Why did we sell off the railways? | FT Feature

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Miranda Green tracks down the politicians who privatised Britain's railways, and speaks to key supporters of Jeremy Corbyn's plan for re-nationalisation.

[@FinancialTimes]

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[@cfb15jan]

Throws up some really good topics for discussion interspersed with some wit. What could be better?

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

@Andrew Battersby Rubbish - privatisation was the direct result of Tory policies, nothing more, nothing less.

[@jamesbottomley2246]

Vcxz🏁🇦🇴😶‍🌫️🇧🇦🇧🇲😄🥹🥹🥹🥹😆😆😆😘😘🥰😘😚😚😘😘😘😘😘😙😙😙😙😙😙😙😙😙😙😚😝😝😚😚😚😌😇😇🥰😙😙😙😄😆😊😊😣😖😖😖🙁😖🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁😔🙁😔😔😔😔😔🙁🙁😔😔😔😔😔😕😕😕😕😕😕😕😕😞😞😞😞😞😒😒😒😒😒😟😒 4:07 ☹️😊😢🎉😅😊

[@jamesbottomley2246]

❤

[@tonygunn6889]

Useless and broken down cost of rail 🚆ticket price

[@alexturlais8558]

I realise its not conclusive evidence but surely the fact that foreign state owned railway companies are now bidding for UK contracts tells you a lot about the current state of affairs?

[@MrJimheeren]

Alex Turlais yeah I was kinda surprised to see the NS logo on some trains when I visited England last year. Basically the Dutch state owns a part of the English railway

[@chielmeiberg]

J S it does account for about 50% of the money earned each year for the NS. But then, they also make a large loss on the UK market lol

[@peterallison4464]

Yep: hit the nail on the head.

[@radioclash84]

It has all been sold off or in the process of. But these idiots love privatising.

[@1chish]

@@radioclash84 No passenger service or train has been sold to any foreign business. Do at least be accurate.

[@conormalanaphy3739]

He says that sitting in a first class carriage

[@cookiecola5852]

D. M.?

[@remlatzargonix1329]

Conor Malanaphy ....the irony was NOT lost on me......I felt it was kinda a "let them eat cake" moment.

[@remlatzargonix1329]

D. M. ....so, are you implying that intelligence is not in a poor person's capacity? ....hmmm.....and the rich wonder why revolutions occur.

[@SofaKingShit]

@D. M. And thank you sir for your kind gratitude (doffs cap).

[@tams805]

@D. M. But with the Labour MP they were sat in standard class. So yes, it does say a lot when Portillo chose to sit in first class. He's also most well known for losing his seat.

[@tgrules565]

The fact it's cheaper to fly to Europe than it is for a train ticket halfway up the country tells you something is seriously wrong.

[@ibobeko4309]

train ticket is really expensive in UK, from Heathrow to Victoria i paid 30 £ and in Vienna even for a longer route i paid 4,50€ (from the Airport to my home). 6t times more that is ridiculous.

[@derekmulready1523]

@John Brighton and wages have remained static for the last 8 years and more of the same to come,

[@Baseshocks]

@@derekmulready1523 Wages remain static because immigration is too high, the problem runs across the board in the western world. It's about supply and demand, you have more supply (people) and less demand (work) then wages will freeze or go down. Its a way to artificially lower wages for corporations, in the baby boomer era you could buy a house from a labor job out of highschool, because they had more work then people. Spread the word, we need to pressure the governments to slow immigration or we will lose our nations, you look at history and our society would not even be in the history books their so young, we have a lot of problems in our laws, our democracy is young.

[@MrMarkhall1]

Ironically they gave the companies an instant monopoly.

[@jamesbearpark3794]

Glasgow to London is nearly £100 by train but you can fly with Ryan air for about £15

[@yingyang1008]

Plenty countries do it just fine - either we did it wrong, or we're morons The current privatised system is an embarassement

[@csocseszrocsesz]

I think it is just mocked as privatised. If subsidiaries are payed, this is just a hybrid system. Tax-payers money should be totally cut off!

[@leobragaurbe]

@@csocseszrocsesz highways receive public money, we should cut off that too!!

[@jailonbailey2149]

@@leobragaurbe but the government owns and operates highways the think with privatizing and still subsidizing it with taxpayers dollars doesn’t make sense since it is technically public in that we subsidize but private individuals get the profit which makes no sense

[@leobragaurbe]

@@jailonbailey2149 I know, I support state operation just like Switzerland's railway operator

[@TheWizardGamez]

@@leobragaurbe almost made a based take. try again.

[@korona3103]

Portillo smugly claiming the rise in passenger numbers as a win for privatisation is really imbecilic when population pressures are so obviously the main factor. Equally, the idea that the public system was bad because public bodies are inherently bad seems like pure ideology. If he was right the Tube and London Overground should be basket cases. There is amazing irony to have someone sitting in the comfort of first class during off peak hours and waxing lyrical about how wonderful the whole experience of rail travel today is...

[@stuartrayfield1448]

London Overground is actually a weird one because TFL actually contract out the operation of the trains as a concession, it is presently operated by Arriva Trains London. So whilst TFL do make most of the decisions with the Overground and thus take the majority of the revenue they don't operate it directly. There are similar arrangements on TFL Rail and what will be the Elizabeth Line too

[@korona3103]

Fair point, I guess that's true. TfL only buy the trains, set the timetables and set the fares. Arriva... hire people to do those jobs?

[@raptokvortex]

If the service was so bad people would not use the railways, they would drive cars, use planes or live closer to work and commute on foot. Clearly there has been a success in how the railways run.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

People always fail to acknowledge that altering their own behavior is a form of competition.

[@JB-pi9mf]

Bushrod Rust Johnson No, it isn't. It's known as intra-market competition - it only works for the benefit of the consumer if alternatives such as car travel or walking are cheaper and viable. In many places, especially the city, these are either not viable (too expensive, high entry costs such as the initial price of the car, or takes too long compared to rail travel), or they are so inconvenient compared to rail travel people will accept the lower quality and higher priced rail administration. And this isn't just theory - it's called market inflexibility, and it's found in essential, low competition markets such as transport - when you plot passenger numbers against service quality or cost, fare hikes and poorer service have smaller effects on passenger numbers as it would in competitive markets, as people don't have as free a choice to take their custom elsewhere and change their behaviour as you seem to think they do. I find it hard to understand how people fail to realise car travel and moving house have vast associated costs which keep people forced to use train and bus travel to reach work.

[@leopold7562]

I had to laugh at the insinuation that the increase in passenger numbers is down to privatisation. Correlation does not equal causation. The passenger numbers have increased largely because commuting by car in the last 25 years has become considerably more painful. And it's not just because of the increase in traffic, but the cost of fuel, insurance, and if you work in a city, the cost of parking is ridiculous. The train is cheaper, quicker and more convenient. Or at least, it was. But let's also look at the decline in numbers. Train usage had been on a downturn since the mid sixties, when car ownership turned from being aspirational to entirely feasible, and then on to almost essential. Of course, given the choice between a car and a train back then, the car would always win because of the sheer convenience. It didn't help that trains were decrepit, but even if they were glorious bastions of luxury transportation, they'd still have struggled. The turning point for trains was always going to be that where there were more cars than the road network could handle, which I feel happened some time in the late nineties and the graph on train usage in this video appears to back that up.

[@tams805]

This. Privatisation may have played a role in increased train passenger numbers, but there are so many other factors. The spate of road building in the 50s and 60s, especially motorways, then cars like the Mini and later Japanese brands, along with low fuel prices (other than the oil crisis in the 70s) would all take time to have an effect. Facilities like parking at workplaces and in city centre all had to be built too. I think the rate of decline in rail passenger numbers shows that quite clearly. And it was the 90s when driving started to become a little inconvenient, but the 2000s that really started to see far too much traffic. Now there is surely also a not inconsiderable amount of train travel due to environmental concerns.

[@eamonnca1]

I remember being stuck on a BR train between Sheffield and Manchester because of a points failure. We sat there for about two hours in the middle of nowhere waiting for an engineer to show up. By the time we got to Stockport one passenger was screaming at the conductor. "But you're a representative of British Rail, aren't you? I've probably lost ten thousand pounds because you couldn't get me to Manchester on time! The sooner you lot get bloody privatized the better!" Then a few years after privatization I was trying to get from Yorkshire to Manchester again, but the Arriva train staff had gone on a no-warning strike and I found myself stranded for a few hours at Barnsley. Never made it to Manchester, I had to give up and go home on a bus. I don't know if Britain will ever get its trains sorted out. It seems like nationalization v privatization is the wrong debate. There's something deeper wrong with the system.

[@ashishtripathi7138]

I can echo your concerns thoroughly. Anything to/from anywhere to London works more like a clock work (see Virgin / Avanti). But anything east to west is a mess.

[@TonyGaleFreestyle]

@@ashishtripathi7138 I don't know about London working like clockwork. I used to commute into London on the Hastings line (run by Southeastern). The complaints made by passengers in the 1960s footage in this video were the same ones we were making on that line when I was using it daily two years ago! Trains being terminated early, turning up late, being sent back down the line in the other direction or just being outright cancelled was a common occurrence. Quite often I'd get to Charing Cross at the end of my working day to find all trains were cancelled and not know how (or when) I'd get home. It was a nightmare.

[@antonycharnock2993]

Stuck on an overcrowded service from Meadowhall to Leeds last month due to a failure at Manchester. It was so busy at Leeds they had to open the automated gates to lessen the crush. Madness. That the first time I've travelled by train for a few years now and cant believe how bad its got.

[@ZeldaFitz]

Indeed, it’s called the unions

[@csocseszrocsesz]

That is not near privatisation! This is a hybrid system, because the tax-payers pay subsidiaries through the state. If the state would not pay anything, then companies could not allow themselves to overprice the service, because there is a breaking point, when people say, i will not pay any cent for this shitty service.

[@JA-lx5jo]

The increase in passengers has nothing to do with privatisation - that is false correlation and Portillo knows this. Some sectors within a country should be nationalised - you wouldn't have a private police force. I personally believe a government can do anything more efficient and cheaper than a private company can, if properly run. A capitalist economy is the only real one can work, one where people are rewarded for their work. We do not want a state owned supermarket, but we don't want a private police force and we certainly don't want a private railway system. If you want it privatised then it should receive no public subsidy, but oh wait we tried that with Railtrack, and look how that ended out - quite literally fatal. BTW the most efficiently run franchise in the history of the railways as we know them today was East Coast, a government run franchise that paid over £1 billion back into the treasury - and "nationalised railways don't work". If persons in government say they can't run things in government they shouldn't be in bloody government. I could go on for ever about how privatisation is constantly misrepresented as great. No the railways were not run acceptably in past government hands, and I do not want us to see a return to that. But private ownership should never happen to key services, the railways being one. Just because your train was late doesn't mean railway technology is crap - it's false correlation. Just because past governments have incompetently & corruptly managed the railways doesn't mean a state railway has to be crap....

[@alisdairhamilton-wilkes5394]

A private police force doesn't work because there is no natural revenue stream to fund it. When viewing rail investment across Europe (i.e alternative models) there are various flaws, national ownership is far from a panacea.

[@alisdairhamilton-wilkes5394]

"BTW the most efficiently run franchise in the history of the railways as we know them today was East Coast, a government run franchise that paid over £1 billion back into the treasury" BTW your statement is bollocks, the film and source data show it was South West Trains, who recently lost their franchise.

[@Mitjitsu]

The key words are "if properly run". Politicians and bureaucrats are not business people and get paid no matter what. Knowing how to win elections and how to run a government are two completely different things. Plus they have many other things to worry about when it comes to overall public support. The problem is the best placed people to be in government are never going to put themselves forward as a result of how much money they can make in other areas of life and who your average voter is. My biggest problem with the current railway system is that it's not remotely free market, at the same time we can hardly call it nationalized either.

[@s0nnyburnett]

All government ever does is run things inefficiently and at massive expense compared to the private sector. I can only assume you're young or a full blown communist because there's no other reason anyone would say such a thing.

[@raptokvortex]

Governments have no incentive to run railways at a profit, since they can be subsidised by taxpayers. Since they have no competition the service becomes worse and worse, so less and less people use it. But that's okay, because the government can just subsidise it more! So now we're paying more money for a worse service! Even if fares are cheaper on this new system the money hasn't just come out of nowhere, it's either come from debts or taxes. Public ownership of the railways sounds like a good idea, but looking into it, it clearly is not.

[@robertstorey7476]

British rail was never as bad as it's being claimed. It was run very efficiently and they used to design and build their own trains including the HST that was so good and reliable it is still being used.

[@ianmurray250]

Portillo : "Trains were old" - wrong, some were brand new and designed to run at 140 mph, as BR was about to start running trains at that speed until this was cancelled by privatisation, UK Trains still, run at a 125 mph maximum. Under BR new trains were manufactured when the government allowed it and the trains they replaced were cascaded and reused on lesser services, this being a sensible way of reusing expensive resources. Post privatisation the government still controls ordering new trains and older trains are often scrapped. ... "they were very often dirty", - Some older trains were dirtier, but BR was only given 1/3 of the amount of money that UK rail has today and so had to cut corners somewhere. (Source : DfT (UK government, Department for Transport) - UK Rail costs around 3.8 times the amount that it did in BR days, allowing for inflation .... "and the most famous symbol was the curly British Rail sandwich, because the standard of catering was so poor" - It wasn't, BR sold thousands of sandwiches each day and hundreds of cooked meals. Post-privatisation, the standard of catering on the majority of trains is non-existent and it is impossible to buy sandwiches on trains. The hundreds of BR buffet & kitchen coaches have been replaced with a hand-full of kitchen coaches on a few long-distant services, the majority of train services today have no catering at all, and for the remainder a small trolley tries to work its way down the train offering a very limited range of pre-manufactured snacks and as they have no fridges, no sandwiches. ... "so it was universally acknowledged that the nationalised industries were giving an extremely poor standard of service because they had no accountability" - wrong BR was answerable and accountable to the DfT who also controlled what money BR was allowed. BR gave an excellent and very cost-effective service given the comparably small amount of money it was allowed. Today's private railway is costing the UK tax-payer 3.8 times the amount and it can be argued that as UK Rail today is run by the DfT, who are answerable to nobody. Finally, it is Interesting to note that the interview with Lillian Greeenwood took place on a HST, a train that was built by BR in the late 1970s - one of the old dirty trains that was running when privatisation was introduced, although despite privatisation, it is even older now. The coach they were sitting on (a BR Mk 3 coach) comprises a rigid aluminium honeycomb construction, that won awards as a world-leading design in the 1970s. 25 years of privatisation with the same dirty old trains. The interview with Michael Portillo took place on one of the fleet of brand-new 125 mph trains that run out of Paddington station. British Rail had advanced plans to electrify the lines out of Paddington in the 1990s and introduce new 140 mph trains, but privatisation saw these plans cancelled with no plans to increase the line speed above 125 mph. This line, however, was partly electrified a few years ago, around 20 years later.

[@billytrack]

well said

[@manmonkee]

I'm sure the Train Networks look great from your vantage point in First Class Mr Portillo.

[@puffin51]

"The railways are in decline. Something must be done. Privatisation is something. Therefore it must be done.

[@cherylno583]

underrated comment XD

[@SnazzBot]

It's not so much nostalgia and more seeing what other countries of similar populations and size are doing. Germany and France both have state owned railway that function much better and cheaper, they also have invested in UK Railway which helps subsidised rail fares in there home Nations.

[@thomascrabtree]

German railways are semi-privatised actually, which is exactly what FT are suggesting. British companies even run some German railways!! Like National Express...

[@SnazzBot]

Thomas Crabtree Your very right, I ment to say that , but there is a lot of government restrictions on the private companies not something a small government UK Conservative Party would be in favour of.

[@michdem100]

All European countries - except of UK, and Liechtensten (who uses ÖBB) have national railway companies. No other country in Europe except of UK that has tracks owned by non-state company. There are public companies competing between each other on some lines, but that's very rare. It's even rare to see private companies doing anything outside of UK.

[@agent_605]

Literally all tracks in the UK are owned by Network Rail, a state owned company

[@streetlover404]

You wanna come to america? Go ahead, ride on amtrak! Costs 2 times as much to ride as a plane, and as fast as a car. Ah, and I forgot to mention that it's completely run by the government.

[@Token_Nerd]

4:28 that is simply the greatest transition in a video ever.

[@Ferreira0504]

UK: we have terrible railways US: hold my beer

[@iwanttocomplain]

The same issue. Oil lobby's ripped up the american boxcars. All of them. They used to cover pretty much the whole country. Then built highways directly through the center of every large city, only stopping in New York's Greenwich village (by a protest group) which is now the largest stock of 19th century architecture in the world and probably the nicest place to live in the city. Otherwise, Amtrak would not have to play second fiddle to freight companies who own all the cross country lines. If the US wasn't enthral to oil, they would have a world class high speed rail system. At this point, now the roads are more or less gridlocked they are not going to see an efficient rail system for the best part of a century. So the only sensible way to travel long distance is by air which is polluting and even now airspace is pretty much at breaking point.

[@oconroy4691]

"one man was attacked with an umbrella" brilliant

[@TheManolis1984]

Has that guy (who travels 1st class) ever seen Abelio's trains, or some trains in the northern part of the country? They are dirty and old but they are private so hey ho. Also, when it is cheaper to fly or drive and pay for parking rather than taking the train, there is something very wrong with the model imposed.

[@LongStripeyScarf]

I think the biggest problem is lack of interconnected routes. Everything is focused on only going to or from London! If you want to travel east to west, in some cases you have to travel right into London from up to 100 miles away, to travel by train to somewhere that’s possibly only 20 miles away as the crow flies! And we wonder why the network is overcrowded?! An example; Kettering/Corby to Peterborough. Places close to each other, not well connected by road or rail, but has numerous commuters between the two areas. The country roads are blocked to a standstill at peak hours. All the railway needs is 50 metres of track at Manton Junction to create a triangle and therefore a connection from Kettering/Corby to Peterborough. That’s all it needs! But without it, you have to either travel up to Leicester and across on a slow train from there, or into London and then out again to Peterborough up the east coast! All this over 50m of missing track that could easily be put in!!! It’s farcical but hasn’t been done because it doesn’t benefit London. This is just one example. There are hardly any fast East-West routes! HS2 seems to have an open chequebook for the first phase from London to Birmingham (duplicating existing routes!), but the later phases connecting places like Manchester and Sheffield are in jeopardy, when they currently have only very poor connections! It’s a joke.

[@dissonantiacognitiva7438]

These are the most expensive trains in Europe, no, no investment in infrastructure, pork projects like the high speed rail to the north. I don't live there, the majority of UK's population will not use that train but we are funding it through our taxes And despite the high fares, still the population is the one paying for infrastructure that they don't use

[@dissonantiacognitiva7438]

Pedro pepe you have no idea, it's like paying for others welfare, I paid 26k last year on tax and NI plus what my employer paid so a nice nifty sum of around 32k Now I was made redundant and I get paid not even 300£ a month, and this will only happen for 6 months because I had the nerve of setting some cash aside for a rainy day So paying indiscriminately for others is something I am tired of doing Paying extortionate taxes is not patriotic, and this shotgun marriages to other familyes via extraction of my labour to fund others does not make me and would not make you happy But then again, you might be one of those on welfare or that pays little taxes but gets the same benefits, so you of course have no objection Pigs do not complain about feeding at the trough

[@clemensschlage2243]

Yeah that's not really a valid argument, is it? I mean most Britons won't use your local hospital even once in their live but still they're paying for the NHS

[@leopold7562]

@Dissonantia Cognitiva The tube and bus networks in London are still nationalised and my taxes pay for those, yet I live 250 miles away from there and have very little cause to use them. So what's your point? We all pay in for the overall benefit of the country. As the saying goes, "If you don't like it, you know where the door is." Just make sure the door doesn't bang you on the arse on the way out. Where I live is at the northernmost end of the HS2 line, so in theory it's of use to me. Except it really isn't as much of a benefit as they are making it out to be. I'm still struggling with the concept of why we're spending billions of pounds and destroying acres of open land to make a train line that will get people between Manchester and London in a smidgeon under two hours, when there's a service already in existence that can do it almost as quickly. Apart from the odd stopper service, most of the current trains can make the journey in 2 hours 20, and the commuter rush trains can do it in 2 hours 5. How many billions to save five minutes?

[@Zurich_for_Beginners]

When some in some country someone "Let's privatise the railway" the answer is "Great Brittan" an the discussion ends.

[@MrGilang100]

What about japan?

[@alaindumas1824]

Japan did it without separating track, operation and rolling stock ownership. It is as if the UK had returned to the pre-BR era. About a quarter of the plethoric Japanese National Railroad employees lost their position, including the more troublesome ones. JR Freight is the exception: They do not own tracks and run their trains on the various passenger companies rails.

[@alisdairhamilton-wilkes5394]

I enjoyed this short film, It's a much bigger and more complex subject though and it simply cannot be tackled in 15 minutes....maybe a series!

[@parkerproductions4546]

Alisdair Hamilton-Wilkes It is a little..! Here's a good place to start: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2G5cneilLiad6c

[@OlanKenny]

I live on the Windermere Branch, the other day (5th April) our ENTIRE daily service was cancelled. Any time there's an issue around Manchester etc we suffer

[@paulorocky]

How is it that Japan Rail, divided into segments with separate private owners, can run a seamless, punctual and efficient service with affordable fares but Network Rail cannot?

[@maskmanmarks5135]

It’s not affordable. 500£ for unlimited train rides for a week wtf

[@zorgfleeter]

didi you misread japanese rail for british rail? or are you saying japanese rail is not at all affordable?

[@parkerproductions4546]

You're right about Japan Railways being the best example. I wish the UK could follow suit but it seems like people don't want to think these things through. Network Rail only *maintain* *the* *rail* *infrastructure* . They don't run any services; that's up to the TOCs (Train Operating Companies) who have use trains on lease from the ROSSCOs (Rolling Stock Operating Companies). All this so TOCs can run a service on NetworkRail's track. Japan has excellent communication between ALL its departments because it is under one roof of a company: JR. Our system is not, and it's justified to question why the heck we haven't followed the Japanese model. It's so odd!

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

The best examples for private railroads are North American companies. There's no complicated artificial crap like keeping rolling stock and operating companies separate from the infrastructure company. There are just railroads.

[@moochincrawdad]

I've ridden a train from Osaka to Tokyo and this single journey was the best I've ever encountered in my life ..... EVER!!!!

[@leehumphries7696]

BR got me to & from school every day and up to London on a regular basis - no problem.

[@iangoldsworthy2056]

Lee Humphries Thats why...Everything goes to London thats its main priority. Everywhere else is significant problems.

[@cob1965]

Sorry to repeat part of my reply to Paul Davis, but I would like to see a table of fares from the 80s and journey times and one from now. As for investment, ha ha, for years the franchise companies ran the same old BR locos and rolling stock! When the one armed Scotsman was in charge things were looking up....

[@tou7331]

The quality was terrible.

[@clancywiggam]

@@tou7331 The quality IS terrible. Have you been on a French train, or an Irish train, or a German train, or a Portuguese train, etc... Why is Britain willing to accept such unbelievably bad standards, and pay so much for it.

[@Mimzy483]

LMAOOOO the advert for this video is "why do we sell the raiways" love me a good raiway

[@syedadeelhussain2691]

I used to study and live in Coventry, as a Foreign student. On weekends use to travel to Birmingham for Indian curry and shopping. I think the railway (Coventry -Birmingham route) was overloaded with people standing, especially during the morning hours, and with very few foods or beverage purchase facilities. However, on longer trips/routes, Virgin trains and other liner services had better services like food and bar counter drinks, from which you can select miniature versions of Gin/ whiskey etc. Overall British railway is not bad but just a bit congested.

[@WillN2Go1]

At the time this video was released I was happily crisscrossing the UK on trains. Two years before I spent two months in Japan with a Japan Rail Pass and a Suica card for the Tokyo subways. Absolutely amazing! What really bothered me about the UK, and France, was passengers had to wait and stare up a signboards waiting for the moment it would tell them which track their train was going to be on-- then they had ten minutes to race to their train. Every time I was in a major station I saw exhausted commuters being subjected to this this passive-aggressive incompetence. I was told it had always been this way, nationalized or not. I had a huge backpack, so several times I asked a train employee if they knew which track my train would be on. Only once was the answer I got incorrect. In Japan, also with myriad private train companies, I could buy (or reserve with my Rail Pass) a ticket for a specific seat in a specific car for a specific date and time months in the future. Painted on the platform number on that ticket, is the train's number, car number and whether this spot is the front or rear door. And that's where it will be. That's how to treat passengers with respect and keep high standards. For me the litmus test for public or private is, will this same nonsense continue? Trains are political only because a lot of money is involved. What railways really are is a specific range of practical functions; with necessary human accommodation. It's not political, it's pragmatic, or it's just incompetent noise. How do you know if they're doing it right? Well, take a trip to Japan, are your trains running as well? (Or China, also excellent trains). The symmetry of the neglectful public employee is the PR nonsense, covering over equally callous money grubbing. (btw the class war in the UK? Congratulations you all lost. But in the contest for the stupidest leader? We (US) won that race to surrealism.) It's interesting that some passengers in this video are grumpy at Richard Branson. I'm quite a fan of Virgin, I flew to and from Heathrow on a Virgin plane, and traveled on several Virgin trains while in the UK. My experience was of course, limited. (They did leave me at the Belfast port expecting a bus....) On one hand he seems to want his companies to treat customers well, but of course he's also another billionaire. What might be interesting would be to collect all the complaints about the two Virgin rail companies, give this list to Branson and say, 'you're going to run all the trains in the UK that have lost their franchises, for the government. Do a good job and you'll be paid. Just as communists seem to make good capitalists, some capitalists would probably be good socialists. btw the views out of the train windows? The UK wins! Shinkansen trains have sound barrier walls that block a lot of the view, and kudzu vines growing everywhere create a green 'wall'. And yes I know most of this is a lot of nonsense. Cheers.

[@maxberre]

Where can we find this 1992 memo which is mentioned around 8:00? What were the other options explored?

[@rosewhite---]

how much profit have all the companies taken in the years since privatisation? it would have paid fo rmodernisation

[@grassytramtracks]

Michael Portillo: who's put the money that has made the improvements to the railway you hail? The public purse. It's also a classic tactic to deliberately underfund a service to then justify privatizing or closing it or whatever else

[@pauldavies1710]

I always assumed it was the last frantic bit of asset stripping done to benefit the Tories and their mates who no doubt had their share of profit from the cheap sell off of surplus land owned by the railway.

[@cob1965]

Yes I agree, no mention of that though. I find it incredible to believe Portillo et al didn't have the vision to see how important the rail system would be on a small island like Britain. I would also like to see a table of fares from the 80s and journey times and one from now. As for investment, ha ha, for years the franchise companies ran the same old BR loco s and running stock.

[@TheStarBlack]

It was.

[@hansgruber788]

That may be true and I condemn it. But do you people not understand, that when the government controls industry, there is zero incentive to make quality better. Thus consumer satisfaction massively decreases and governments still bay billions (which this country doesn't have) to run the industry. It's just like the NHS. there is no incentive to improve its service which is why its so shite; only difference there is that people will always need medicine unlike with trains where you can choose different transportation.

[@pauldavies1710]

Dear Hans - Firstly I object to being referred to condescendingly as 'you people'. Secondly I have spent 40 years at senior level in private industry and I can tell you that the way we make money is to cut corners and take risks. You cannot do that when you are running essential services. In addition you can't afford the luxury of running up debt and letting the company go bust. The pragmatic answer is to run essential services as Government owned and let cut throat competition drive those areas of the economy selling non-essential goods where there is plenty of competition, the mantra that private companies run things more efficiently is just that - a mantra to persuade the public that privatisation is a good thing. It bears no relation to reality.

[@careyparker2673]

Like the way your mate Brown sold off all our gold.

[@barrychmak7852]

Hong Kong subway is semi-privated and running well. Try contacting them to manage your railway for positive results.

[@alaindumas1824]

Hong-Kong MTR is part of the joint venture running South Western Railway. It is losing money because of extensive strikes and likely to fail before year end.

[@davemarchant3055]

There's no competition ? What's Rifkin talking about ? You have to use the particular operator, and pay extortionate fares or drive, which is eminently cheaper, which is not what public transport should stand for.

[@cob1965]

Yes, no long term strategy as Avantime points out above.

[@Louiseharris5677]

idiert the busdoud

[@marktwain8185]

Louise Corley Eh ?

[@hansgruber788]

Think about it mate; he means there'd be zero competition within the rail network. There will always be people who have to use the rail. Those people will get a better service if they have to choose a service of rail. Taxi services will be way too much; busses will be unreliable and long. Only other choice is the car but then that means you have to have a licence, a car, tax, insurance plus parking which is always bs. So he's right to talk about competition within the rail industry because many people have no other viable choice.

[@dstblj5222]

Well, if we wanted true competition drives would have to pay to maintain the roads, likely on a per mile used basis, you would have to pay to use a airport as a airline, a fee which fully supports the airline, and in a market like that rail would likely be a lot cheaper, in comparison

[@batman51]

Sir Richard Marsh said that there were (then) 125,000 people running the railway, and 30 million who know how to! Nothing has changed.

[@nicholasmrobinson]

I was in the UK for the transition from public to private rail and it only got worse with privatisation.

[@jusb1066]

short answer: tories

[@donmooniegaming508]

Clever. Misspelling the ad on purpose so people click on it to flex their grammatical muscles

[@user-ei7ed6zy9k]

If Crossrail is delayed for the 100th time, there’s probably something wrong with government ownership

[@petergreen2552]

Why did we sell off the railways. WE didn't. The Tories did, simply to make their cronies a shed load of money. Meanwhile millions travel to work every day in over priced cattle trucks.

[@Bungle-UK]

People trot out all the time the fact that subsidy has gone up, but ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of government spending on rail goes on infrastructure improvements, and that many more trains run now, compared to BR, which has increased costs. If you expand a loss making service, you just increase the loses. Remember, the only part of the railway that will ever really pay its way are the intercity services. The increase in frequency and capacity on commuter and regional services has been good at matching demand, but requires heavy subsidy.

[@billytrack]

The majority of spending went to infrastructure improvements before privatisation too. Increased costs but also increased revenue, the majority of which goes to shareholders now, many foreign. We used to lead the world in rail and now we struggle to follow

[@Bungle-UK]

@@billytrack ah, the old ‘money goes to shareholders’ myth….take a look and you’ll see most rail companies barely make any profit, if at all. It’s a very low margin business.

[@dantsai5216]

And people still voted for the conservative again..... British people clearly asked for this!

[@hudsonrolfe9633]

I went to Luxembourg recently. Paid 4 euros to go 65 miles. And guess what? Nationalised trains!

[@mattyrjackson4261]

Increased population since privatisation in '91 so of course numbers of travellers will go up? Did no-one think that figure through?

[@Zentron]

The privatisation of the railways was a huge disaster, but not as bad as the Beeching cuts, as is devastated the rail network and provided a killer blow to the UK economy, along with putting severe strain on our road networks.

[@moffatajuk]

No mention of successful nationalised railways in places around the world. Why do some politicians think that we can manage a Brexit despite not believing we can even manage a nationalised railway like in Japan for example?

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

Then it should also be mentioned how many world states have denationalized railroads, resulting in them quickly catching up in performance to the most profitable and efficient ones in the world (the U.S.). I'm pretty sure the idea of shitcanning the E.U. comes from the same kind of reasoning as privatizing railroads: less government.

[@ianedmonds9191]

@@MilwaukeeF40C It's the pure selfishness of the retired to call for complete deregualtion and the profit boom for their pensions that would happen at the expense of all the workers getting squeezed into the dust. The boomers have it good and always did. They are not willing to believe that they should have a social conscience. "There is no such thing as Society" Fuckers.

[@alaindumas1824]

Japanese Railways were nationalised in 1949. In the end JNR was considered to be unmanageable because its unions were too powerful. At privatisation i 1987, JNR was divided in six integrated passenger units (owning tracks, operations and rolling stock in a specific area) and one national freight company and the most troublesome employees were dismissed. It worked well but the UK opted for a different type of privatisation a few years later.

[@huudielbo728]

To boost the car & road-building industry. The transport secretary then built the M1 giving the contract to his own construction company, the M1 was followed by many more. Rails were ripped up and sold for scrap to ensure we used roads.

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

There is an optimal balance to be struck. And I think that is the TfL model. The state owns the infrastructure, which is then operated by a private contractor who are hired and paid based on performance.

[@michaeld5888]

The best I time I remember with Anglian railways was when they were setting up for privatisation and in preparation running it as though it was a private company providing a service. It was not the usual government agency attitude of doing us all a great favour at massive inconvenience to themselves. If they stayed like that it would have been great. Another problem is the UK rail system is designed primarily for getting to and from London as a hub in the corner of the country with complex interchange required to get a jump between the myriad of termini there to get somewhere else. Essex and Suffolk is cutoff and crossrail has provided no solution which it could have. You have to go to Ely to escape cross country.

[@goose5]

Trains are cool and all. But did y'all see that transition after 4:22 ?

[@qwertyTRiG]

Impressive, certainly.

[@zeddeka]

The basic problem with the railway has always been there, regardless of whether it's been nationalised or privatised. For the most part it's been appallingly managed and suffered from chronic underinvestment. It's so typical of Britain. We want brilliant services but aren't willing to pay the money to invest in them.

[@donfink7063]

Why were the railways privatized? Simple, it became obvious that an efficient rail "service" needed greater subsidy and those types in the City types decided they wanted some of that!

[@ronvalente65]

The problem now is the state of our roads, infrastructure and congestion is so bad that so many people need to use the railways, I would have thought that Portillo would have seen this whilst making his TV programmes, but he is still a Capitalist at heart, and he will never admit they were wrong.

[@minimead368]

I watched a fascinating documentary by: Jacques Peretti called: The Passengers That Took On the Train Line. At the end it exposes just how rigged the franchise rail system is in Britain, it’s well worth a watch

[@rrjohnboy]

Its way way way better now, they should NEVER have been nationalised in the first place. If they were nationalised again, you may get slightly cheaper fares. But then everyone even if you don't use the trains you would be paying for in taxes. People there is no such thing as free! We need a full privatisation service, not nationalisation.

[@joannedeal3418]

Rubbish! You must be one of these investors getting large incomes from the public subsidy.

[@DateTwoRelate]

Thank God for Amtrak here in the US. I can always depend upon my 6th Class seat and arriving sometimes on time.

[@smitajky]

So funny. Was once fully private and the problems of fragmentation were too extreme. So it was grouped and the problems of excessive duplication were obvious. So it was nationalized and rationalized. The investment went down. But the inefficiencies of it being seen as a government backed instrument where there was no need to balance the books. So it was privatized. But that brought back all those problems of fragmentation and the break of the nexus between infrastructure and earnings. "Like a circle in a spiral like a wheel within a wheel."

[@gavinbissell8847]

Originally the rail system was totally funded privately and run as a business and it worked. It's half arsed measures that ruin it

[@thatdutchguy2882]

Who cares,....we Dutch bought most of them and run our rails on the profits. Brexit hahaha 😂.

[@394pjo]

Well, thats not entirely true, your railways are run by the millions of Moroccans and Turks whom you pay piss wages too so enabling you to make a profit. If only Dutch people worked on the Railways you would have to pay them so much money it would bankrupt the entire system. EU hahahaha

[@joserodrigues-gr6yx]

what he means is that the dutch have bought uk rail companys and are running them with a profit, at the expense of the uk citizen. And stop with the racist rants please...

[@iangoldsworthy2056]

Yeah that's true...You bought a stake in the Market for a return to manufacture the engines and carriges...Thats where we went wrong.

[@thatdutchguy2882]

Ian Goldsworthy We bought more then that. The right to exploit the most profitable railways in the UK and the stations.

[@StoutProper]

ThatDutchguy just like France and our power supply

[@lc9245]

Japan privatised their train as well and it has been going swimmingly for most part. Perhaps the problem has been and always been: mismanagement. Privatisation of public good is always well and good, private sectors always run better, more efficient than public sectors. Unfortunately, the handover process is handled poorly whether on purpose or incompetence, causing a corruption in incentive. An unfortunate example is the financial sector before the financial crisis who receives support from the government for bailing out of their ventures that they are able to take more risk without repercussion. Had the government being immune to the financial sector influence (realistically impossible), the businesses will have to reconsider their option should a failure happen.

[@hudsonquay]

Michael Portillo claims the reason British Rail failed was they had no accountability to the customer. I fail to see how the the private operators are any more accountable. In normal circumstances customers would vote with their feet, but as rail is a virtual monopoly this isn't possible. He also states there is a misplaced nostalgia and it might take a return to privatisation to remember how bad things were. Other countries manage to have fantastic state run railways, so why can't the UK?

[@smogmonster1876]

Sure BR wasn’t perfect bu any means but we were responsible for it and weren’t willing to invest in it. Many of BRs problems can be found in today’s railway industry too National Express East Coast then Virgin East Coast, both replaced by State owned companies (East Coast Ltd and LNER) but also Southern Rail is a nightmare and Grant Shapps is stripping Arriva of Northern Rail and Transpennine Express is in a mess too. Weneedto renationalise BUT be prepared to properly invest and manage the system. The current system sounds to me like it’s an attempt to get out of any responsibly for the railways and have them run with strict conditions which are almost impossible to stick to and so in many cases they collapse. The Railways problem is inept and inadequate management but let’s continue to through billions of pounds at private companies to give to shareholders. That’ll solve the problems.

[@simongleaden2864]

01:33 No! She's wrong. Not every train and railway line in the UK was sold off to private enterprise 25 years ago. Only the railway system in Great Britain was privatised - Northern Ireland Railways remained in public ownership. It does annoy me when people confuse the United Kingdom and Great Britain, and use the terms as if they are synonymous. It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland.

[@AtheistEve]

Instead of nationalizing into government hands or privatizing into the hands of greedy bankers, our utilities should be handed out as shares to every member of the British public and run as cooperatives.

[@hostilepancakes]

Intercity train services travel a longer distance and primarily serve the big cities, so economies of scale are truly at work in intercity rail. That portion of the network belongs to the private sector, but where slots on the intercity main lines aren’t leased to a single operator, but rather, competing operators. Grand Central Railway is really the only train operator that does this on a widespread scale. If you can get more operators doing this, you’ll force private operators to compete on price to attract customers. (FYI, when I say intercity rail, the lines I’m referring to are the West Coast Main Line [Avanti AKA FirstGroup + Trenitalia], Great Western Main Line [GWR], Midland Main Line [East Midland Trains], East Coast Main Line [LNER], Cross Country Main Line [Arriva Trains UK], and the Transpennine North Route). Commuter belt services however, belong to the taxpayer. Why? Because they (the commuting taxpayer) often don’t have a choice - when driving to work takes longer and may or may not cost more in petrol, maintenance, and other expenses, rail transport is the only logical method to get from home to work and back again. To most effectively operate a commuter railway (that is, to operate as many peak time services as safely possible and to run those services on time), a monopoly on slots must be held, and if a monopoly on slots is held, then private train operators have no incentive to reduce the price or improve the service.

[@StoutProper]

So some people can make a fast buck at the Taxpayers expense, as always, and boy, have they!

[@memikell]

Why no one talks about the failed nationalization in 1948? The industry has been a mess ever since, thousands of miles of rails torn up, hundreds of stations closed and towns throughout the UK left with no service at all.

[@DavidShepheard]

The real reason that British Rail was in a state is that we ran it into the ground during World War II, moving goods and supplies around and then our government didn't want to pay to replace all the tracks and trains. Beeching closures were their way to kill off some of the least used railways and that cut off small communities and forced people in the countryside to start buying cars. London Underground has dodged privatisation and does better at attracting passengers, because the services are frequent. The trains have been made longer and given better access for disabled people, but there is a long way to go yet. We need the same approach across the country. We need every region of England, Wales and Scotland to get it's own transport board (similar to London Transport) to coordinate all local trains and buses, and we need every region to have something similar to London's Oyster card and Liverpool's Walrus card. We need to get people out of cars and back onto transport, in order to cut down on pollution. And to cut down on national pollution, we need to build enough high speed rail links that we can get people off of motorways and domestic aircraft and sell them tickets on high speed rail. (And we need to hook other parts of the country up to the Channel Tunnel Railway too. If HS2 can eventually allow trains to run from Paris to somewhere like Glasgow, that would be a good thing.) Ideally, people should be able to buy end-to-end tickets, from their local stations, so that they can go anywhere in the UK and not need to stop off at multiple ticket offices. As for the stations, we need more to be covered over with shopping areas or entertainment complexes. That will make the platforms safer in the snow (as the snow won't fall on the platforms) and make it easier for people to go shopping or to the cinema by train. If there are problems on the track (and you can never get rid of all the problems) passengers would be able to pop upstairs and eat or do some shopping. And lets make sure everything is wheelchair accessible because Britian belongs to everyone - not just able-bodied people with 1st class tickets.

[@anotherianp]

That doesn't work. There's a simple reason that the original train companies were able to directly compete and in this post, you completely miss it. Not only did the original railway companies own the infrastructure, the rolling stock and the locomotives - they also sold their own, and originally only their own, tickets. Want to travel from Birmingham to London? Yes sir. You can go this way at this price (MR), this way a different price (GWR), or this way at a third different price (LNWR). When you change onto another company's train, you can purchase your ticket for that service from the guard on that train. You can either have full competition, or no competition. No competition, but people expected to make a profit off it, is what we went for with the franchising system. It's a completely farcical failure, but you can't do full privatisation either, unless we rip up the entire infrastructure and started from scratch. As mentioned by one of the Tory con artists in the video, yes, there would be massive upheaval following Nationalisation, and vastly increased cost - while the utter lack of infrastructure investment over the last twenty years is undone. There's no mention anywhere on here I've seen, that NWR are decades behind in renewing or replacing life-expired (sometimes several times life expired!) infrastructure. There's no mention that one of the reasons we can't implement electrification is that most of the bridges and tunnels are simply too low to fit OLE in and 3rd rail is far less efficient for long distance services, plus carries far higher maintenance costs and is far more directly dangerous. There's no mention of the fact that while NWR is publicly owned, none of the maintenance or project companies are. It was a lack of oversight from Railtrack that allowed critical crashes to happen on their watch, plus the way RT was set up by the Government, but it was the cost-cutting and mismanagement of private contractors, primarily Jarvis Rail, that caused that actual crashes themselves. We're cutting costs, corners and risking passenger safety again now, in a mad rush to do more and more, faster and faster, at lower cost, before the infrastructure fails completely, in the UK. The problem is that more and more, faster and faster, at lower cost, is what has historically killed rail passengers.

[@Eric-ye5yz]

If it is put back into public hands the Americans are going to demand it is privatised again as part of a trade agreement. Private companies will never make enough profit to satisfy their shareholders.

[@MrLaughinggrass]

Why did we nationalise trains in the first place?

[@Wasserfeld.]

The "big four" companies couldn't afford to modernise their networks after no investment during the war. WWI didn't help either. They, possibly apart from Southern, would've probably gone bankrupt.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

"They, possibly apart from Southern, would've probably gone bankrupt." And?

[@Wasserfeld.]

And without government intervention, it would've shut down. That would've been catastrophic for the economy, especially as most people didn't have cars...

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

If they were allowed to run like businesses, they wouldn't have shut down completely. This reeks of overregulation.

[@kofola9145]

@@MilwaukeeF40C It is all about regulation. You can only imagine what would railroads look like without all these state idiots. The worst part of it is the amount of people who believe state interference is the way to go. I mean, yeah, if you want to unload your travel expences onto others and future generations. "At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the GWR was taken into government control, as were most major railways in Britain. Many of its staff joined the armed forces and it was more difficult to build and maintain equipment than in peacetime. " "The 1930s brought hard times but the company remained in fair financial health despite the Depression." "With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the GWR returned to direct government control, and by the end of the war a Labour government was in power and again planning to nationalise the railways. After a couple of years trying to recover from the ravages of war (read: government control), the GWR became the Western Region of British Railways on 1 January 1948." There you have it. Goverment destroyes your bussiness. After You manage to bring it back, the goverment steals it again. You are left with a lifeless husk, so the goverment has to step in and rescue it from your incompetent hands.

[@5daboz]

This is just like private schools in Slovenia. First they were 80% subsidized by state. Turns out that was too little, so now they are 100% state subsidized private schools. How? You cant explain that, you more or less have to accept that whoever is doing it in such a way, doesnt intend to play with market expectations to any extend. He just wants money in no risk environment on expense of everyone else (who pay taxes and who participate on the market).

[@Snakeslazy]

How can companies be accountable to passengers when commuters have no choice but to use the same service every day?

[@starguy321]

The big lines too, the profitable ones that is, are meant to subsidise the small ones. If a railway line isn’t profitable but necessary then it needs to be maintained and is paid for by commuter lines. Railways are a really important link between people in remote areas and cities, these lines mean the most to people and must be maintained, and the best way to do that is to have one national company, private or public

[@ThePlutarch44]

I've ridden on French National Railways (SNCF) and the service is, although expensive, excellent. It seems that, in Britain, the service is not excellent yet expensive. Hmmm. There seems to be a disconnect in Britain. The SNCF gets huge state subsidies because it provides an essential service, not only to private companies, but to the travelling public. This does not seem to be the case in the UK.

[@69waveydavey]

Not mentioned was the Beeching era, yes it had to come but it was badly thought out and ruthless. If lines had been "Safegaurded" like they were abroad then it would be simpler to re-open closed lines. As it is, most are completely lost forever and as roads get busier and rail demand rises there are few alternatives. A town local to me lost it's station in the 60's, the line is virtually still there but it has taken years to even get a mention in parliament.

[@mattyrjackson4261]

This should be nationalisation WITH accountability, like in Germany etc.

[@soundseeker63]

Strange how in France, Germany, Japan etc. they don't even have this argument, and their state owned railways are world famous for the speed, reliability and efficiency. What is it about this country that we have to make such a hash of things and debate everything to death while others just get the job done? The rest of Europe must laugh at us, and rightly so. And no, Micheal, we haven't forgotten how crummy BR was or how we used to constantly complain about it..... But then BR received maybe 1/4 of the financial subsidies that we now hand out to private operators, so its hardly a like-for-like comparison in terms of costs! Imagine what miracles BR could have cooked up with a 300% increase in funding!!!

[@black__bread]

A big reason this video is bollocks is it poses a historical question but only uses interviews with politicians and pressure groups to answer it resulting in decontextualised yaa/boo political tosh devoid of substance. For example, instead of handing Portillo an opportunity to tell us he was right all along, why no expert analysis from say Terry Gourvish, an eminent business historian and expert on recent rail history?

[@Frohicky1]

Use of the term Natural Monopoly is a good way to weed out people who haven't thought about the problem.

[@Bodybuilder1945]

To answer Portillo's comment that British Railways were so bad prior to privatisation is because the Conservative Governments over the years starved to railways of investment. Previous to that we had Beeching. It wasn't his fault that BR was decimated. He had to do what his boss told him to do. His boss at the time was the Minister for Transport - a Mr Marples - his family's business was guess what? - BUILDING ROADS!!!!! The privatisation process introduced layers of private companies each seeking to make a profit each doing as little as possible to maximise that profit and, surprise, surprise - large parts of the UK's PRIVATE rail industry is owned by European STATE owned railway companies.....most notably France and Germany......that cannot be right!!

[@olivercuenca4109]

I know franchising is effectively dead now, but I hope they replace it with something more like the concessions they have in continental Europe. The problem with franchising is they got to keep all the profits, so they're incentivised to keep charging the highest prices they could, and the taxpayer would never see any of the profits, and network rail infrastructure would continue to need subsidising because no profits from the railways were being reimbursed into the infrastructure. The concessions would fix that, and quite likely also incentivise operators to actually innovate a little, because it could be written into the terms of their contract.

[@rjjcms1]

Let's face it,trying to drive right into London in the daytime,unless you have a blue badge or something,is a fool's errand. But the cost of rail transport into the capital is becoming prohibitive now,so there's a risk of big swathes of the population from without never being able to ever set foot in the centre of it.

[@2484marshall]

Same reason we sell anything off, because some MPs or Lords want to be shareholders/executives/governors of the private company that it will be handed over to. Hence why many security contracts are handed over to G4S - May's husband's company. Any and all major infrastructure should to be owned by the public with the management for it being voted on by the masses. That way any money spent will go straight back in to the pot rather than a tax free off-shore account of privateers. This has been going on for very long time, and yet for some reason most people are either ignorant to it or don't seem to care.

[@pafachris]

You uesd the diesel into a steamie and thats molly’s tender from thomas and friends

[@Mr-mi9pv]

That is in England

[@crookedpaths6612]

Haha. When the New Zealand government sold the railways, the merchant bankers asset stripped them and then sold them on for a very high share price. After 30 years the taxpayer bought back the railways which now had a crumbling infrastructure, deficient stock and erratic service for an exorbitant price. The merchant bankers now own their own private luxury island and spend their days funding yachting competitions and chairing flower shows.

[@JanitorScruffy]

It's funny that in America, the railways couldn't give the government control of passenger service fast enough, basically threw trains and passenger cars at Amtrak so they wouldn't have to continue running passenger trains.

[@bad307207]

I believe in privatisation of any non necessity (anything we could do without), including rail (most people rarely use rail so shouldn't have to pay for it) but we are paying for it and therefore should be getting a share of the profits! if we invest 80% of the funds we should receive 80% of the profits for example!

[@Wanielyo]

Do we really think that train usage went up because of privatisation and not other factors? The end of British rail was a much cheaper time to run a car with far less crowded roads. Complaining about the quality of service when you're in power and then selling it off rather than fixing it isn't really good enough.

[@bern047]

To travel about 'One person One car' and cause traffic jams and pollute the air that is how crazy we are

[@sirtobey1337]

Whilst railways in Switzerland aren't particularly cheap for tax payers or passengers, it seems to work out nicely. Railways should be considered public service. They cost a lot, but they provide a service that is needed for the economy of today to succeed. It's the same with roads. If you just subsidize private companies, those subsidies will just go towards their profits, which they will naturally want to achieve. Profit at the tax payer's expense, while the quality of the service doesn't increase..

[@iamdmc]

because they were profitable and they had friends with money who wanted to have more money, and who could make them money money.

[@callumhardy5098]

Our local = greater anglia is excellent possibly only one of a very few examples ( unlike southern rail.) so from my experiences I must say the privatisation is good.

[@LordSandwichII]

9:26 The railways were in decline because cars became more affordable, and people didn't care about the environment. The modern generation will use rail, because we understand that it is a better way to get around. It has nothing to do with whether the railways are nationalised or not.

[@tomburton8239]

For what its worth... I was brought into the government to make electricity privatisation happen. It was tough going, given the multiple generators, single grid, numerous distribution companies, and the focus of Whitehall on policies. But we drove it through - on project delivery. Then, all done, I had a call from HMG asking me to come back and help get Rail away. I mulled on it, and declined. Why? Because it was such a complex plan/design it was a nightmare. It would be FI. No regrets.

[@stuskivens4295]

Yet strangely it was Labour who privatised the railway in 1998.

[@kopend8638]

the fact that i have to pay £160 ( one way) to get from london to liverpool when i can go to dubia for £250 shows that the system has failed,

[@umaxen0048]

120 containers pulled by a locomotive for 1000 miles = 6370 gallons of diesel. A Semi-truck with a single container for 1000 miles = 167 gallons of diesel fuel. Thus you would need 20,040 gallons of diesel by trucks to move 120 containers. Furthermore a locomotive can last 2 decades. A semi-truck? about 1 million miles or about 4 years...

[@anotherianp]

120 containers would only go a short distance in the UK, before needing to be split up and transported on far less efficient modes of transport to their disparate destinations. Places like the US, Canada, Australia, can really use distance to their benefit and yes, for long distances, rail is by far the most efficient land-based method of transporting anything, whether people or goods. In the UK, a US/CA/AU style train would still be applying full power and trying to accelerate when it reached its destination.

[@mzs114]

I am no brit, my observations are based on a similar thing happening in another country. I think due to rising transportation cost due to owning a vehicle(car/bike) and lengthy travel it makes sense to use the trains, this is the trend in India where we are seeing rise of both public and semi private railways(mostly metros owned by pvt operators). I think on similar note people are using more trains in and around London. Train usage fell in London when oil was cheaper and owning cars was economical, not anymore I guess. Please correct me if I am wrong with my understanding.

[@williamgeorgefraser]

More people use the railways now, not because of privatization but because more people need to use the railways. Under BR, profitable services subsidised loss-making services. Now, profits go into the pockets of investors. When the railways were privatized, subsidies doubled. Latest Tory privatization: Brexit. Why sell the country off bit by bit when you can do it in one go?