Posted on 05/11/2023 2:47:26 AM PDT by MalPearce
TransPennine Express to be brought under government control due to 'continuous cancellations' Recent data showed that TransPennine Express had cancelled one in six services during March. The blame for the disruption has been laid at the feet of drivers, a backlog of training and the need to reform working practices.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Forcing the conservative government (which in a past incarnation privatised the British rail system) to rescind the franchise.
Here's the thing. The Tory privatisation subsidises companies like First Group, Arriva and other private firms and this is at least the third time they've pocketed the money, run the service into the ground, and left the government with no option but to cancel the contract.
On one occasion a private company handed the franchise back to the government claiming they couldn't make it pay... Months before they were due to start repaying the bung from the government.
That franchise was temporarily put back under government ownership pending a new private company taking it over. The service improved, running costs plummeted, customer satisfaction soared.
So they privatised it again. Costs shot up, customer satisfaction went back down.
It isn't just leftist tankies saying privatisation has failed spectacularly now.
Tracey Brabin, a conservative leader in the area inflicted by Transpennine Express and Northern Rail debacles, is celebrating the termination of the franchise, and the Labour Party is saying that it's demonstrably cheaper (even in taxpayer money terms) to being the railway back under state ownership than prop up the failing private operators.
It gets weirder when you consider that the dogma of privatisation for the sheer hell of it resulted in the French and German state railways running British "private" franchises, and taking the subsidies and profits they got in the UK to prop up their own state owned rail services.
One for the conservatives here - if you agree with me that the problem isn't privatisation per se, but a model that is basically a n embezzlement wet dream, how would you propose to fix a privatised model that is demonstrably FUBAR? Britain needs the railways but the private sector can barely manage to run a mediocre service and even then seems to need so much subsidies to make it profitable that you might as well cut out the middle man and nationalise it.
And even die hard pro privatisation conservatives are now thinking the unthinkable.
First things first.
The UK is now controlled by its Deep State.
That needs to be sorted before anything can truly be fixed.
A government run train system slowly becomes a welfare program.
Okay, but let’s just say for arguments sake that if you say “deep state” to most Brits they think you’re talking about politicians in hock to private enterprises, not businesses in hock to government.
The Big Four accounting firms, the high street banks, hedge funds and other “too big to fail” businesses with Tory grandees on their boards.
Private health in the UK, stuffed to the brim with Tory politicians voting to line their own pockets.
A village pub that got millions of pounds of contracts from Boris’ government to supply PPE to the NHS when their business was actually in serving beer.
Private rail companies with Tory transport ministers as shareholders, accidentally forgetting to declare their commercial conflict of interest.
South West One, awarded a massive 10+ year contract. Major investor: the spouse of the guy who awarded the contract.
Let’s have a definition of “Deep State” that makes sense to the British taxpayer, first. Because without it, you might as well be saying ignore the problem in front of you, and focus on hypothetical lizard men from Arcturus.
What’s missing is COMPETITION
Giving it to one company is just the same as having the government run it. No incentive to make it actually work effectively. Just pocket the money and move on. No consequences for that, either.
That just make the cronyism visible to one company.
Give it to many companies, the one that saves the most money and provides the best service gets a bonus for all the employees.
But as a welfare program the British Rail system costs less to operate than it costs in private hands, which is an even bigger welfare scam.
The taxpayers are paying three times as much for tickets on the privatised services as they were paying before privatisation AND STILL coughing up the same amount in subsidies to keep those companies afloat.
In other words, privatisation only works when the overall subsidy (passenger+government) is triple the subsidy needed by the state owned the “operator of last resort”.
They’ve tried that. The rail fragmentation enabled dozens of companies to take on specific lines.
It failed.
Compare and contrast to British Telecom. They converted the state monolith into a private monopoly. BT operated for years without competition, services improved... But the advent of fibre broadband has flooded the market with competition forcing BT to up its game.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, eh...
From 3 years ago...
I flew from Philly into Manchester airport early on a Sunday morning for a 4-day business trip in 2012 and had to take two trains to get to my destination in Hull.
After the first train (I don’t remember what train line it was, but it was a very nice and comfortable train and had booked reserved seating) I had to get off in Sheffield and get on a TransPennine for the last leg. There was no reserved seating on the TransPennine and it was horribly overcrowded and uncomfortable.
Halfway thought an announcement was made (one that I barely understood) that we would be transferred to buses at the next stop as the rail line was under repair. It would have been nice to know this ahead of time.
We had to lug our luggage several blocks and up a large steep flight of stairs to get to the bus where a porter literally grabbed out bags from us and threw them into the bus’s luggage compartment.
The bus made several stops along the way including one for the bus driver to take an extended smoke break. At least he was “kind” enough to invite any other smokers to join him.
I had hired a car to take me from the last train station on my trip to my hotel and by now I was nearly 45 minutes late. Fortunately, the driver waited for me. I know tipping isn’t as customary in the UK, but I gave him a nice tip for waiting for me.
On my return trip back to Manchester airport, I cancelled the train tickets and I hired a car as I didn’t feel I could depend on TransPennine to get me to the airport on time and feared I might miss my flight.
There must have been no incentives to succeed
Giving it to one or many is the same thing if there is no incentives to succeed and no consequences for failure
Oh, they had incentives alright. I can’t remember which firm it was (Arriva or First Group probably) that handed back the franchise before its contractual due payment to the government... After posting decent profits. If they hadn’t had huge subsidies they would’ve posted losses.
The consequences of failure are nonexistent. If anything, losing a franchise and the subsidies needed to make it profitable doesn’t hurt the company at all. Bailing out can actually reduce risk.
Which is the purpose of this thread. Over many decades the political right in Britain has attempted multiple approaches to privatisation in all manner of sectors like gas, water, airlines, telecoms, steel. The industry that just cannot. EVER seem to stand on its own two feet in private hands without enormous subsidies is the rail system. The UK has been trying to keep it commercial for decades.
In effect the only reason they keep trying to privatise it and chunk it so different firms run different lines, despite having to constantly take back the franchises into public management is a dogged determination to prove that a fragmented market really can run a competitive, modern railway in a small country like ours.
I don’t think the franchise model can work. Maybe a single train operating country could be profitable without subsidies, but can ten or twenty different operators do it? Obviously, no.
It might make sense to do what Labour pitch - bring ended franchises into the “operator of last resort” and eventually privatise that. But if history repeats itself, the service will improve, and costs will come down.
Back to square one. The people will say the only thing that’ll happen if we privatise it (for the third if not fourth time) will be, same as before... the private companies will demand subsidies because it just isn’t profitable if broken up, pocket the subsidies, degrade the service, squeeze a profit for a couple of years. In other words, balls it all up yet again.
Not unless the private train company’s owners have the freedom to adjust fares accordingly. Any kind of government control on fares would be a death knell. And, you know the government would be heavy-handed on the fares allowed to be charged.
Agreed. Was just there (first time) last month. Took in the sights, and did a bit of genealogical sleuthing. Big Brother’s eye is everywhere.
Under government control I could go from near Scotland to near Dover on an open return for £80.
Under the privatised service the same tickets cost £260.
Now it’s back in the last resort umbrella, it’s £160 at short notice and under £100 if booked in advance.
Subsidies and costs haven’t changed. The rolling stock is the same. The only thing we’re missing (or not!) is a markup so ludicrous it got cheaper to fly to anywhere in western Europe than take a 400 mile round trip to London by train.
It was so expensive I started getting trains to London on a Sunday and staying full board in a London hotel because it was cheaper than getting the first train.
Sounds like it’s not privatization at all, it sounds like it’s half private/half socialized, in this case half a loaf is worse than no loaf at all.
And that’s exactly why the government would step in and put controls on pricing, as outlined in my previous comment. But remember, the subsidies come from the taxpayers. Don’t get me wrong...I like low prices even if someone else is paying it. I hate that you’re getting stuck though. Hey...remember Freddy Lakers’ Skytrain? Those were the days.
We’re in Charlotte. Our oldest daughter is Army and has been at two different posts in Virginia the last 3 years or so. The drives were 5-6 hours. She and her husband and “The Grandkids” are moving to FT Bragg next month.
Grandma HAS TO SEE the grandkids on a regular basis, so I’ve been putting her on a plane most of the time. We bank airmiles just for that purpose. A RT ticket to Virginia is usually 12.5 to 20,000. I checked the airmile fares to Fayetteville...38-40,000. Dollar prices were around $400! Bear in mind, we’re a 2.5 hour drive from Fayetteville. A flight is an hour (not including drop off and pickup time. Maybe airmile/$$ prices will drop because they do fluctuate.
So, I started casting about for alternatives. Bus was $47 with a 5 hour trip. Train was $53 with a 9 hour trip!
Looks like Grandma will be driving to see “The Grandkids”!
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