Should governments continue to pay for the railways as profits go to shareholders?

[trainspotting - karl.thornhill@gmail.com]

Depsite the privatization of railways, the governments continue to subsidize the industry allowing the private firms to make profit that they pass onto their shareholders.

Why should a private company recieve government funds while they continue to give their profits to their shareholders who live all around the world and dont pay uk taxes.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It is silly. Privatisation works when there is competition. You can see that in areas such as telecoms and air travel, where it's worked well. Less so in utilities. No point replacing a public monopoly with a private one.

 

[ijjysmith]

Hello mate, i'm not clued up on politics and that sort of thing but I do have a question.

Your name is Trainspotting and this is a thread about trains, do you actually do trainspotting?

And don't worry i'm not going to take the p*ss if you are, more just out of curiousity really.

 

[chrismpw]

it's not "silly" - it's wrong and corrupt - yet we accept it and keep voting for much of the same every election, whichever side you vote on.

Party Politics - diluting democracy since the Peloponnesian wars.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Book on this here

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Competition_in_the_Railway_Industry.html?id=VFy5TuUoWOcC

And a think tank reveals how it was all kinda cocked up.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-lack-of-competition-on-railways-8547714.html

Report author Tony Lodge has recommended the growth of "open access", which allows rival train operators to run services on the same track on which franchises work. At present, this system is only used in a handful of areas, but two non-subsidised operators, Grand Central and First West Hull on the East Coast Mainline, were found to help drive down fare hikes.
At stations where these two operators ran services, fare increases between 2007-12 were only 11 per cent against 17 per cent for the parts of the 393-mile line that were not open to competition. Mr Lodge has recommended setting up a unit within the Department for Transport, of which he is so critical, that would be dedicated to awarding open access contracts.

 

[HSD]

I don't really know much about railways, all I know is certain companies need to lower their blooming ticket prices.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I don't really know much about railways, all I know is certain companies need to lower their blooming ticket prices.

Not really much incentive for them to do so though is there? You can't use another company on the same route so you're only choice is to pay up or not use the railways. Kinda defeats the purpose of privatising it all.

I mean if you're flying somewhere, you often have the choice of a couple of airlines to go with, but nothing like that for railways.

 

[Blue 1]

Not really much incentive for them to do so though is there? You can't use another company on the same route so you're only choice is to pay up or not use the railways. Kinda defeats the purpose of privatising it all.

I mean if you're flying somewhere, you often have the choice of a couple of airlines to go with, but nothing like that for railways.

If you think the purpose was to improve the service rather than to line the pockets of whoever offered the ruling party of the day the most money/best post-office prospects, that is.

 

[HSD]

Not really much incentive for them to do so though is there? You can't use another company on the same route so you're only choice is to pay up or not use the railways. Kinda defeats the purpose of privatising it all.

I mean if you're flying somewhere, you often have the choice of a couple of airlines to go with, but nothing like that for railways.

True, a company shouldn't really have complete control over something like that though, it just isn't fair.

 

[Mrk]

It is silly. Privatisation works when there is competition. You can see that in areas such as telecoms and air travel, where it's worked well. Less so in utilities. No point replacing a public monopoly with a private one.

Agree. I always found the part-privatisation of the railways to be pretty futile, however I recently saw this which paints an interesting picture (Rail passengers by year):

 

[Bruce Wayne]

If you think the purpose was to improve the service rather than to line the pockets of whoever offered the ruling party of the day the most money/best post-office prospects, that is.

This isn't a well informed opinion, but the think tank guy in the Indy article I linked to seemed to think that the original privatization plans were designed to increase competition, reduce costs, improve service and all that.

Seems it got messed up somewhere along the line. No idea why.

 

[tsubaki]

In revenge for this outrageous attack on GOT by the railway community, I am going to railforums to post a thread asking them what they think of Neville's decision to leave.

 

[Bungle]

In revenge for this outrageous attack on GOT by the railway community, I am going to railforums to post a thread asking them what they think of Neville's decision to leave.

Way ahead of you here my friend

 

[tsubaki]

Way ahead of you here my friend

 

[Bungle]

They're a misberable bunch of bastards, someone questioned why I posted that on a railway forum, I advised them that Neville Neville was a station master for many years and the family grew up basically on the station.

Alas they removed both his and my comments and also the thread.