rolling stock is poo poo, because I guess it'd cost quite a lot to design a train just for one freaky line.
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May 7, 2012 15:56
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I don't really understand why there isn't more talk from Labour about renationalising the trains. The system is so monstrously unpopular it'd be an easy vote winner and they could carry on privatising everything else in the meantime. I guess they don't want to do it but don't want to lose votes from not doing it so they try to keep it out of the discourse?
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May 7, 2012 16:50
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Peel posted:I don't really understand why there isn't more talk from Labour about renationalising the trains. The system is so monstrously unpopular it'd be an easy vote winner and they could carry on privatising everything else in the meantime. New Labour are almost as big of a bunch of fans of privatisation as the Tories. Don't expect them to undo the damage done to the NHS, never mind the damage done to the railways. Fantastic OP, Bozza. If it were all to be renationalised, what would be the first order of business? What're the projects railway engineers dream of?
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May 7, 2012 17:20
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A question from the sideline, how bad in terms of quality is the British railway? I realise the OP focus on structure and cost, but those must also be seen in light of the quality delivered. I ask because a lot of debate on infrastructure seem centered on some wishful thinking, and without making realistic comparison to how it is solved elsewhere to see if it by comparison really is bad. I am not implying that the OP or anyone else her fall in this category. I just wonder how British rail compares cost - quality to what is delivered elsewhere.
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May 7, 2012 17:32
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Bozza, do you have any figures for the annual subsidies given to the train operating companies? I can't help but think that billions of pounds are being handed to the likes of Stagecoach and passed straight on to shareholders as dividends rather than being used in any way to, you know, subsidise train fares. I don't use trains that often these days, but I do know that the price of an off-peak Bournemouth/London return (with a Zone 1 travelcard) has risen from about £36 circa 2004 to almost £60 now. And that the seats in the shiny new rolling stock are as hard as loving planks.
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May 7, 2012 17:33
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I am a semi-regular traveller on London-Midland between Stoke-on-Trent and London Euston. It takes me three hours. Around half way through this journey I have to watch the Virgin Pendolino service overtake my train, which left Stoke an hour after me, but alas I am poor and cannot afford efficient public transport. Also the return trip on a Sunday evening is always hellishly busy, but you're not allowed to book seats on that train 
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May 7, 2012 17:52
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kingturnip posted:Talking about weird infrastructure, the line that's run by First Capital Connect that goes from Moorgate to Alexandra Palace (and beyond) is, I'm told, unique in that it uses both overhead power lines and a third rail. The overhead for most of the line, the third rail for the section from Drayton Park to Moorgate, where the line goes underground. If you sit on the train at Drayton Park, you'll notice the train powering down briefly as the overhead connector (thingy) retracts and the third rail connector (thingy) extends. The weirdness is one of the reasons the rolling stock is poo poo, because I guess it'd cost quite a lot to design a train just for one freaky line. Pantograph (AC overheads) and Collecter Shoe (DC 3rd Rail)  Yeah, 319s are a bit of an oddity, they run Bedford to Brighton too, which is the line that my Dad drives. Farringdon used to be the place they switched over from AC/DC but I think that is going to change with Thameslink, the wires being extended down to City Thameslink I believe. It's an odd bit of track, the newer 377s are replacing the 319s as we speak so they're a little nicer. Believe me, the 319s are certainly far from the worst trains in Britain. For those look no further than the Pacer railbus. The WORST trains in the UK by a long stretch: 
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May 7, 2012 18:02
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Thanks to wikipedia I now know these crazy people exist 
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May 7, 2012 18:23
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The point of privatizing isn't to improve services, it's to make political ally insanely wealthy. So this, like all privatizations, succeeded greatly.
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May 7, 2012 18:26
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The worst part about all this is that the UK's rail service is still better than rail infrastructure (as a whole) in the US by miles and miles.
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May 7, 2012 18:29
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US size and property rights make a large scale rail network pretty hard.
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May 7, 2012 18:30
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Bozza posted:Yeah, 319s are a bit of an oddity, they run Bedford to Brighton too, which is the line that my Dad drives. Farringdon used to be the place they switched over from AC/DC but I think that is going to change with Thameslink, the wires being extended down to City Thameslink I believe. It's an odd bit of track, the newer 377s are replacing the 319s as we speak so they're a little nicer. Don't forget FCC still use 313s as well, dating from 1976. That'll explain the shoddiness somewhat, yep.
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May 7, 2012 18:39
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Varequidam posted:The worst part about all this is that the UK's rail service is still better than rail infrastructure (as a whole) in the US by miles and miles. Actually, the US rail system is one of the best in the world, it's just designed to move freight not people.
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May 7, 2012 19:00
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Goatman Sacks posted:US size and property rights make a large scale rail network pretty hard. Pssh, property rights. We still have a landed gentry to deal with. In terms of quality delivered, the UK probably has one of the more impressive networks in the world. People like to hold up the French and the Japanese as excellent services but in many ways they excel because they have seperation of services. In terms of mixed traffic operations, people come to us to see how it's done, simply getting that many trains of different speed, acceleration and braking rates through the system with the volume that we do is actually rather impressive. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2012/jan/12/high-speed-2-hs2-rail-britain-mapped-animation This is a pretty cool video that shows the sheer number of trains running around the network at any one time (plus the difference with HS2)
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May 7, 2012 19:13
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How does the movement of freight traffic work in this country? (UK) Is it like passenger movement, where there are freight TOCs that a haulage firm or other business needs to book time on? Or do haulage firms charter trains and have to negotiate with Network Rail for a time to move their poo poo?
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May 7, 2012 19:16
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Noreaus posted:How does the movement of freight traffic work in this country? (UK) Is it like passenger movement, where there are freight TOCs that a haulage firm or other business needs to book time on? Or do haulage firms charter trains and have to negotiate with Network Rail for a time to move their poo poo? Bit of both, freight in run by three big players (known as the FOCs, Freight Operating Companies), GB Railfreight, DB Schenker (aka the German national railway company, still publicly owned... kinda) and Freightliner. I think Eddie Stobart are trying to break into freight too, and theres a few other little operators. Generally, they shift heavy haul goods, along with container traffic from the ports. Stone trains for construction, jet fuel to Heathrow is the major trade where I work on the Great Western, along with cars from the Honda/Mini plants in Swindon. There has been a move to start shifting other bulk goods by rail, I know Tesco have started to use container traffic to ship stuff around the country. Also depleated nuclear fuel is moved by rail but that's all very  If you need to move a lot of heavy poo poo regularly (but perhaps not frequently), rail is a good way to do it. There is talk of reinstating the parcel deck on the top of Euston Station as a freight terminus of sorts when it is refurbed for HS2 because then shops can ship their goods into central London by rail, and distribute in vans rather than trying to get a HGV round the streets.
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May 7, 2012 19:27
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London Overground uses both 3rd rail and AC too, because they go all over the place. Also if you want hilariously old rolling stock the Isle of Wight still uses old London Underground trains built in the 1930s, as part of the modern service privatisation was supposed to provide. e: I get that because it's an anomaly it's nice to be like "hey a heritage-ish railway" but come on guys, you're not paid to do that.
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May 7, 2012 19:28
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Bozza posted:In terms of mixed traffic operations, people come to us to see how it's done Is this really true though? Because the same is said about Dutch rail all the time. Speaking of, I think I asked this before but I don't know if I got an answer (plus I forgot if I did) but a couple years back there was talk of sending my dad (knooppuntcontroller, literal translation: junction controller, basically he gets paid to do nothing if everything goes well, but as soon as poo poo hits the fan he needs to get the right materiel and people in the right place to sort poo poo out and keep to the schedule as much as possible) to the UK due to some cooperation project and Dutch rail was going to (possibly?) start operations in England. As far as I know Dutch rail is currently active in Poland under the Nedkoleje name and Germany, and the Czech Republic as well as England under the name Abellio Rail. Do you know anything about them and could you talk about them? Anything at all would be appreciated cus I'm genearlly interested in what Dutch rail is up to. Also, who controls the stations in the UK? Again for Dutch rail, in recent years building a lot of office complexes above or closely around stations on land owned by Dutch rail has been one of their most succesful activities. Is anything similar happening in the UK?
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May 7, 2012 19:36
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Also if you want hilariously old rolling stock the Isle of Wight still uses old London Underground trains built in the 1930s, as part of the modern service privatisation was supposed to provide. Actually it's because the Ryde tunnel limits the useable loading gauge massively, old LU stock are the only things that actually fit.
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May 7, 2012 19:41
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Ah, didn't know that. Still, it's not like LU don't build new trains all the drat time, they could be using something that's a bit less than 75 odd years old.
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May 7, 2012 20:08
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Ah, didn't know that. Still, it's not like LU don't build new trains all the drat time, they could be using something that's a bit less than 75 odd years old. I think they're looking into getting hold of some 67 stock that came out of LU service recently, I think it's the first time anything's been available until now.
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May 7, 2012 20:47
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The time I saw a freight train go through Oxford Circus Underground Station was a bit of a 
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May 7, 2012 20:57
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Orange Devil posted:Is this really true though? Because the same is said about Dutch rail all the time. Yeah, the corporate spin machine via the Intranet loves to post about the Japanese coming over to check out Network Rail stuff. It's mostly operational planning and timetabling stuff generally though. It's probably been bigged up a lot, but the UK runs more trains a day than half the continent combined so it's not a big stretch. Don't know a lot about Abellio to be honest, but I do know a guy who works for them as a rolling stock engineer so I could email him maybe and see what's what. Sounds like your old man is a combination of a Local Operations Manager (basically in charge of the signallers) and what we call 'Control' who are the central boys who make decision about cancelling services etc. This is one of the major inefficiencies in the UK rail at the moment, as each company has their own 'Control' who then ring round each other to sort poo poo out rather than having one centrally run operation because of penalty fares etc. It's a proper dogs dinner. Stations - All owned by Network Rail but managed by their respective train operating companies, with the exception of the big London terminus', Birmingham New Street, Manchester Victoria (I think) and some of the ones in Scotland. The companies (and Network Rail at it's managed stations) make an absolute packet off the shops in stations, it's had huge net growth over the last few years and makes us tons of money by all accounts.
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May 7, 2012 21:13
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To elaborate on what Bozza's saying: it's very easy to run your shiny bullet-trains with atomic-clock style precision when they have dedicated tracks all to themselves and you're running maybe a couple of them an hour. It's much harder to ensure the Penzance-to-Paddington express service arrives on time when it has to share track and timetable with the pootling stopping services between Barnstaple and Exmouth, a couple of freight trains, some other express going to Bristol by way of Reading, many of which will be run by a totally different company under the dog's dinner of a system outlined in the OP.
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May 7, 2012 21:30
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I travel from Greater London up to Yorkshire fairly regularly, and the last time I did it I was absolutely furious to find that peak time for that service now starts at 3pm. I mean, really? I did some sums with an online taxi calculator and arrived at the conclusion that it would be cheaper for two people to share a cab from my place to North Yorkshire than it would be to catch the train. And that's not even travelling first class or anything. And is just insane. Anyway, I have a question. I seem to remember, before the last General Election, reading a rumour that maybe if Labour had got in again they were considering allowing ASLEF to run (or bid for, however it works) the East Coast Main Line services, rather than it being run by private operators. I imagine I read it in Private Eye, but I'm not sure. Was that ever seriously considered by the Brown government do you know, and how workable would it have been? e; Bozza posted:The companies (and Network Rail at it's managed stations) make an absolute packet off the shops in stations, it's had huge net growth over the last few years and makes us tons of money by all accounts. How much money do they make out of charging you 30p to take a wazz? And why do some stations (e.g. St Pancras) not charge at all? Would those be the ones managed by Network Rail, or the companies? Pipski fucked around with this message at 21:57 on May 7, 2012 |
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May 7, 2012 21:54
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My god you have a Leeds United cat  St. Pancras is managed by Network Rail, but so is Paddington which charges for toilets. So maybe it's a traffic management thing, IE Paddington is so busy they want to discourage people from peeing in there?
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May 7, 2012 22:23
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Not my cat, sadly. I suspect they don't charge at St Pancras because visitors from other countries disembarking from Eurostar would probably turn right round and get back on the train again. But be conservative and assume that only an average of 1000 men and 1000 women per day use the toilets at King's X. That's 2000 x 30p = £6,000 / day = >£2m per year. I don't know how much they pay the lavatory attendants there, but I'd wager it's not a significant proportion of that. They must be absolutely coining it. Sorry. I can't help feeling I may have lowered the tone of this discussion a bit.
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May 7, 2012 22:41
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I was delighted to find out that they sold the luggage storage facilities at Victoria (and at presumably all other stations?) to some private enterprise. Not only did we need to get our luggage security scanned, but it costs nearly a tenner or so to keep a few bags in storage for a few hours. How is this privatised service any better at all than just keeping a few lockers around, plus two or three guys for the big stuff. I don't even want to know how much they're making off this nonsense.
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May 7, 2012 22:45
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Payndz posted:Bozza, do you have any figures for the annual subsidies given to the train operating companies? I can't help but think that billions of pounds are being handed to the likes of Stagecoach and passed straight on to shareholders as dividends rather than being used in any way to, you know, subsidise train fares. Recently there was one example where the subsidy was exactly the same as the profits. Can't remember who it was though.
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May 7, 2012 23:22
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Recently there was one example where the subsidy was exactly the same as the profits. Can't remember who it was though. I know there was a Number Crunching in Private Eye a couple of years ago where the subsidies given to First Great Western in a period were £50million and the profit made in the same period was £50million.
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May 8, 2012 00:12
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Bozza posted:Believe me, the 319s are certainly far from the worst trains in Britain. For those look no further than the Pacer railbus. The WORST trains in the UK by a long stretch: That one's been polished up and given a lick of paint, up here in Manchester they've still got bench seats.
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May 8, 2012 00:18
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Orange Devil posted:Is this really true though? Because the same is said about Dutch rail all the time. Abellio have just taken over the East Anglia franchise under the name Greater Anglia as was mentioned earlier - they also own 50% of Northern Rail (possibly the worst franchise of the lot but for reasons beyond its owner) and Merseyrail alongside shitco extraordinaire Serco. They also run some buses apparently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abellio_(transport_company) quote:Recently there was one example where the subsidy was exactly the same as the profits. Can't remember who it was though. AFAIK it was First, who also run ScotRail and get tonnes of subsidy through that. That particular franchise is being retendered in 2014. Transport Scotland have introduced a universal non-commerical branding for Scotrail trains and there's been some other mumblings which lead an optimistic mind to imagine there's still time for the Scottish Government to take it over, though I imagine it's much more likely to go to the SNP's homophobic cronies at Stagecoach unfortunately.
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May 8, 2012 00:30
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Wikipedia posted:In June 2009 a report by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport revealed passenger figures from ScotRail contain 7.2 million more passenger journeys than were actually made. Why is it often cheaper to fly than to take the train in Britain? Why does a travelcard in Berlin costs half as much as a travel card in London? Why does Scotrail sometimes run two carriage trains during the rush hour on the line between Glasgow and Edinburgh? Fifty years ago, great men created the NHS. These men moved heaven and earth to fashion a new service which met the needs of people, breaking with tradition, experience and ordinary practice as they did so. The arseholes we have in government today lack the ability and imagination to keep it running. gently caress Britannia.
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May 8, 2012 00:40
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GuestBob posted:Why is it often cheaper to fly than to take the train in Britain? Tories. Years of underinvestment followed by the assumption that private enterprise would invest a shitload of money in the railways when they took over (surprise: they didn't) leading to NR being set up and the government suddenly having to pay loadsamoney for upgrade and maintenance work that should have been done years ago. An example: there are still sections of signalling equipment in use on the London Underground that dates back to the 1950s. Thanks, Thatcher (Local Government Act 1985 dissolving Ken Livingstone & the GLA / Secretary of State for Transport being responsible for LRT).
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May 8, 2012 00:53
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Bozza posted:Yeah, 319s are a bit of an oddity, they run Bedford to Brighton too, which is the line that my Dad drives. Farringdon used to be the place they switched over from AC/DC but I think that is going to change with Thameslink, the wires being extended down to City Thameslink I believe. Noreaus posted:St. Pancras is managed by Network Rail, but so is Paddington which charges for toilets. So maybe it's a traffic management thing, IE Paddington is so busy they want to discourage people from peeing in there? OppyDoppyDopp fucked around with this message at 00:58 on May 8, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 00:56
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Bozza posted:Believe me, the 319s are certainly far from the worst trains in Britain. For those look no further than the Pacer railbus. The WORST trains in the UK by a long stretch: I'm not sure about how bad Arriva are, relative to how bad the rest of them are, but they definitely don't seem to be great. I've only really been using trains for the last year or so, and rates have definitely hiked significantly, even since then. If I paid full price for a ticket from where I live to Cardiff (half-hour journey by train), it'd be about £6 for a return, up from £4 or something like that a year or two back. It's way smaller then jumps/costs elsewhere in the UK, definitely, but that's not exactly praise for the rail companies.
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May 8, 2012 01:04
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:I know there was a Number Crunching in Private Eye a couple of years ago where the subsidies given to First Great Western in a period were £50million and the profit made in the same period was £50million. Private Eye also made a point of noting that FGW's subsidy last year was less than their profit, and the subsidy really should've gone to Northern Rail instead, the ToC where the youngest trains are older than the Russian Federation. (From a passenger perspective, I don't mind most Pacers, although that's partially because the train to Leeds is either a 40 minute Pacer or a 60 minute Sprinter)
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May 8, 2012 01:39
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I arrived to the UK just over 9 months ago, and this was one of my great surprises: flying from Edinburgh to London can cost up to a third of what a train ticket cost when buying tickets with a bit of anticipation. To this day, this stil boggles my mind. So how come airlines (specially the budget ones) have manage to reduce their costs so much below Rail travel? Or is it just Rail's costs that are bloated? Freezer fucked around with this message at 02:15 on May 8, 2012 |
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May 8, 2012 02:12
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Freezer posted:I arrived to the UK just over 9 months ago, and this was one of my great surprises: flying from Edinburgh to London can cost up to a third of what a train ticket cost when buying tickets with a bit of anticipation. To this day, this stil boggles my mind. When they offer you a flight from London to Birmingham, it's really Rugby to Coventry.
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May 8, 2012 03:01
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