Can Labour fix the UK’s broken railways?

[@Flippant-j5d]

To be fair, they do announce delays efficiently. There's an app where you can watch your journey collapse in real time. it's excellent.

[@fewik8567]

GWR won't tell you it's delayed/cancelled until it's supposed to be at the platform.

[@randomsimpsonsquotes6033]

Didn't know the government had an app. It does indeed collapse in real time

[@Naheel-v9j]

@@fewik8567yeah , cancelling last minute , no reason gave for delays . It’s nightmare

[@RamsayandClements]

Just wish governments wouldn’t U-turn on public infrastructure projects all the time. HS2 and many other cancelled rail projects were vital. Having all the rail traffic, of commuter services, high speed and freight all using one track will always create delays. I wish we could see things through like Japan.

[@andreanevesxx]

@@RamsayandClements what is not fair is governments financing with our tax money on infrastructures for private companies to profit from. We tax payers pay high twice. Nowadays China is the vanguard of transport in the world. It’s far outpaced Japan

[@AndrewJepson-sn3yg]

@@RamsayandClements The problem with HS2 was it started off with a high price tag and then turned into a bottomless pit for tax payers money, it would probably have been better invested in updating existing lines, which would probably have been completed by now,.....

[@RamsayandClements]

@@andreanevesxx the whole private vs national ownership kinda gets irrelevant in a way. Whilst I agree national ownership would be a better option. If we choose not to build new projects because ours is privatised then nothing gets built and the system never improves. I mention Japan because people don’t like when you say china is better.

[@RamsayandClements]

@@AndrewJepson-sn3yg it costs more because you get a system that’s much better. Upgrading existing lines will not fix the fundamental problem of capacity. And Because of previous cancellations, HS2 has to pick up the bill for stuff that should have already been done. Plus the planning system blah blah blah. We are so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to public transport it’s laughable.

[@jaz093]

Japan's railways are mostly privatized. It works well probably due to Japan's culture of providing good service unlike UK where everyone goes on strike all the time.

[@MichaelJones-by9ng]

The argument for privatisation- “Yeh it’s bad, it’s been bad for years and will continue to be bad. But it would probably be worse if it was nationalised so we should keep it the way it is”

[@titteryenot4524]

Euston, we have a problem. 🚂

[@destinationlimbo378]

😂 amazing

[@rahuldahoob]

😅👌👌

[@RogerMellie-yk3gw]

Definitely an underrated comment. Hope it was an original, because it's very good.

[@alexpizzoni8604]

Wow, that made me laugh straightaway but very true!

[@davefish8107]

Water, gas , electricity, public transport, who would have thought that selling them off to mainly foreign investors so that they can make money would be a bad idea

[@ABanRocks]

Why do you think the Government can run them better. So many of the councels are going bankrupt

[@jacobmacdonagh4070]

Do you not think the problem is that the govt strictly enforce monopolies in each region so operators are not allowed to compete? It is illegal to run a train service between London and Bristol if you aren’t GWR

[@CampGareth]

​@@ABanRocksyet council funding has for decades been a central funding issue. Make it impossible for local government to stay afloat so it needs to hold on to Westminster's arm.

[@TransVoiceCoach]

@@ABanRocks idk if they'd run them better but at least a government run service isnt incentivised to take as much profit as possible and only minimally reinvest it into the system

[@ABanRocks]

@TransVoiceCoach Labour in power it just means more money for Union workers and more expensive tickets for shitter service.

[@RealisticMgmt]

Even Maggie Thatcher knew privatizing passenger rail would be a disaster. It's time for Britain to re-join the rest of the modern world with a state-owned passenger rail company.

[@m.m.m.4198]

That’s right, comrade! We say no to private businesses and any private property!

[@stevevince9680]

Privatisation was a great success. The railways are MUCH better now than they were in the days of BR.

[@nobby3265]

@@stevevince9680 no they're not

[@prahapivo]

​@@nobby3265They definitely are. Far better rolling stock which is clean and works. The main issue is the cost of ticketing and labour have already stated that nationalisation won't change pricing.

[@paulmiller8562]

Same trains , same staff how does nationalisation sort it out .BR wasn't that great

[@robertstraw9881]

Public ownership for public benefit.

[@AtheistEve]

Public ownership - owned by the people _not_ the government.

[@Starmerispureevil]

Public ownership of railways has only been in the interest of unions.

[@thejuicydollop]

Yeah, the NHS works a treat. 😂

[@whatsahellhell]

The Adam Smith institute saying we should give privatisation ANOTHER shot is the least surprising thing of the week

[@CyclicPilot]

Even for the Adam Smith Institute, the logic seemed particularly thin in that statement

[@tdb7992]

Here in Australia, the states run their own train systems and you can really see that those states which retained control and those who privatised have very different standards of service. The government owned networks are so much nicer and reliable than the privatised ones. The gov owned ones get far more investment and are much cheaper.

[@MacrobianNomad]

Trust the “Adam Smith Institute” guy to find all the excuses for the corporations failures to deliver! [Edit] For those who don’t know what the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) is… “The ASI formed the primary intellectual force behind the privatisation of state-owned industries during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher,[5][better source needed] and alongside the Centre for Policy Studies and Institute of Economic Affairs advanced a neoliberal approach toward public policy on privatisation, taxation, education and healthcare.”

[@glassmuxxic]

He’s partially right. The planning system makes the expansion, improvement or reworking of the railways legally and/or politically impossible. The current system has the worst elements of both fully privatised and fully nationalised systems.

[@shyft09]

He claimed it was working "quite well actually". One wonders for whom

[@and3583]

From my point of view, railways were much better before privatisation. They were fairly reliable, often a little bit late but only a little bit. I never once failed to get to my destination. Nowadays I can't usually afford rail journeys and on the odd occasion when I re-mortgage the house to travel 50 miles or so, there's usually a slow replacement bus that arrives very late. Trains generally look posher but that's no actual help.

[@RogerMellie-yk3gw]

They ran on time back when Franco was in charge

[@Jackp93]

There should really be a disclaimer that when Maxwell Marlow says "things wouldn't be different than privatisation, they'd be worse actually" that he is the Director of Research at a lobbying "thinktank" that actively promotes free market capitalism as their main aim. A thinktank who are rated as "one of the least transparent think tanks in the United Kingdom in relation to funding and has been shown to receive funding from the tobacco industry." This isn't an expert view, it's the lobbyist voice of privatisation and should be flagged as such.

[@ghj290]

Private companies need to share profit with shareholders, a nationalised rail system doesn't and can invest their profit right back into the system.

[@philippajoy4300]

Nationalisation is not going to make a perfect railway, that would be as childish as believing the market solves everything, but we can hope for a better one, where there is only one client.

[@antispindr8613]

And a nationwide ticketing seems like a good idea

[@jfm148]

Actually government makes things worse, not better. If state run companies would've worked, the Soviet Union would be as wealthy as Luxembourg

[@jfm148]

@antispindr8613 Yeah. I would like my heat and groceries charges to you too, please.

[@andreanevesxx]

@@philippajoy4300 If a State is run with the same logic as the private sector, no. Now, imagine if the profit is cut and all revenue is back to the railways in the form of high quality services? In the end of the day, railways are for those who really contribute to the economy. The few dominants use helicopters and private jets to commute. It’s a political will nothing else.

[@Phil-n7c]

@@jfm148 So how did China become the world's second biggest economy with the biggest nationally owned high speed rail network in the world? State owned companies. You are in total denial about the failure of neoliberalism.

[@jonahspiper]

British Rail before privatisation was run exceptionally well and efficiently by railway people, considering how little was invested by the government, way less than they now provide to private companies. Instead of redundancies and privatisation, greater investment into BR in the 1990s to enable expansion and the opening of new routes etc and we would have a much better and integrated system now. HS2 money spent on expanding, widening and improving existing lines and finishing the APT project instead of importing an Italian one. The UK is small and with a different geography to other countries with long straight high speed lines, a stupid idea to try and emulate the TGV here. More comfort, integration and efficiency is needed not cutting the journey by 10 minutes.

[@terryhoath1983]

It must be remembered, like the NHS, railway people struggled to run the service when for the majority of their existence they were under the cosh of Tory governments who were ideologically opposed to publicly owned services .... crooks can't make money out of them. If the Tories had ever stated in a manifesto, "We will abolish the NHS. Medicine will be provided by the private sector and if you can't afford it, then you can suffer and/or die", it would have been a very short political suicide note . They have never said it but HAVE privatised and privatised by stealth. British Rail was damaged year by year under Tory governments in order to soften the population towards the idea of privatisation .... AND UNDER PRIVATISATION, CROOKS, CHISELLERS, AND THIEVES HAD MADE FORTUNES ON THE BACKS OF THE PEOPLE. I travel by train but only when I am in Hungary and Slovakia. Train fares work out at about 8 pence per mile. Everyone pays the same ... no crooks at Trainline creaming off the top. You can book a seat up front if you want but you still pay exactly the same. Only once have I had to stand and that was for only part of a journey. I WILL NOT use railways in Britain because I cannot stand the thought that the person sat at the side of me may have paid less. At least, at a petrol station, the price of fuel is there for all to see. In the 1970s .... Watford Junction or Kings Langley, cheap day return to and from Euston >>>>>> 25 pence

[@davidty2006]

British rail actually modernising in the 90s with new networker units and new electric locomotives and the long delayed ECML electrification not to mention other projects like intercity 250 in the works....

[@davesimms5397]

British rail wasn't dreadful, it was dreadfully under-funded.

[@filip9587]

The fact is that the UK has multiple policies and a bureaucracy that supports inefficient spending of resources during infrastructure projects (HS2) and causing private companies to have the majority of power. The reason the French, Portugese, Spanish and Italien railway networks are so cheap, mostly electrified and fast has all to do with an efficient government plan that results in some of the cheapest cost per mile in the western world. The same problems also plague the US, with their high speed initiative in California costing just slightly less than HS2. Both have the highest costs per mile of any country in the world. This is a systematoc problem that the government itself has to solve first and foremost.

[@Fab666.]

For some bizarre reason the English speaking countries are all the most expensive places for cost per mile. Ranking back to back

[@dahorn100011]

That's because governments are unable to scrutinise delivery plans. The usual method in the private sector, it happens in other government contract industries too. You bid with money in mind so they money just runs out before the turn back point. Then the bargaining power goes to the private company. Basically asking for more money as they have the government by the short and curlies.

[@Phil-oj5nr]

PPP’s are not the answer for infrastructure. When things go wrong the taxpayer is the last man standing.

[@Dexter037S4]

Even Thatcher thought privatizing British Rail was a terrible idea. THATCHER....

[@stevenjonas]

Also, don't forget that, post pandemic, many of our railway services have significantly reduced the frequency of our trains.

[@DIEMLtdTV]

Labour's proposed changes under the The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 are mostly window dressing and the same trains, run by the same people on the same (state owned infrastructure) to the same (state set timetable) will just shift from one organisation to another. It wasn't privatisation that was wrong, it was the way it was done and fragmenting the industry. The Treasury never asked BR how the railway worked when privatising. BR Plc may have worked, similar to the quasi-private DB.

[@Gert-DK]

In Denmark, Nyborg to Aalborg. A 3,5 hour train ride costs 400 DKK = 44 GBP. As a pensioner: 22 GBP Tickets can often be found down to 99 DKK = 11 GBP.

[@alanlmsca]

When I look back it always seems to depend on which flavour of government we have when the railways have taken a hit. Who was in charge when there were railway closures, or subsidy reduced, or the plug pulled on advancing the railways. Yet, despite this British Rail managed some amazing achievements, such as developing the worlds fastest diesel train, a network with the largest proportion in the world providing services over 100 mph, showing innovation when funding was cut but new trains were still needed, put InterCity into profit, kept railway vehicle manufacturing in this country going with sustainable orders, had a centre of excellence in rail research and technology. Next year marks 200 years of railways in the U.K. and I feel our Railway is much diminished in capability from those days. Yeah, people will argue the toss over whether nationalisation or privatisation is better, but I think the real influence is what flavour of government we have is the real key to whether we have a successful rail system that understands why it exists, and that is not for profit. Profit is a result. For me the reason ‘why’ our railways exist is to support the social and economic well being of this country in a sustainable and efficient way. How it does it and what with, comes after understanding WHY our railways exist.

[@leonblittle226]

Trains are late because of over optimistic timings put in place to make it look like services are speeded up on paper, then the over crowded network has to many passenger services on them (with 10x small trains vs 5x big per hour etc) The result is that a service delay problem in Aberdeen carries all the way through to causing a delay to a Cardiff Bristol train hundreds of miles away because the original has been out of timing slot (path) all the way down but has a higher priority than the cardiff local. See how this works? and you haven't even got to the fares yet....

[@tld8102]

nationalising won't fix anything without proper investment.

[@dredfell]

Investment in maintenance first is key! Part of the reason it’s a broken system is because no one wants to maintain anything (that includes both private companies and the nationalised companies). Once good maintenance is in place, then yes, of course, investment in the new can naturally follow!

[@rand0mati0n]

No mention of the fact that foreign investment funds own most of your rolling stock, and extract significant profit as a return on that investment. Nationalising the actual tracks won’t make a dent in that element of ticket price. Ultimately rail is another example of chronic underinvestment, and the profligacy of the post-Thatcher politics of asset stripping to provide (ultimately temporary) tax breaks.

[@Bungle-UK]

Northern has been run by the state for five years and the cancellation rate has never been higher. How it’s run matters, not who runs it.

[@Phil-n7c]

The issue with that franchise was / is the lack of investment in the infrastructure.

[@Bungle-UK]

@@Phil-n7c No, the main reason for cancellations is working practices, especially Sundays. The infrastructure has been is state hands for 20 years, so that makes the nationalisation case even weaker.

[@Phil-n7c]

@@Bungle-UK That's pure BS. LOL "working practices" in other words blame the staff. Something can be publicly owned but underinvested in. The Tories were in power long enough to start weren't they? You're another tedious Right wing ideologue in total denial about the failure that privatisation has been. It'll be exactly the same with the water companies won't it? And the post office? And army recruitment? And the banks? Your neoliberalism is coming to an end, get used to it

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

Who runs it determines how it's run. The problem with Northern is that it's full of deadbeats from a failed company. When the government bought Northern it inherited these deadbeats from a failed company but has been far too timid to kick them out. They need to flush out all the deadbeats from the failed Northern and bring new people in and start again. If they keep the same failed dead wood they will never improve.

[@BenRattigan]

That’s the problem, ministers and civil servants are too involved with day to day operations of public services, interfering, changing goal posts. So yea nationalise it, but place it are arms length and away from Whitehall interference.

[@shaun64vet]

For clarity for younger viewers, you CAN use your 16-25 Railcard before 10am. It's just that there is a minimum charge of £12 so it depends on where you're going to be worth using or not.

[@Eddiespaghetti69420]

and you can use them for an advance single ticket before ten as well but not flexible tickets

[@Danjmurphy]

Old trains are not the problem in the north - it's a lack of staff and the lack of a contractual requirement for them to work Sundays with one particular firm. Attitudes have changed since 2019/20, people are less willing to do overtime, have become increasingly aware of poor management and recruitment is an issue because people simply don't want to deal with abusive public and said management. This is a monumental issue to fix. It is a failure of the biggest proportions.

[@zax1998LU]

So long as public transport is treated as a service and not a profiteering business then it will succeed. Public transport should be treated as a loss leader for the national economy

[@muhammadyasin2011]

To the guy who said it's been privatised badly? How do you privatised goodly?

[@Packz0121]

Maybe if the Railways were privatised back into the ‘Big Four’ which is what John Major wanted

[@antispindr8613]

Even for a corporate media outlet, does Channel 4 News have to repeat all the old stock footage of people repeating all the old comments? Cue the anger, posh, middle-class traveller.

[@blackvikingeire]

Britain is really on the downhill. Brits just didn't realise yet.

[@Martin-jk6pc]

It’s always been the same in U.K. It’s like U.K. can’t run a simple railway set… Hornby could do better.

[@kirishima638]

privatisation only works when there is competition. Look at air travel for example. Each rail operator has an effective monopoly over its routes and so no incentive to improve. Just like the water company or BT. Perhaps the rail network should be nationalised but the rolling stock itself run privately and in competition?

[@stevenrhodes]

All we want is cheaper journeys, less delays, and more capacity… I don’t care if that’s by nationalisation or whatever.

[@AndrewRoberts11]

The Govt has just agreed to a back dated 9.75% awards for some rail staff, negotiations for others is ongoing, raised Employers NI by 2%, reduced NI allowances by £4000, sought to borrow many hundred billion more, including another £6.5bn to restyle Euston station for HS2, requiring interest rates to remain high, for the 50+ years the loans will be paid over. Expect fares to rise by >15% in the next year, else staff and services will have to be cut by Great British Rail in 2025, and expect inflation busting fare rises for a decade, as fares are used to manage demand / overcrowding, to ensure safe operation, once the profit incentive of sardine operation is eliminated. As there are now laws that prevent directing Civil Servants to take over the catering in such a manner that passengers can't or won't ever want to travel by GBR again, after consuming a Civil Service made GBR sandwich.

[@krkrkrkog]

I like this style of video making. It’s nice to see channel 4 adapting to modern media formats

[@onelittleanarchist]

They seem to manage fine on mainland Europe....

[@andrewlong6438]

I had some poor experiences in Europe this year between Dresden and Prague.

[@91Durktheturk]

Try regional trains in France, or the trains in Germany, or even the Netherlands and you'll find that they are worse than here.

[@LittleWing-35]

Absolute myth. I’ve travelled on many occasions in Germany and DB have been struggling and infrastructure issues like signalling problems always occur

[@Fab666.]

They do trains considerably better in general. Hs2 costs compared to EU equivalent in France Italy Spain are the clear examples. Britain can’t maintain a service without spiralling costs and that’s the difference

[@91Durktheturk]

@Fab666. HS2 doesn't have anything to do with privatisation though. It's just incompetent government procurement

[@andrewbutler6477]

The Welsh rail operator is owned and operated by the Welsh labour government and is a shambles with delays cancelling services and being rammed on 2 car units was better when arrival. Ran the service

[@andrewlong6438]

This is the problem - what incentive does a nationalised franchise have to improve anything ? Are fares on LNER or Northern any cheaper now that they are nationalised ? I would rather have competing franchises on same route than private or public monopolies.

[@makotoo__]

The issue in the UK is the separation between infrastructure and operation. Privatisation could work well if companies had more control over stations, track, and rolling stock (currently all separate from operators). Japan is a great example of how great private railways could be.

[@janeknight3597]

Rail fares in the Uk are based on a return journey with the whole cost thrown into the outward journey.

[@simongee8928]

What has to be taken into account is that the railway, all the signalling infrastructure etc. is exclusively for rail transport. It can't be used by any other transport means, thus has be self financing or subsidised or both.

[@MannyAntipov]

You didn’t interview rail journalists though. They would’ve helped you give an explanation on what have come and how to go about fixing the railways

[@markfenlon7049]

Take a look at Japan's railways. They run on time and they're affordable. They are run by company's, somehow they work, cooperate, getting millions of people moved every year. I worked in Japan from 2005 to 2019, never experienced a serious delay or cancellation.

[@jasonhaven7170]

Because they own the land surrounding the railways and stations

[@davidsmith8728]

London to Carlisle by train - £118.60 - by car, 300 miles £40-50. However, by EV, 300 miles at 2 pence per mile - £6.

[@silkmoth6316]

It may be much higher than that for an EV is you have to charge on route (which is highly likely)

[@coltontedesco6798]

In Belgium you can buy a GoPass, a ten ride ticket from point A to point B in the country, for 62 euros if you are under 26. With this you can go from the German boarder to the North Sea in about 3.5 hours for less than a pint in London.

[@dredfell]

Things won’t change. “Expensive to maintain” - this is predominantly due to the private train companies not wanting to do the maintenance in the first place! Plus, just because the companies are publicly owned, there’s still a load of private companies involved, from Catering and Agency Staffing, to the trains themselves actually owning these new trains and leasing them back to the government at inflated rates and not paying tax as they’re registered in tax havens. Prices will not go down and nothing will get fixed unless every aspect is brought back in house and maintenance is prioritised.

[@1258-Eckhart]

The Adam Smith Institute had the ear of John Major in 1992. He succumbed to their vision (as many of us didn't) and now they get interviewed by Ch 4 as to how to fix their own mess. "More of the same" they say. Albert Einstein has a good quip on that score.

[@Quince828]

I don’t know what you Brits are complaining about, you at least have trains that mostly run. Come to Canada where almost no one rides the train and it’s habitually late. And the passenger trains are operated by a crown agency on tracks owned by the private freight railways.

[@bwilliamson3887]

Brits always moan, it's what they do.

[@CyclicPilot]

I think there is a lack of joined up thinking in the rail industry at the moment, e.g. the vast majority of passenger train carriages are leased at inflated prices, and in some cases different companies have to compete for space in the timetable. The system needs proper reform for nationalisation to deliver any real change. If you just nationalise the existing operators with all the same contract structures and fees, it would solve very few problems

[@gerrynewton55020]

The railways are already nationalised. Network rail is a public company funded by the taxpayer. The train operating companies although owned by foreign nationalised railway companies cannot operate without funding by the taxpayer. LNER is a taxpayer funded company. Delays in the main are caused by Network Rail who are responsible for the track, signals etc.

[@antonysteel8061]

I am old enough to remember a nationalised railway - it was far worse that it is today

[@AquaValet2009]

With renationalisation, I expect we can look forward to the same quality of railway infrastructure to match the quality of our other public sector services. I doubt it will be cheaper to run or that fares will be cheaper. Operators are currently heavily micro-managed by the Department for Transportation and can do very little, and whilst there is a cost associated with private sector profits, I suspect inefficiencies in how the public sector manages what it takes back from private operators will likely mean it ends up costing more, because public sector does not run efficiently. I think the only "benefits" of renationalisation will be to say "it wasn't working before, so we tried something else" and also that responsibility for the state of the railways could be laid solely at the feet of government, but I don't feel this will translate into a better service.

[@RobertThomas-io5jn]

I think a way this could work is if you have competition between the Private Sector and the Public Sector in some areas, for example the the Elizabeth Line vs the Heathrow Express, and Lumo vs GBR (London to Edinburgh)

[@sharonedwards6641]

It’s a good start but narrative that it reverses privatisation is unhelpful and this first step by Labour doesn’t change very much : same trains or lack of trains, same rails, same employees, signals, stations, weather, leaves on track etc, etc

[@TroupeGoal]

Not enough drivers, and schedules reliant on drivers working optional overtime, resulting in cancelled trains if they don't do it.

[@barrypickles6546]

A modest car costs around 50p a mile, 230 miles costs 115 quid. Admittedly a car is private and more direct but a train is more relaxing and should be faster. The cost is comparable.

[@daffydwal]

How did you get to that figure? I know it’s not fuel alone (roughly 16p a mile at 40mpg, £1.40 per litre), but everything else is massively variable. If you’re careful with your spending (don’t buy a new car every 9 minutes, keep it maintained, drive efficiently, etc), and you’re making these journeys on the regular, driving is considerably cheaper. And that’s if it’s just you on your own. Taking the family somewhere? Forget about it. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy taking the train. You can get work done or just relax, on a good day you’re going to be on time, you don’t have to park, and so on. I often look for an opportunity to take the train instead, but I just can’t afford it.

[@barrypickles6546]

@daffydwal cars ain't free either, a modest car devalues about £2000 every 10,000 miles, 20p a mile, stick on the fuel (10p a mile on an efficient one) consumables like tyres and any repairs, add on tax mot and insurance for a year and it is going to be roughly that figure. It costs me 10 quid a month to keep mine clean! I think people want the trains to be cheaper as they are communal and Should be more efficient, but they also want fast posh railways. A good slow steam train over dodgy tracks would be cheaper.

[@kwilson5832]

...but if there is more than one person travelling, then the cost per person travelling by car is almost halved. My car is 8 years old and isn't 'luxury' by any means, but even including depreciation, I calculate the cost per mile to be closer to 30p than 50p. These factors indicate that the costs of rail travel and road travel in the UK are not comparable. Scandinavia has a higher cost of living than the UK, but the video demonstrates that rail travel there is much cheaper than the UK....

[@barrypickles6546]

@@kwilson5832 not really what the programme states, let's try and stay on topic. Most car journeys are single and even though your depreciation on a car of more advanced years is less, there is the problem then of true repairs breakdowns etc, plus without people buying the new cars there would soon be no aged cars. Basically the video is comparing the cost of a single journey fully funded by rail with the ammount of petrol a car would consume. A bicycle would be even more economical if you discount it's own cost and any food the person consumed, walking too would be cheap.

[@kwilson5832]

@barrypickles6546 The video is about rail fares, compared with similar journeys made by road, which is what my comment is about. Yet your response goes on to compare these journeys if made by walking or cycling (hardly realistic options for journeys between London and Carlisle, or Stockholm and Gothenburg, the examples in the video), but you suggest that it's me that should stay 'on topic'. Just read the other responses to your comment - we can't all be wrong, can we?

[@brianprice5152]

I used, at the train early 90s and after privatisation 97, their was much difference ,but , they would cancel a train last minute ,because it wasn't profitable, After privatisation tax pays, subsidises are 15 billion ,the 12 train operators CEO s, are getting paid £350 -£500 which isn't improving the service,

[@josephwarner5467]

Tickets are all about timing, if you book a few weeks in advance, a One way Ticket from London Euston all the way up to Carlisle costs between £20 and £40

[@jebrehbaker8613]

Sweden has a small amount of track. The trains are often canceled, delayed or on fire.

[@Drunkenmeows]

Was look at some old photos last night, found one where I took a photo of a train traveling through the country side from 2008 it was a of a KTX high speed train in South Korea. TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT. Prices from one end of the line to the other (Seoul to Mokpo or Seoul to Busan) ~$60 no matter the time. Was never worried of the cost buy a ticket at the station in the moment because it would alway be affordable / reasonable. 2.5hrs from one end to the other. Magic in comparison to the UK

[@peteT269]

Swiss trains are not more expensive. A train from Lucerne to Geneva Airport takes 3 hours 20 minutes, covers 260 km and costs CHF 88 which is just under 80 quid. The train will be on time, quiet and with plenty of space. And if you live in Switzerland, you get a half-fare card for 150 pounds per year and that reduces every train ticket by 50%. So for people living here, basically the price is around 40 pounds.

[@adamlee3772]

Hopefully we won’t have the tory party in power or farage for a long time.

[@Toodyslexicforyou]

Otherwise he gonna privatise you to his private school m8s

[@Dan-ze4qz]

Why do english people want this country destroyed for? How anyone can vote for Labour or conservatives is quite incredible. Its sickening to be honest, for the next 5 years this country is gonna go down hill at an even quicker rate than what conservatives did

[@RW-nr6bh]

It's always repeated uncritically that passenger numbers on trains have increased since privatisation. Although this is true, the implication with that is that privatisation was the cause. In reality passenger numbers were increasing before privatisation. Also over the same period there has been a similar increase in Northern Ireland, which never privatised.

[@steveandthesea]

At least with privatisation my money isn't going into shareholders pockets. That's the important difference.

[@andrewlong6438]

Do you say the same when you fly on a low cost airline which runs on time ?

[@stephenh4965]

4:16 that’s the Irish Tricolour

[@westierail8742]

The Swiss railway network isn't "100% publically owned"! There are many private operators; e.g.Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn...

[@kevincoade1992]

We need to drastically cut the bloated bureaucracy that makes addressing meaningful issues like transport infrastructure an almost impossible quagmire. When even an arch technocrat like Starmer thinks the 'blob' has become the main obstacle in bringing about actual urgent reforms, you know we have a serious problem.

[@Kenny1977-b1j]

Skipped over the main problem with the nationally owned British Rail back in the day…. the real reason was privatised… The unions! They had a field day (strikes, laughably bad restrictive practices, no customer care by staff…) knowing the Govt of the day would eventually cave in to their demands. Will Labour be able to control them this time?

[@NexusApollo]

Look people, at the very least there wont be absurd bonuses given out to managers and whatnot.

[@SwedishHouseFurniture]

But while the companies that own the trains stay privatised, its pointless. It won't work because of this.

[@simonfunwithtrains1572]

If the money had been spent on existing infrastructure instead of the vanity project which is HS2 I'm sure we'd be seeing some improvements already. I think that nationalisation of railways is wrong, and should stay in private ownership with the infrastructure as a national owned system. If a system is in good order the Government can then start to question the high fares being charged by the operators and better hold them to account, until then there's no chance of seeing a lower in prices or service improvements

[@iainp84]

Maxwell Marlow: “The system works quite well” 😂😂😢

[@julianhweatherall2253]

First thing. Get rid of the Rolling Stock companies. They grossed £1.4b this last financial year….

[@Nunov103]

Portugal’s railways are run by the State, except for the area on the other side of the river Tagus and I can assure you that our services are even worse than Britain’s.

[@andreanevesxx]

@@Nunov103 the problem is when the state is pressured by political interests to disinvest in public services. The worse the better as the aim is to open space for private profits. That’s what austerity means and does ( cutting of public expenditure) London transport is the most expansive in the world. Imagine the relieve on daily commuters if the profits were cut.

[@Phil-n7c]

So please explain how privatisation has been such a total failure

[@mwd331]

I guarantee they are no where near as expensive.

[@mwd331]

@Phil-n7c Have you been on or paid for a train before?

[@Nunov103]

@@andreanevesxx well, the Portuguese government keeps spending millions of tax payers’ money on CP, our main train company and I can assure that they are very, very bad, just last year they reached a pretty sad milestone since the number of complains was the biggest they have ever registered. To me, as long as everything is properly planned and scrutinised, CP should be totally privatised.

[@BenWillock]

Nice of Channel 4 to give Tory Boy an interview after so many years, was wondering how he was doing. 🤓

[@thebrowns5337]

The one thing we do know for sure... privatisation does not work. On our train network look at the owners... quite a few foreign governments own large stakes. So they are proving money can be made from it. Water companies - low investment despite rising bills. Leaks are left as too dificult so we see hosepipe bans, sinkholes etc. We see sewage released daily while there are internal emails discussing if it's cheaper to dump sewage in rivers and risk a fine or treat the stuff (as they are supposed too). Of course, now the enforcement agencies have had funding and powers removed we all know risking the fine is the easy option. Prisons - we all know how that went. The NHS is now above 21% privatised - the elements that can bring in income have been sold off. And... we all know how that's going. Using logic - why would a private company with profit to make and shareholders to satisfy put more money into a failing system if they still get paid whatever? Avanti were given a £2m bonus for good performance by Boris Johnsons government despite record complaints and missed targets. All other train operators presumably got even more - millions wasted for rewarding failure. If the whole enterprise was nationalised there would be no reward scheme and those millions of tax payers pounds could be spent on improvements.

[@RH1812]

As with water, amazing what a lack of investment in stock, hardware and people…can do to collapse an infrastructure

[@R1chmond123]

Foreign nationalised railways run our privatised railways. We cannot just say it would just be worse if we nationalised.

[@WS-1]

Privatisation brought much needed investment in the form of new safer rolling stock . Railtrack was however a disaster . You have to sympathise with the rail commuter through all this , continually bearing the weight of huge and regular fare hikes . At the heart of this story , however , is the continuing greed of ASLEF , and Labour's response to their demands is yet another nail in the coffin . Hopefully they may eventually drive themselves out of a job . and we can all be proud of our railways again .

[@fra_giel]

Having someone who works for a neoliberal think tank (adam smith institute) say "nationalisation no good", isn't necessarily the hard hard hitting journalism i was hoping for.

[@JoshAston23]

Give LNER the whole network. I travel long distance at least once per week and have never had a cancellation with LNER and only one lengthy delay. Transpennine and Northern on the other hand, I seem to have an issue every single time, I would say 80% of my trains with them are 15+ minutes late, or cancelled (TPE especially)

[@orangesub121]

Yes but why on earth does it cost so much to get a train anywhere? Why is Sweden/Switzerland so cheap yet so more efficient? It's going to be much of the same truth be told. The British particularly the English are terrible when it comes to being efficient and cheap, rarely if ever come hand in hand. Hs2 is a superb example.

[@BLACKSTA361]

The English-speaking world: See USA, Australia, UK, Canada😊😊

[@simongee8928]

As it's been costing far more to subsidise the private railway companies than BR, then what's to lose - ?

[@ageoflove1980]

If you look at some of the best railway systems in the world, like in The Netherlands, Switzerland, China, Japan and yes, even Germany, the railways are in some for or another either completely or at least partially owned by the state. And it makes perfect sense to have a service that is of national importance handled that way. I mean, roads are commisioned and maintained by the state, right? Just think about what a mess it would be if each motorway is operated by different companies and they would be free to charge you whatever they want...

[@mahatmacoat7215]

Feel sorry for the UK train users now as they pay way to much for a dreadful service. One of the many reasons I left UK for another country that doesn't rip of its citizens.

[@daffyduk77]

3:05 not a valid comparison. To tax, maintain, insure a car, plus you have depreciation etc - you'd be talking about an extra £0.10 to £0.40/per mile dependent on your vehicle & driving habits. But it is valid up to a point to attempt to compare. It depends if the journey is a regular/necessary one or a "discretionary" one. When submitting a tax return to HMRC, business travel by car is claimable (sorry) at £0.40/mile, & that's in need of upwards revision now

[@0KiteEatingTree0]

If they properly tax the superich they’ll have a much higher budget. It works in other countries, successfully

[@chat4783]

Privatisation of Railway should only be British Company not share holder from other countries. Also there have to be multiple Company running the same journey to keep price competitive. Overall Nationalisation is better.

[@Hazzy113]

Public ownership may give some benefit but the only thing that will make any significant difference is investment. The only way to actually get ticket costs down and reliability up is by giving our rails the money they need.

[@fintamaria2429]

This week, Transparency International published a report exposing the toxic influence of dark money in British politics. The findings are shocking, even by today’s political standards. 115 million pounds of political donations since 2001 have come from unknown or questionable sources. That’s one in every ten pounds donated to our political parties since the turn of the century.

[@PaulClark-m7p]

I can’t see this Government doing anything but make it worse

[@donaldmaxwell3428]

how much money is the nationalisation of the railways going to cost ???

[@kevinhayes7830]

Nothing we just take it back or make it cost them so much to run it they hand the keys straight back to us 😊

[@Bungle-UK]

It will cost billions. The pension liabilities are huge and, of course, the politicians aren’t mentioning that.

[@91Durktheturk]

A lot of money. Every operator will lose the incentive to control their costs. You already see that the nationalised ones have a higher cost base

[@simony2801]

@@91Durktheturk therein lies the problem doesn’t it, but the luvvies in labour are wedded to nationalism.

[@donaldmaxwell3428]

@@91Durktheturk and the deposits they paid on the trains to the DTI ???

[@StreetsScarsofCityPast]

Doesnt matter if public or private, the British just need to accept theyre terrible at managing infrastructure.

[@freddiepitts7611]

Privatisation is a plague. All public services should be nationalised and funded.

[@chiragshetty4608]

Anyone who stayed in Germany will say UK should nationise the railways it's so much better and cheaper. UK rail service is crazy expensive

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

Weird premise. Rail can be far too expensive, but you can pick and choose. And the service is far from perfect. But it's not chaos. I've managed to travel the wcr on various short and longer without much delay. And travel by the 'cheaper' car? Assuming you've bought, taxed and insured a car in the first place

[@verandisoldusty6834]

If you're buy, taxing & insuring a car just for a one off long trip up or down the country you're definitely doing it wrong 🤣. Just hire a car for the trip.

[@marko2873]

Go and ask people old enough to remember public railways what they were like. Labour implementing the same failed policies isn't going to change anything for the better. The railways aren't broken - they are just too expensive. What there needs to be is a new business category called Public Service Companies (PSC's) what have minimum service standards with minimum re-investment percentages before paying shareholders, caps on executive pay and bonuses and a pricing strategy so rail is more affordable than driving.

[@henkheemskerk4437]

To solve the problem is actually not that difficult. As a country you own all the rails. If entrepreneurs want to use your rails then they have to pay not too much but enough to maintain it. Then the users have to meet a certain standard. If they do not do this properly then they can no longer use it or they have to pay a fine. How you do that an X percent of the trains have to run on time and the trains have to meet a standard.

[@Peter-mj6lz]

0:23 There were lots of new trains introduced the last decade and majority of trains seem to be under 25 years. That sounds a bit like an excuse to me.

[@stevebren88]

If nationalisation is the solution why are the ones that have already been taken back by the government just as bad or worse? Its the people that need gone, get rid of the train drivers and who ever else is causing these issues