The train now departing is

[fallen-archie]

Running at 200% of capacity, I am and always have been fascinated by trains, from my early years watching the stanier Pacific’s charging up and down the west coast main line, to the arrival of diesels and then electrification! All of that happened under a nationalised railway system as did the Beeching axe which saw 1000s of miles of our rail system abandoned. Privatisation has brought with it problems of supply and demand as well as the normal pressures about paying shareholders an acceptable dividend. The ticketing system is flawed and season tickets are now so high that many resort to using cars and starting earlier and earlier. I remember when my annual season ticket into London cost me £900 it is now £3800, mind you we also bought our house for £57000 next door sold recently for £ 478,000, so on that basis the rise in season ticket prices seems reasonable.
Many of the problems come through having a system which is fragmented, the network and infrastructure remain largely in place public hands whilst The train companies Are privately operated. So who is responsible for expanding services and the network? Labour argues that the whole thing should be under public ownership, that as a result investment would be higher as would wages however ticket prices would be lower, sounds good until a decision has to be made about where and when investment should be made, with so many seeking funds from the public purse why would rail be given it above either health or defense? Then of course there is the unholy row that breaks out when investment is planned ie the Elizabeth Line in London and HS2 such schemed are warranted yet they are so expensive.
My view is that private rail can and does work in certain instances, rises in fares that are in line with inflation are justified, however the percentage of increase when above inflation needs to be seen to be improving things. There are also problems regarding the use of guards on trains, with most trains now fitted with cctv, and the monitoring of trains electronically one has to ask the question of why a guard is needed, if as suggested they retrained to become drivers they would earn more money and relieve the shortage of drivers that has caused so many problems. So where do we go next,our overpopulated island is under extreme pressure which won’t improve until we get the Star Trek transport system, beam me up scotty is the way to go, no car parks motorways ripped up to become wildlife corridors, heaven!

[upthecreekyetagain]

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@joe_bloggs* wrote:

I wonder if the privatised rail companies would survive without aid ?

"Britain’s privatised railways have been getting around £5 billion on average in government support over the last five years. In the last five years of the 1980s—the earliest period we have figures for before privatisation—it was an average of £1.6 billion in today’s money"

https://fullfact.org/economy/government-funding-rail-industry-bbcqt/

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You’re right of course - subsidies in real terms have increased, as have rail journeys.  What that figure doesn’t show is what proportion of those subsidies went to the train operators and what went to Network Rail which is the nationalised part of the system.

[joe_bloggs*]

"The government paid £5.7 billion worth of loans to Network Rail in 2016/17, which isn’t included in the government support figures."

[upthecreekyetagain]

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@joe_bloggs* wrote:

"The government paid £5.7 billion worth of loans to Network Rail in 2016/17, which isn’t included in the government support figures."

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Again true, but what about indirect subsidies via payments by the rail operators to use the system?

If the government subsidise the operators by £x billion and they then buy services from Network Rail with that money then who is being subsidised and by how much?

The rail system is in a mess, much caused by the rail operators and much by Network Rail.  The ticketing system is a mess, the timetables are a mess, the capacity is woeful.  It needs to be sorted - I just don’t see how anyone can believe politicians are the best people to sort out that mess.

Just look at some of the other privatisations - anyone remember BT when it was part of the GPO? - Would any right minded person really want them to be renationalised.

What about the docks, the closed shop with jobs passed from generation to generation - the frequent strikes, overmanning, lack of investment - again, what right minded person would want to go back to that?

As I said earlier, the rail system is in a mess but the idea that nationalisation would solve the problem is simply rubbish.

[joe_bloggs*]

Well all of those services we were assured would be cheaper and better,hasn't happened has it?

[upthecreekyetagain]

No they haven’t - what evidence do you have though that those promises would be fulfilled if the rail network were nationalised?

Do monopolies ever provide a better service at a lower price?

[joe_bloggs*]

Many other countries railways are state run,many delivering a faster and cheaper service,If they can do it so can we

[upthecreekyetagain]

And there are far more that aren’t and very few that have a wholly state owned monopoly which is successful.

It is the delivering of a faster, cheaper and more comfortable service that needs to be looked at and the best method of achieving that.  What is it that convinces you that the likes of either the Conservative or Labour parties would be able to run a successful railway system?   Where would the incentive to invest in the system come from?

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

A murder last night on the Guildford line I used every day for 7 yrs to get to and from school.  This is why I want guards on trains.  Maybe the situation could have been diffused before it came to fatal blows.  If it can happen in stockbroker-belt Surrey, nowhere is without risk.

[cee-dee]

It seems that they moved from carriage to carriage so would a "guard" have made any difference to that incident? They've got the bloke now.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

Quite possibly not, but I think knowing there is a guard on a train is more likely to curb attacks in general.  Certainly, a lone driver is powerless to help.  

[cee-dee]

Things are different than in "the old days". There is far, far more violence in society than in the heyday of the railways when guards were introduced. An old time guard was more like a guide helping people and signalling that all the (manual) doors were closed and the train was fit to depart. As an aside, my maternal grandfather was a guard!

[upthecreekyetagain]

Wasn’t there a guard on that train?

I use that line regularly and there always seems to be a guard - we’ve had numerous strikes by RMT over plans to remove them.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

Not sure, Creeky.  My point really is this sort of incident makes guardless trains a worry.  Yes, of course they cannot stop every attack, as, clearly they can only be in one place at a time, but they have a role to play in assisting passenger safety, IMV.  It is not just about closing doors, after all.

On my own on a quietish evening train, I’d choose to sit near the guard’s location.  I’ve had a couple of very near misses, where luck intervened to keep me safe.  I’m wary.  CCTV is all very well for investigations after the event, but it doesn’t provide help in the moment.

[fallen-archie]

As i get older I wonder what I would do if either confronted by or someone else was confronted by a knife wielding guy on a train, it happened to me once Ona train from Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth my oh and I were in a private cabin watching the world go by when the door opened and In came a guy with a knife looking for money, I stood up and looked down on him and told him to foxtrot Oscar closing the sliding door onto his hand, he dropped the knife and fled, i picked i the knife and handed it to the guard who had observed the guy but took no action, my oh continued filing her nails throughout! Now I am not suggesting that you should follow my lead but there are things you can do to protect yourself and those around you like showing solidarity with fellow passengers! Above all try and sit in a carriage that has plenty of other people in it which shouldn’t be difficult, the guard is not able to do much to help whereas your fellow passengers are!

[dark_castle1]

going to be late because of leaves on the line

[cee-dee]

Don't be daft, the leaves are all finished. The trains will be late this week because of the wrong type of snow.

[bankhaunter]

I remember back in the 80s when my journeys to and from London could only be described as 'interesting' especially the coming back which always seemed a bit of an adventure, not knowing when you might arrive or even if the last part of the journey would actually be by train. It was also unusual to have many other passengers also traveling to the same destination.

Now it is very ordinary with the train rarely anything but more or less on time and unlike the earlier days, very busy.