Declan Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Not sure how you take control of the franchises without buying anything Declan. I don't think CC knows either atm as the task force to consider this is yet to be set up. I suppose those with either view ought to wait until 1) it has and 2) it shares its findings. Franchises are granted by the government for a certain period, when that expires they put out to tender. Instead of putting them out to tender again he is suggesting at that point the government assumes control. Obviously there will be some cost to process, just as there would for a private operator taking over, but not that much (the franchises don't own the rolling stock or the track for example). Indeed the Government has done this in this past when franchisees have failed to meet their obligations and run a franchise until the tender process was re-run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shake me up Judy Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 The sensible thing to do would be to take it back incrementally, line by line, or key networks. Complete re-nationalisation probably won't be necessary, desirable, or affordable once partial public ownership is re-established and a mix of public / private as in the NHS is introduced. It already is anyway with the franchise agreements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Academic anyway, apparently ... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Bit of thread creep but that's an over simplified view GD (edit : and not what I meant anyway) You are old enough to remember the awful nationalised British Rail. At least you can get hourly cross country servces in the UK now where as in the nationalised days this was very much a rarity. Travelling on BR was always awful. From the cheerless waiting rooms to the shabby carriages. After a long BR punt I always felt as though I had been sprayed with a light coating of grease... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 An improvement in conditions since the 70's doesn't mean private ownership is the best solution for the 2020's. Pretty much everywhere - private and public sectors has improved since then. From my experience, travelling by rail is far less pleasurable and more of a hassle in the UK than in other countries. Not sure the solution is a return to public ownership but it can't do any harm having at as option to help concentrate the frachisee minds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 All that will happen with any UK rail nationalisation would be the same shabby service but with unions dictating the terms. A real step backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Corbyn goes my solution to the railways is to Nationalise them. Erm ... that isn't a solution - what happens then? Nationalising them doesn't provide any solutions, it just passes the problems on to the state for them to be solved there. Corbyn doesn't go beyond his socialist rhetoric. He thinks Nationalisation is a solution, while in fact doing that doesn't solve a single problem ... though it creates loads more. His failure to understand this is why his policies no matter how attractive to a certain type of angry voter will lead nowhere. All they do is move problems around, rather than substantively solve them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Making up policy on the hoof is never a good idea. See the General who gobbed off about a possible "coup" etc etc is being swept under the carpet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 He doesn't have the slightest clue what he's doing or what's coming next. Rabbit in the headlights. Wouldn't be surprised if he jacks it in within months. On the railways, ironically, the "privatised" railway costs the taxpayer far more than BR ever did, BUT there has been substantial investment in infrastructure, new services, new lines etc. which was always starved by the Treasury under nationalisation. Now that the Network Rail debt has been taken onto the public sector balance sheet we may see more of those kinds of constraints. Midland Mainline and TransPennine electrification projects have already been "paused". There are pros and cons to the quasi private railway, but one particularly wasteful aspect is the cost in administration and lawyers of the labyrinthine relationship between approximately 100 different organisations running things. There are now more passenger journeys on British railways than at any peacetime period since the 1920s. In the 70s, railways looked like they were finished despite the best efforts of Jimmy Savile. Now they are booming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 There are now more passenger journeys on British railways than at any peacetime period since the 1920s. In the 70s, railways looked like they were finished despite the best efforts of Jimmy Savile. Now they are booming. The population has grown as well. IMHO the worst aspect of privatisation was the decline of safety standards. However I think it's wrong to assume that taking it back into the public sector would be done to cure it's ills. Which would probably remain a constant irrespective of who owned them. By the way it's a well known fact that only dictatorships can run the trains on time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 There are now more passenger journeys on British railways than at any peacetime period since the 1920s. In the 70s, railways looked like they were finished despite the best efforts of Jimmy Savile. Now they are booming. The population has grown as well. IMHO the worst aspect of privatisation was the decline of safety standards. However I think it's wrong to assume that taking it back into the public sector would be done to cure it's ills. Which would probably remain a constant irrespective of who owned them. By the way it's a well known fact that only dictatorships can run the trains on time... Again, it's a double edged sword. Railtrack was a disaster. There was a lot of nest feathering going on at the time. All of the in-house BR expertise went private one way or another and then had to be hired back in. Railtrack was more interested in building shopping malls than maintaining infrastructure and had its eye off the ball. Now it is a different story. The rail network is safer than it has ever been - to a fault in some regards - but it comes at a very high cost. Population is higher but it was also growing as the railways declined in the sixties and seventies. There is a huge surge in rail usage - even rural branch lines all over the country. The figures below for Par on the GW main line in Cornwall are among the best but most routes are between 50% and 100% up on patronage in a decade. Most Cornish branch lines, which might all have perished under Beeching, are within this pattern. 20002-03 2011-12 Entries: 38,839 93,047 Exits: 39,336 93,047 Changes: 38,000 92,431 Total: 78,175 278,525 The trend has continued apace and goes far beyond allowance for population changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballaughbiker Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 the franchises don't own the rolling stock or the track for example Fair point but someone owns them. For instance Angel trains own the Pendolinos operated by Virgin/Stagecoach.Might one assume then that the People Railway will be happy to keep them in private ownership following re-nationalisation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 I think that's his plan, but he's making it up as he goes along at the moment. Of course one route maybe keep the current rollingstock but as they are gradually replaced the new stock could be publically owned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quilp Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 The recent disclosures in Lord Ashcroft's book, 'Call Me Dave', which describe Cameron's antic's whilst at university will raise Corbyn's ratings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 I doubt it. Anyone likely to vote for Corbyn wouldn't have been considering voting Tory in the first place. Corbyn has a certain appeal to a certain demographic. I don't think that includes swing voters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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