I live in LDN and need to get to Leicester often - it's a 50 minute fast train, or a 1.30hour slow train. It's often quoted as the single highest rail fare in Europe, and if you buy it on the day, it could cost you up to £130. Absolute madness.
While I hate British Rail (and yes I'm old enough to have been on them) I do want to know how these train companies can justify their prices. It's because while it's privatised it's also been monopolised. If you want to get from a to b you have one choice of company.
As an Austrian I always thought we have the best rail company with ÖBB in the world when it comes to passenger transport, but then I finally went to Japan and oh boy, they are on another level. And years later (about 5 years ago) I went to the UK and oh boy, they are on another level - just in the opposite direction.
i went to japan and shanghai, and while tokyo and kyoto's metro were great compared to anywhere in the UK, i have to admit the shanghai & beijing metro were nicer imho. there are not enough carriages for the metro in tokyo, i've never been so squashed in my life during rush hour and then you can't move to even leave the metro at your stop when it's that packed. shanghai one even during rush hour was not packed anything like that, and it was far cheaper. you could travel loads of stops and it only costs like 2p each time in shanghai. in tokyo it's like £3.50 or more for a few stops. i guess also the shanghai and beijing metro carriages being newer helps a bit too. if it was compared to an actual longer train journey from city to city, i liked the experience more for the journey from tokyo to kyoto in japan, when it's not like a 1st class ticket. it was really fast and there was enough space - really great experience. the shanghai to beijing train is usually packed at peak holiday times, sometimes people with boxes of eggs lol. however, you will always have a reserved seat and there is lots of space in 2nd class seats for that train. the space you have in 2nd class for a way cheaper ticket for the shanghai to beijing train compared with the edinburgh to kings cross is astonishing. it's about 3x more leg room compared to the train to london, and way cheaper, about £20 for a bigger distance too. and the 1st class seats for these trains are some of the nicest ones i've experienced, and it's still very affordable, in fact the 1st class journey was cheaper than the economy journey from tokyo to kyoto. i think the nationalisation of the railways and how cheap the tickets are for really nice leg room and seating on the most popular journeys, make it near impossible to argue for privatisation. also how fast the service improved... disregarding personal political opinions, something is going right with the amazing expansion of railway travel over there.
@@samw5924 i would argue china's metro (shanghai/beijing) is far better and more affordable. their direct from shanghai to beijing in 1st class is cheaper than the japan equivalent for economy, and it is also better imo. if you disregarded the price in japan, then i liked japan's long journey trains better than the ones i had in china. but they were far closer than i would have ever imagined before i went there. it seems they are improving fast, and it's very affordable. however i loved that tokyo had more lines. it seems like tokyo could have been far the best, but things like the plaza accord have really made their progress in a lot of areas come to a halt for a few decades now. i hope things change soon.
What profit. It's loss making. Running at a £16 billion at last count. On Some unprofitable welsh lines, it would be cheaper for the government to pay for taxis.
Now I ain't British. But as someone who visited England last year it was a fascinating experience seeing the massive difference in price that existed in England and Scandinavia Germany. I think it was during 22 summer that Germany had a pass that cost 20 euros or something and could give you free transport anywhere in Germany for entire summer. Meanwhile a 4 hour train ride from a large English city to a mid sized English city would have cost me 100 pounds. The price difference is ridiculous
And the difference is made up for by taxpayers in Germany, who pay in part for a ticket...even if they never use the railway, ever. Upfront costs are cheaper, just like the NHS in the UK is "free". At the end of the day someone, somewhere, pays.
The main problem with the privatisation is that there is no competition. If I want to go from A to B at a particular time there is only one company I can use. So it is effectively a monopoly.
So in other words they arent really privatised at all. The government has such a tight grip that what we actually have is a nationalised rail system with subcontractors.
@@kelly4187 They are privatised, because they get to keep the profits if they make them (and some operators do - not all the franchises went bust in normal times).
@@almostanengineer Railways formulate natural monopolies, in essence this means it's difficult to introduce competition. Here from the OECD: "In essence natural monopolies exist because of economies of scale and economies of scope which are significant relative to market demand. Natural monopolies are thought to exist in some portions of industries such as electricity, railroads, natural gas, and telecommunications. Because productive efficiency requires that only one firm exist, natural monopolies are typically subject to government regulation. Regulations may include price, quality, and/or entry conditions."
@@kelly4187 It is impossible to nationalize railways. Private companies can't be trusted to not crash their trains into another company's trains. That's why the Gov has to own and operate the signals and tracks. This is also why privatization just created 4-5 monopolies. Privatising the railways was, is, and always will be impossible. It should never have been attempted. And this is all before we even talk about the rolling stock companies which own the actual trains and lease them to operators. There would be competition between those rolling stock companies, but tracks can only accommodate certain types of trains (diesel, electric overhead, third rail etc). So the "privatisation" just created 2 layers of monopolies which run on tax payer money.
Spending and saving don't have to be incompatible - you just have to think in the long term. Invest money in new technology to save on the costs of running a line. But what also needs to be remembered is that investment in lines leads to a better, more attractive service, which leads to increased passenger numbers. That's exactly what happened with the Overground, but that's only one of many examples one could cite.
The trouble is that rail does not scale well. The most used routes are already full and it is impossible to build major new railways in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost - Just look at HS1/HS2.
@@SmileyEmoji42 With HS2 becoming the main north-south high speed route, capacity on existing routes can increase (if high speed is removed). The reason it has not scaled well is we mix high and low speed rail. With the correct decisions this can be overcome.
@@CyclingSteve I've worked on train scheduling software designed to get maximum track utilisation. Trust me. The main limiting factor compared to road transport is that you can't easily go around another train or go a different route. HS2 has been so politicaly painful that no government is going to want to do any more of that.
Can we pause for a second...did privatisation CAUSE rail passenger numbers to go up, or is it merely a correlation? Was there always going to be an increase regardless of the privatisation?
I think mostly correlation. The UK population has risen about 18% since 1990, mostly in the cities. So I imagine that plays a part. Also, commuting to work became a bigger part of British life as jobs moved away from industrial zones to city centres. There’s probably other factors too. But those are the big ones to my mind.
@@patchpeek so increased funding resulted in greater usage? But no where in that explanation is it necessary for that investment to be private as opposed to public (or a combination of the two)
I lived in Spain for a few years, their transport is publicly owned. Strange then that their trains were always on time and some of the cheapest in Europe. The fact of the matter is that Britain is a mismanaged country- not just in terms of rail but most things. Why is fuel more expensive here than on the continent? Alcohol? Housing? That's what Tory rule for 40 of the last 53 years have done to this country.
I have to agree. I lived in Spain for 33 years. I went back last year and wanted to try the fast service Barcelona/Madrid. Just a couple of hours and excellent service. The pricing was based on the times so you could look up and get a really cheap ticket by travelling off peak. It’s so successful that the airline service between the two cities is less and less used.
Funny how Spain has recently allowed a host of privatized operators to use the rail system ie Iryo. You clearly have an ideological hatred of the Tory party and blame every Ill in the country on them. As to fuel being more expensive that is due to the higher tax take by the government, can’t see Labour reducing that. Housing well that is the lack of available land something France and Spain do not need to be concerned about in relative terms. If you look at higher density countries like the Netherlands and Germany then property is equally costly. Try understanding the issues in greater depth rather than just knee jerk political hatred.
@@neilboulton9813 there is no need for ideological hate,simply take the last 13 years of tory goverment,nhs is breaking,cost of living,strikes,economic decline,rivers and coast full of sewage,the list is endless.if you still vote tory,you are lost.
@@neilboulton9813 You've nullified your own argument with your very 1st statement. *Recently* being the key word. Even then, you don't seem to understand your own argument. Spain has opened up their railways, but it's not anywhere near as privatised as Britain. No more than 1% of all routes are privatised. Renfe (Spain's public operator) still has a monopoly. If these new contractors fail to meet the expected service, Renfe will take over those services. In fact, most recently, Renfe announced a free travel scheme for short to medium train journeys. *When was the last time* you heard of Nothern or Virgin offering such a scheme? Re fuel- well done for answering the rhetorical questions and proving my point exactly. Higher taxation when France for eg is providing fuel subsidies. The Tories could do that, but they choose not to. As for housing in Germany being equally costly- that is disingenous to say the least. Germany has rental caps and as a quick look, lets compare housing in Berlin vs London. Source: Numbeo. Rentals for a one bed flat slap bang in the middle of London is near as makes no difference £2k. Berlin? Just over half that. You can thank the Tories for the mini budget as those figures are set to increase. So for someone who is advising me to understand the issues better, I don't think you're best qualified to give that advice by any measure. As for your accusation, well you're right- I despise a party that deports Windrush people to their country of heritage due to the colour of their skin. Imagine if white Americans were deported back to Britain? A party that calls a divisive referendum without a plan. A party that has been in power for over a decade while blaming the EU, immigrants, disabled, poor and Labour (who haven't been in power of course). A party that doesn't give our NHS workers workers a pay rise while kleptocracy benefits people like Mone to the tune of £29m. £29m pays for 55000 nurses. So yes atleast in that regard, you're quite right, but my 'hatred' is well justified. You are of course incorrect to call it 'knee-jerk'. As a counter accusation, you come across as a Tory member who refuses to take responsibility for the fact that Britain's problems are largely down to the party that has been in power the majority of the time. So much for personal responsibility eh?
The UK Govt since the 50s ( both Parties) have been about short term profit, minimal investment. We used to have a network of railway lines running to virtually ever village and large industrial complex in the UK. How easy it would have been to go carbon neutral if still the case. Electric or hydrogen driven trains not only doing away with cars and truck convoys, but people and freight literally being delivered door to door. I remember Nationalised Red Star Parcels back in the 50s and 70s. You could deliver large loads to you nearest station and guaranteed it would be available for collection from another station withing 48 hours. Interesting that Auty Maggie smashed the Unions and broke up Nationalised Services to end constant strikes. Remind me again how Privatisation has brought reliability and affordability to our travelling experience ?
I do believe that Beechin (Labour) wrote a report that closed many railway lines because they were unprofitable, ie people who didnt use them were subsidising those that did through their taxes which the Government then used to subsidise British Rail - as it was. Anyone who was a regular or iregular user of British Rail did not object to privatisation, and anyone who can remember British Rail would not want to go back to that. You do realise Maggie was elected mainly because she said she was going to break the hold that trade uions had on everyones everday life. Your reminsnce of Red Star Parcels means you were either very lucky or your rose tinted glasses need replacing - I had the opposite experience. Despite living within 500 yds of a railway station I prefered to drive or use the busses, the bus always turned up, the seats were always usable and the conductors were always friendly, a far more reliable and pleasant and convenient experience.
@@Willywin If you had read the first line of my post, you would have noticed I said that both political parties were historically at fault for the mess we are now in. Perhaps you would like to answer the question I ask at the end, as to how we are in no better situation than had the railways system remained owned by us the tax payer. I stand by my view on the Red Star parcel service and only wish it still existed. Thank you for your deeply insightful comment.
@@Willywin beeching wanted to reconfigure for shipping container freight. Lines he wanted to keep and invest in like the varsity line were pulled up by transport minister earnest maples(whose concrete company had a contract for the motorways and didn't want the expense of bridges over railway lines) are now being put back at great expense. Maples managed to blame beeching fir closures even though maples was closing lines against advice.
@@Willywin i remember british rail (it was privatised in 92/93 I think ? it was ok I went all over britain on a limited budget you could not do it today willy loser
Missing a big important point here! While yes the railways were privatised, the UK government actually ended up spending way more money and investing a whole lot more into them than they ever did under British Rail and nationalisation, which is likely the reason why ridership has increased so much - not much to do with privatisation at all.
In addition to that, I’d assume the biggest reason for the increase in ridership is simple sociological changes with growing cities, congestion, lower proportions of people learning to drive etc.
The current privatised model is vastly superior to the previous British Rail Take it from someone who has traveled on British Rail when they were a thing.
I really don’t think it is, the privatised model is fatally flawed, whereas British Rail was significantly underfunded and poorly managed but the core model was better than the private model.
This misses the real reason why UK trains are terrible. The service is non existent outside of major cities. Arguing over public/private is moot when there is no track in the first place. My town of about 13,000 people used to have a train station. That closed under Beeching and the track was built over so now it can't be replaced. The nearest station is an hour by bus away. Once you get there, you can go east to London, or west to Weymouth. However at Weymouth the line ends for absolutely no reason. If you wanted to go further west to Exeter, you would have to head east and go around, adding like an extra hour or so onto the journey again. So of the three directions it's possible to go (south is the sea), they covered one of them! Well done! So if I wanted to use public transport to get to Exeter, it would take me over 4 hours. I can get a boat to France in that time. It saddens me to think that 100 years ago, the public transport was actually faster than it is today, and probably quicker than driving too because our traffic and road infrastructure is so poor too. I went on holiday to Germany recently. I used the train there more in that week than I have done in the UK in my whole lifetime. That's how little use they are.
The impact of the beeching cuts has never been properly acknowledged or addressed. Bus services were never going to match the capacity of previous rail lines, but even less so when we've had Conservative governments consistently opposed to spending significantly on public transport. They have always been intent on supporting more traffic on the roads and "self-accountability" over solutions that are better for the environment, support "Levelling up" of deprived communities, and boost the economy. And besides all of that, it's clear that the road system will become ever more usuable as time goes on, unless the government actually fixes the railway network and expands it.
You don't pay taxes in Germany so it is unreasonable to compare ticket prices. When using rail abroad you are essentialy spongeing off the foreign taxpayers.
@@SmileyEmoji42 Nah, he was just returning the favour that the German government bestows upon it's citizens who use the German rail network which is funded partially by the revenues generated from the German state rail provider's ownership of various rail franchises in the UK and the sky high ticket prices that British rail travellers pay...
Britain si slowly coming to terms with the idea that some services, like transport, energy, health, education, are things that improve quality of life, economic potential and cannot be run profitably if they are to be run well. And that's totally fine, they're an INVESTMENT in the country, in the future. A Private company, however benevolent it says it is, always tries to make the most money and will cut corners to get there. It's either low fares, or high quality of service, you can't have both, it never happens, except in the dreams of ultra liberals who think they'll solve a country's economy by selling off it's infrastructure. Short-mindedness at it's best.
Of course i'm not implying that public run transport has to have high fares, it just costs more, but that cost is paid for through taxes mostly, while fares remain low or free (the way germany has recently implemented it)
That's not completely true. Privatisation only works very well for in-demand routes. In scenarios like these, it does a great job. But as for a whole system privatisation doesn't work well.
Slowly? Health and education have been free and provided by government since at least the second world war. UK health system is much more centrally government run than the European average.
What the hell are you talking about, you serious? Everything is privatized in Switzerland even health, go to NHS in UK and wait 1 month to get an appoinment they even don't check you, they see you as a drain on resources because they don't make any profit from it And what education you prefer private of runned by state? What health service you preffer, Private or runned by State? What transport you prefer, private or runned by State? Even energy sector is runned by private companies because if it was runned by state the energy you consume would be super expensive and less efective. Even medical license is important because no comapany will even try to create medicine,if some company can easily just copy the recipe and make it no company will invest in the medicine Most of the medicine you accept that helps you survive are because there is a profit Cmon man
Trouble is, if you allowed private companies to choose what routes to keep ... pretty much the ones which don't make money which means more rural and remote ones. The higher volume ones would only be left and these probably the most profitable. So to make any money, private operators cut costs which means no upgrades and running everything until it breaks.
But also, as we found out with Beeching, closing those rural lines would mean the profitable lines get less profitable. Because all of a sudden, people who used the rural lines to go ride the profitable lines can no longer do so, so drive instead of trying to take the train.
That's not how the UK Rail franchise agreements work. Operators do not get to choose what routes to operate as they are baked into the contracts that these companies sign in order to operate these services, for instance, Govia Thameslink Railway t/a Southern Railways simply cannot just choose to cease operating services on the "Newhaven Marine Branch line" at a whim, instead they must go to the government and seek permission and then go though a long and expensive 11 page process before they can actually stop running trains hence the term "Ghost" or "Parliamentary Train Service" because it is cheaper to operate non-advertised trains than try to discontinue service. There is also the fact that many rural-services were in decline under British Railways starting in the 1960s under the Beeching Cuts and they never ended with most of the lines closed since "privatisation" having had planned closures for over a decade with no private company willing to invest in these rural services because of the "Atlas Shrugged effect" (see the § in the book where Dagny Taggart operated trains in the PR of Mexico before nationalisation)
I think you need to take a history lesson on what happened just after the UK rail network was nationalised. The rail network was actually better when it was privatised originally
I never understood the competition thing - when I am waiting for a train, my first thought isn't "I'll wait for a TransPennine instead of this Avanti that's waiting right here." I want to get on a train and get to my destination. This leads on to route weirdness - travelling from Liverpool to Wilmslow I can get a ticket that's valid either via Manchester or Crewe, but not both. They take broadly the same amount of time, and are broadly similar in price. Or travelling from Northampton to Liverpool I found it was significantly cheaper to get off the train that was going to Manchester, buy a new ticket, wait 20 minutes and get the next train via a slightly different route. You couldn't buy that ticket combo online (as one ticket), I had to go to the ticket office in my 20 minute stopover. Maybe, just maybe, this new plan will simplify things for passengers. But I'm not holding my breath.
The competition is mostly for the franchise contracts, which is not a bad idea, but the way it's set up in this country is the wrong way around. In most of western Europe, private railway operators run under 'concessions', where they get a fixed fee to run services well for a while, with bonuses or penalties if they fail to meet certain targets.
It sounds a lot like the US Amtrak train. It’s partially public and partially private. They are forced to have certain routes but also are trying to make a profit as a for profit organization.
amtrack is full public a "federaly chartered cooperation" but its suposted to be run like its private with like a CEO and board and everything but they are all picked by the government. well its ended up with a lot of issues. fares through the roof ts cheaper to fly or even just drive then take the train. and they are also straight up running out of trains. no investment leads to unprofitability with leads to no investment. but it's up to the government to make that first step and spend some money on it to allow it to work.
@@nick4506 The Americans hate the train. They hate Amtrak, hate not wasting the earth's resources if they don't use aircraft or a car. Self from start to finish. I saw a video on YT that showed that over 50% of travellers on Amtrak are tourists!!!
@@Demun1649 we have 40x the land mass of the UK. We can't cover it all in trains & they wouldn't be used like they are in Europe unless we forced people to live in even more centralized locations.
@@bbbbbbb51 It used to be covered in trains, and populations are already centralized enough to make some routes super viable. You can keep using cars especially as rural areas are better served by them, but having the option to take a train is optimal.
@@bbbbbbb51 You do force people to live in places they don't want to live., The First Nations, the indigenous peoples, the first and only real Americans get forced to live on reservations, and treated as if they are in prison. As to using trains? The average American sees trains as an equalising measure, therefore not part of an Americans lifestyle. Go by train, not wasting the earth's resources, not producing palnet destroying pollution, sharing a carriage with people of different cultures and colour, not the sortt of thing a WASP would willingly do. Americans prefer to use petrol guzzling monster engines that do not just use unneccesary fuel but also pollute the atmosphere. It is their right to destroy the countryside if they can or want to do so.
Yes, but a careful liberalization has been proven to work. For example in Italy a liberalization of trains led to better service, lower prices AND bigger profits for the public train company (less market share, less margin per ticket, but a market that has expanded so much that the extra number of users more than makes up for it) . But it was done in such a way that unprofitable bits have remained entirely nationalized, to avoid what has happened in the UK. Only high volume and profitable tracts have the private sector in it, and literally everyone is happier for it. I'd say this is the one case where the liberalization has actually been a win for everyone involved. My guess is that since we did that AFTER you fucked up, we learned from your mistakes. Too bad your own government didn't.
Also the fact that trains in Italy are massively better than before, doesn't mean they're good :p just try to travel by train in Lombardia and get ready to wait through 2 hours delays. Before it was much worse tho.
Businesses only care about the money. If the customers wishes overlap with huge margins, customers are lucky, if not there is no other way for them to use any kind of public transportation in this case. You can see this with the American healthcare system. Businesses are only good at acquiring a lot of money in a short time span, but that’s not what we want. The government should just be better at dealing with those essential, public goods and services.
trains are natural monopolies anyways (Peter Thiel) and so competition is not really possible. the only that it does is worsen the experience for the end user in terms of tickets or interchange coordination or even new routes prioritisation. they need to proper nationalise it.
"The inability to cope with major change, combined with increasing competition from other modes of transport eventually led to massive financial failures for JNR." (Kim & Huang 2020) "How can we maintain the incentive for a TO unit to improve its cost efficiency in a vertical integration system? Pittman (2011) and Mizutani et al. (2009) have suggested possible methods: horizontal separation and incentive regulations.8 According to Pittman (2011), competitive pressures can be produced in two ways under horizontal separation. First, the competition for parallel, origin, and destination corridors can occur among multiple (vertically integrated) railway companies. Second, competition can occur between various modes such as automobiles, air, and seaborne transport." (Nakamuraa & Sakaib 2020) Just a few references: E. Nakamuraa & H Sakaib (2020). Does vertical integration facilitate coordination between infrastructure management and train operating units in the rail sector? Implications for Japanese railways. Elseveir. C. J. Kim & M. C. Huang 2020. THE PRIVATIZATION OF JAPAN RAILWAYS AND JAPAN POST: WHY, HOW, AND NOW. ADBInstitute. No. 1039
Agree natural monopoly. But that doesn't automatically mean worse experience. There is zero incentive for improvement under nationalisation. The quality of rolling stock improved hardly at all in the 25 years pre privatisation Vs the 25 years since for example. As they show in this video's graph, the volume of passengers has increased hugely.
@@danielwebb8402 the number of passangers has increased with the number of urban residents. Also how do the train companies change the quality of the trains themselves?
@Stixin st Because they buy them. Order them. How do you change the quality of your TV? Buying a new one rather than keeping the old one / buying identical replacement.
I used to dislike overcrowding until I went to Beijing and experienced their morning rush hour... After that, I have no more complaints regarding overcrowding here in the UK.
It would be interesting to evaluate how the renationalisation of the railways in Scotland and Wales has impacted performance/operations compared against the quasi-private system in England. Also, how this relates to Network Rail (which is UK wide and operates the signalling and maintains the rails) e.g. Scotrail currently aren’t on strike but when Network Rail decides to go on strike, services are disrupted/limited.
Quasi-private isn't really the word I'd use. More like quasi-public. Ever since franchising collapsed during the pandemic, the rail operator companies have basically controlled by and subsidised by the government - something that's expected to continue once the GBR thing gets underway.
Having recently moved to Scotland we think Scotrail is far better than anything English especially the dismal Northern Rail (Fail). Same with NHS Scotland. But can Scotland afford it?
@@aaroncousins4750 it’s devolved so it comes out of Scotland’s fixed budget (e.g. Scotland can’t spend more than they receive in tax and Barnett consequentials)
I’m from Wales and the trains and railways suck just as bad constant delays and cancellations are often. Only thing i would say journeys are not too expensive I guess, a ticket to London where I’m from would cost about £44 now (just checked, been about 9 months since I used a train).
Think you missed a key point here about the current NRC contracts indemnifying all losses for the TOCs. This means that the TOC is still paid even if they are unable to run the service- strikes, broken trains, staff shortages etc. This is why Avanti have come under a lot of scrutiny lately.
@@tudalex Train Operating Companies (rail franchise holders). Since some are foreign state sector companies, it's socialism by proxy with UK government subsidizing profits.
As an American who visited the UK in May 2022, I used the train system to visit all the places on my list. My experiences were not bad at all. My first trip from Southampton to York required only one change and the connecting train was on time with a wait time of about 10 minutes. I subsequently travelled on to Scotland and then back down to Chester, Exeter, Penzance, Winchester and London. Only once was there delay of more than 15 minutes. The trains were clean enough and comfortable. The ticket price seemed a bit steep but you can save if you book ahead of time online. In the USA, no one travels by train except for people who live in the NYC area. So I am not an expert in train amenities and performance. I suppose being a tourist is one thing, and a regular commuter another, but I found the train personnel very helpful and the service not bad. Overall, I would give the British trains a mark of at least B.
@@syzl___ I wasn't including city subway systems. I was referring to inter city travel above ground travel, like the travel mentioned in my comment. Amtrak exists but I hear it is very expensive. Personally, I don't know a soul who has used Amtrak. I live in Florida. When I lived in New York state, I would occasionaly take the train to NYC but that was in the 1960"s and 70's
@@maginot2u I'm an American (from Oregon) who now lives in the UK. I think the UK system seems a lot nicer by comparison with what we have in America, so moving here it was like wow this isn't bad, but on a world standard - having now travelled through central Europe by train - the UK trains don't even compete. Its all matter of perspective I think.
At last someone talking sense! The UK railway is nowhere near as bad as most here are saying. Yes there are problems but there are issues on all the European railways too. I've been on most and none are perfect. The fast French trains are great but very expensive and a huge scar was inflicted on the countryside to accommodate the new tracks.
@@rowanpdx I agree. I live in Scotland and like yourself have experienced railways in numerous countries. When I was last in Europe I experienced a lot of delays and cancellations. It was peak summer and the systems in several countries were not coping with the volume of passengers.
British people like to hate Britain, hence this video from a British channel hating Britain. It's for the clicks. The trains aren't the best, but they're also not anywhere near as awful as they're being portrayed. Some are stupidly expensive, I agree, but I can travel from my city to central London for £10 on a brand new train. It takes 90 mins to 2 hours depending on the service. It's cheaper than by car, and faster than by car which would take about 3 hours once you hit congestion.
The very first 'fact' you state is that '[privatisation] has massively increased passenger numbers and increased investment'. A shocking misrepresentation of correlation vs causation.
the ridiculous truth is its not the private sector's fault. Privatization works on paper but it cannot achieve it's full potential due to over politicizing and strict anti-competition regulations so the basic answer is the railways were never truly privatized or nationalized just an unhealthy mix of both
I study in Cambridge but my family lives in Manchester so I regularly pay £65 to see my loved ones. I often have 2-3 changes and it is supposed to take 4.5 hours, but delays and such means I usually end up travelling for 6 hours, longer if a delay means missing my change. Split save cuts it down to £55 ish but then I have zero flexibility and can easily end up stranded somewhere due to train cancellations (I often end up changing route on the day to save time etc). I love public transport when it’s done right; intra city transport in Manchester and Paris, for example, are great. But paying so much for an unnecessarily long and incredibly unpleasant journey, and having no other choice if I wanna go home and see family and friends is so frustrating. I was once standing the whole journey from Manchester to Leeds, then half the journey from Leeds to Stevenage, which in my opinion is just not acceptable when you’re paying £65 for a ticket. Trying to get my license and a car ASAP but being a student and this cost of living crisis isn’t helping things at all. Welp.
The biggest takeaway from your comment (especially because you're not alone in your situation) Is that the sheer expense of rail travel in Britain forces people who would otherwise have no reason to get a car, to get one. We have so many people who feel like they have no other option but to get a car and join the rush hour on motorways, because that's still better than rail travel that is both expensive and insanely unreliable. Sorry to hear about your conundrum.
As someone from East Anglia, It saddens me how badly connected the UK rail is on East-West Axis. There’s only two lines between London and Sheffield going East-West and both aren’t electrified. Grantham-Nottingham-Derby line which is a rural line somewhat Peterborough-Leicester-Birmingham line which is probably at or overcapacity as it’s also an important freight line connecting Felixstowe to Birmingham. The Beeching cuts sadly dismantled the line between Cambridge and Oxford which was actually a terrible mistake in hindsight as it’s one of the lines trying to be revived. Going to any town south of Leicester requires you to change at London if you wanna go east-west which is tricky since there’s also no East-West equivalent to the Thameslink which goes North-south. :/
£65, luxury. I live near Horsham and my family lives in Salford. For me to visit them by train costs around £120 return compared to around £60 in fuel to drive. I wonder why the UK has some of the most congested roads in Europe.
@@TheDion56 Don't expect people to know facts before forming an opinion. Especially if the fact clearly explained to them isn't consistent with their pre point of view.
@@TheDion56 thatcher didn’t scrap the rail becuase even she knew that was too far, and then it happened anyways. Welcome to the toxic British consciousness that has infected them. Don’t need the EU; don’t need public rails, don’t need NHS, and now they’re fucked
Another big factor is the inertia of the British people themselves. In the face of terrible levels of service at rip-off prices, they are simply prepared to accept it. You see this with housing too. Terrible quality at huge expense. Keeping unprofitable lines open, and even opening new ones, is not merely serving a social good either. Doing so results in positive cost externalities (indirect economic benefits), which are rarely factored in. But really, the British will continue to accept the degradation in their living standards (even celebrating it in some twisted form of stoicism). In a sense, they deserve to suffer.
You know, when you have a GBP (Great British Public, not the pound) that believes in such massive lies as "The British Empire was a positive force for civilisation", "We can rightfully claim as ours territories that are 8,000 km away" or "The EU and foreigners are to blame for all our problems", then it's much easier to make that Public swallow smaller lies such as "Privatisation will benefit workers and transport users". It might help if those people could develop thinking skills superior to those of a three year-old toddler...
I worked for a private ambulance company, and the exact same franchising problem is happening in the NHS. Private companies are overselling their ability to provide a particular service (in my case, non-emergency ambulance transport), taking as much profit from hospitals as possible while they have the contract, only to fail and fail hard, before handing the contract to someone else who goes on to do the same. It's been going on almost as long as the trains, but hardly anyone realises. It's one of the reasons the NHS is spending so much money whilst the service remains so poor.
This outsourcing nonsense is ruining the NHS. So why doesn't it stop? It's always to do with money. In this case there is a profit going to someone who owns the private ambulance company and likely doesn't use the NHS.
I remember this happening. British Rail were never great - I remember it being a running joke that they were always late - but even then, every man on the street knew that privatising it wouldn't work - turning an essential service into a business is never a good idea. Every other country that has nationally owned railways does it a lot better than we do. We now have a situation where certain trips cost a lot more than one of equivalent distance (and ridiculously so if you need to travel during "peak times") just because they happen to be popular, and as a result, we have the most complicated, and least cost effective, ticket pricing system I have ever seen - and buying a ticket on the day (like you can in every other country I've ever been to) is the worst way to travel by train, unless your employer is paying for it.
It’s also a bit sad the UK is also kinda subsidising the Netherland’s rail network as Abellio (A subsidiary of Netherland’s state owned rail operator) used to be a major stakeholder in 4/17 of the UK’s rail franchises and they were big ones as well- East Anglia, Scot rail, East and West Midlands. They just recently lost Scotrail to the scottish parliament.
If you want to learn more about trains I recommend listening to rail natter with Gareth Dennis as he's doing a breakdown of the 1993 railway act and how it caused all this chaos
Finally, a TLDR video I can critically assess, because I know a thing or two about the topic area! First off, 0:45, correlation not causation! Just look at Northern Ireland. They've had a nationalised system for exactly the same time period, and their passenger numbers have also increased. 2:10, you mention profitable routes and unprofitable routes, and you are partially correct there. The benefit of the nationalised system wasn't primarily that the tax payer could foot the bill for the unprofitable routes though. The benefit of the nationalised system was that, without the requirement to make money, the profitable routes could subsidise the unprofitable routes, and then any left over routes would be subsidised by the tax payer. 4:21 Argh! There is so much wrong with that line you drew. I know it's just graphics, but Avanti West Coast have never run a London-Inverness train, and they don't run via the East Coast Mainline either... (The line drawn on the video shows the ECML from east of Leeds (York) to Aberdeen). The only train that does do London-Inverness is the Caledonian Sleeper, which runs via Crewe, Preston and Carlisle. 5:50 This was not the beginning of the end. This was the speeding up of an already apparent pattern (at least to us in the industry). We already knew privatisation was on it's way out, and this was effectively the final nail in the coffin. 6:00 Don't hold your hopes too high... Apart from the GBRTT (Great British Railways Transition Team), the Government have actively done nothing to actually put this into law. And with the recent political shenanigans, we in the industry fear that this has very much been kicked into the long grass... 6:50 Ahhh... Christian Wolmar... To be fair to TLDR, this isn't one of his more egregious comments, but generally, he is an outsider looking in, which doesn't help him. Sure, he's written a good book or two, but I don't usually rely on him as a source of information about the rail industry. Especially since he seems to have misunderstood the key arguments towards continuing with HS2. Ultimately, this is a fairly solid video. Yes, I have mixed feelings about it, but none of the errors are particularly bad. It's certainly better than other videos out there that have attempted to cover the same topic. At least the worst error in this video was an incorrectly drawn line, and not spouting fiction claiming it's fact!
I was thinking that the root cause of the ridership increase was the end of company towns causing people to have to commute to economic centers for their jobs.
4.21 - Just to be trainspotterishly pedantic, the Caledonian Sleeper is not the only train that does London-Inverness. There is a daily service (the "Highland Chieftain") from London (King's Cross) to Inverness via the ECML to Edinburgh, then via Stirling, Perth and Aviemore. I agree that the red line on the map bears no relation to any actual train service.
I wrote my dissertation on government and railways and what I found was that the biggest problem of the railway is that politicians and civil servants don’t understand how to run a railway and thus keep buggering it up. This applies both before and after privatisation as regardless of what the ministers say the government still makes a lot of decisions even now
Exactly, currently the DFT (government) control the infrastructure they set the timetables set the ticket pricing structures and staffing levels all of which they are trying to make worse hence the current strike action
One thing privatisation obviously has done is make it unclear whether the government should be holding talks with the RMT/ASLEF or whether it is solely the responsibility of the rail operator.
@@danielwebb8402 So the government doesn't have any duty to train-reliant citizens to restore functioning train services? Why even have the DfT? I'm not dogmatically opposed to governments taking a somewhat arms-length approach to stuff like rail. But when the private sector fails to do what the government has paid it to do, surely the government has to intervene, right? That's just contract management 101.
@@alexpotts6520 "The government should step in now" is a different point to "Unclear who should have been responsible originally". Is maybe a better way of putting my point. The unions both complain the government won't get involved and that the government have got involved (in setting the terms of simply "Do what you want. But no more taxpayer money").
@@danielwebb8402 I think we're broadly in agreement then, that the government does have a moral responsibility to intervene even though contractually that ought to be handled by the operator.
Privatisation didn't cause it because it was already a chaotic mess beforehand. The simple reason is that passenger rail is a money burner that isn't worth doing objectively.
I recently had to travel by train from the North West to Somerset. It was one of the worst experiences of my life! The trains were overcrowded, two of them broke down and I didn't even get a seat until I got to Bristol, 3 hours into the journey. What's more it was on a day without strikes so there was no excuse. Luckily the reason I was going to Somerset was to pick up a car so at least my journey home was pleasant.
I think the biggest reason is simply the price of tickets me and my wife looked at going to London for a weekend and the cost was ludicrous...I haven't checked since as I know they do fluctuate.
It was significantly cheaper for me to travel from Manchester to London on one day, stay overnight in a city-centre hotel, dine out, and travel back the following day than it would have been to get a morning peak-time ticket and do the journey in a day.
I've had enough of the thieving bastards taking my money and providing horrible delayed and overcrowded services. I've been bumping train fares and vow to continue as long as possible.
They need to double down on privatisation and privatise the tracks/infrastructure as well as the train services. That way the train companies would have full incentive to improve and speed up the lines etc.
Privatisation didn't fix the railways, let's put it that way. BR had big problems, it needed massive investment. They will never be economically viable so there will always be that tension between who pays.
I was part of a study abroad to the University of St. Andrews, which included a weekend trip to London and a free BritRail pass. On the train ride back (which was Kings Cross to Haymarket), the train was so pack, we stood near the exit door for 8 hours with barely any room. And this was a couple months before the Omicron Variant.
I recently was in a train from Edinburgh Waverley to London Kings Cross and can also confirm that the carriages were crowded, with people standing near the exits and some even sitting on the floor. Fortunately I had a reservation as I had booked in advance but I feel sorry for those who may have missed a reservation AND paid a higher price by not booking in advance. Absolutely appalling; we should force our politicians to go on such services and remove all rights to expenses for car journeys/fuel/parking etc.
Don't think that nationalising the railways will make them any better. If you think that, please read this message, it may change your mind about it. I am from Italy, a country where the railways are mostly nationalised, and our train system is absolutely screwed. Most regional routes are served by old, dirty trains, without air conditioning, smelly and overcrowded. Some trains in the south truly resemble the scenery of a post-apocalyptic film. Most of them are always late, of hours, not minutes. Sit in a major Italian train station for a couple of hours, and you will always hear every few seconds the phrase "the train from X to X is delayed of X amount of hours because of {stupid nonsense excuse}. We are sorry for the inconvenience". But how about train prices? are they cheap? I always hear British people complain about their train prices. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that nationalising won't help that either. Our greedy Italian nationalised system is as expensive as the British one, I've tested a few routes in the UK compared to Italian similar ones (in terms of population of the two cities and km of the route) and the prices are nearly the same. The only difference is that the Italian ones are slightly more predictable, while the British ones fluctuate a lot depending on demand. This however can be a good thing, if you buy British train tickets well in advance, you will save money. Italian fares are just always expensive... "But that's not true! I've been to Italy and the trains were so amazing! So clean! So beautiful!" I hear you say. Ah, let me guess: did you take one of those fast red trains from one major city or a tourist destination to another, like from Milan to Rome or from Rome to Florence? That, my friend, is either a Frecciarossa or an Italo, which are the only two privatised routes, which compete against each other and therefore are the only ones in the country that provide a good service. So, in a nutshell, the only decent services we have are the ones that are privatised. Competition makes companies improve their services. Nationalised services solely rely on the goodwill of the managers to improve, because they have no economical drive, as everyone will use their services no matter if they are good or not. You don't like an Italian regional train? Well, walk then...
UK rail prices are the most expensive in Europe because of they’ve been privatised. Italy train system sounds terrible but that’s probably down to bad institutions and corrupt politicians as opposed to the concept of nationalised rail. Germany and Netherlands have nationalised rail and it runs more efficiently and is a quarter of the price of similar distance British rail journeys. Essentials such as public transport and utilities with such high barriers to entry should never have been privatised because a lot of people have no alternative which means that these companies can do whatever they want since they have no competition and hold monopolies on certain routes.
I see what you're saying, but I think those privatised rails work because tourists have a choice. They can choose which tourist destination they want to visit. If I work in Birmingham, I can't choose to commute from Cardiff if I live in Manchester. Therefore, there can't be competition. If I'm a tourist I can choose whatever the better line is because whatever, still a tourist city.
You’re saying Italian issue with trains are EVERYONE’s issue. You’re wrong. Your country has awful public transport and doesn’t fund them properly. Trains work better than any other people mover.
It's similar here in Croatia. We have a nationalized passenger train company, HŽ putnički prijevoz. Their trains have recently been getting quite nice, they ordered many new Končar trains. But the trains weren't ever the main problem. It was the damn rail infrastructure. Going from one major city (let's say, Zagreb) to a smaller (for this comparison, let's say Šibenik) is a trip which is calculated in tens of hours. It's roughly 350km long, yet the trains need 12 hours to cross that distance. In many parts of the journey the train goes slower than a bicycle. Ticket prices are actually not that high about 20€ is the maximum. The example trip I gave would cost around 12€. I'm convinced that the rails haven't been upgraded since the Austrians placed them in the 19th century.
Howdy, an American here. Our rail network is fully privatized. Tickets are absurdly expensive, what passenger lines there are are slow and have spotty schedules because the rail companies prioritize cargo trains
It's crazy how after 2 years of not getting on a single train, the first time I decide to take a train in all that time and there's 40+ min delays. Fully Reminding me why I refuse to take a train 😂.
The UK railway is NOT privatised! The existence of 20 private rail operators maintains the illusion of a privatised rail industry, but Britain's rail network has been (to all intents & purposes) almost entirely re-nationalised. Yet the government is hiding behind the train operators, without the latter being free to fix the problems. No one is acting as 'Fat Controller' on today's railway. The TOCs are reduced to management contracts under DfT's thumb, neither DfT or Transport Ministry see it as their job, and NR does not have a remit to run the railway. GBR is still just an idea. There is no-one at the wheel. I've long warned those who call for rail re-nationalisation to be careful what they wish for. We now have a re-nationalised railway and it is highly dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. Bring back Virgin West Coast! Our trains were never better.
So most complaints are reliability not cost outside of London (where you have a decent service from experience). Try having a train line that in last 5 years has gone from every 15 minutes to hourly and is always delayed or cancelled. Its the lack of continued investment on rail that has caused the issue, unless you are down south the rail services has been allowed to fall apart.
Nah, I defo complain about the prices going from 350 a month just to get from Dundee to Sterling. It would likely cost 400 now or something since that was 2018. 15-20 pound journeys from Medway to London. If I want to go for longer journeys to Scotland I need to pay 200 pounds nearly enough, Plymouth it costs 300 just to take a different route. That's, not sustainable pricing. I might just have to fly next time.
That came from the cut backs of the modernisation plan that lead to a bunch of shitty diesels being recklessly bought. Whatever was succesful from that kept running till around now.
I’m from the US but currently in Spain 🇪🇸 and my anecdotal experience is the Spanish Train system is phenomenal. The high-speed trains are straight 🔥 The UK seems like it’s on a fast track to privatized hell. Its disappointing to see. Look at the horrible situation the US is in, don’t become as bad as us.
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv Amtrak is the worst of both, public and privates. Its a non-govt, private for-profit company that receives millions of dollars in govt subsidies. I agree it’s a garbage service that never runs on time and cancels half their routes at the last minute. It sucks.
I don’t think you understand how the Uk system works. You probably haven’t been here. It’s not fully privatised nor is on the track for more privatisation. Watch the video again.
@@cobracommander8133 TLDR News is plain wrong. 6/25 rail companies, and all the infrastructure nationwide, is state owned. 9/10 rail operators with the highest customer satisfaction score are privately owned.
Brilliant summary, and believe me few manage it so well. One aside. In 2002 Railtrack collapsed and was taken over by the Government in the form of Network Rail after an intolerable number of major rail accidents. While Railtrack were not solely at fault for all, the Hatfield disaster where a rail disastrously failed underneath a train passing over was the tipping point and was blamed on their inadequate management of track inspection and renewal of worn out infrastructure. The consequent reaction demanded by the then Labour Government exposed the poor state and knowledge of Railtrack's inherited infrastructure, their poor record of investment. inadequate asset management and the vast sums of money needed to bring it up to an acceptable standard. In fact many problems were a legacy from BR times where years of underfunding had created a long backlog of renewals. Railtrack PLC had done little to address the renewals deficit in their time in charge and were left financially exposed and the then Labour Government would not use taxpayers money to bail out Railtrack PLC shareholders to address the major amount of urgent work needed. That was then. Network Rail are now faced with a similar squeeze on their budget from central Government and the renewals backlog is likely once again to grow rapidly. The saving grace is that knowledge of asset condition and the planned renewals workbank is far better developed since the dark days of Railtrack PLC.
Actually, we aren't really sure that privatisation lead to increased passenger numbers, those numbers were already climbing before privatisation and the growth was also noticed in Northern Ireland, a place that saw no privatisation of railways at all...
Trains, stations, and routes are so arduous to set up that it's always going to be a monopoly and always going to be expensive. It's not possible to make them profitable but also a fair price for people to use them daily. That's why a national service makes more sense. There's no competition privately anyways so that's not a concern. But the government is incentivised to make it cheap so that the public can travel cheaply, reliably, and quickly to key infrastructures so that they can earn and spend more money. The "profit" isn't from the tickets, but in people paying more taxes from earning (income) and spending (VAT) money. This is why the only "profitable" trains are massive resorts/theme parks with internal trams - the riders will spend money for the resort/theme park and food/drinks/souvenirs, so the profit is the destination, not the transport itself.
You look to young to recall what British Rail was actually like. Trains broke down, were randomly cancelled, everything was run down and filthy. In all the time BR ran the route I used to commute I NEVER got a seat. Its was common for briefcases to be sold as "strong enough to sit on" as 25% of commuters would have to sit on their cases every day. When the trains were privatized they put new trains on with about double the seating and I got a seat 95% of the time. Don't forget that BR completely ignored safety warnings and ran slam door trains with passengers falling to their death for years ignoring all warnings. When the trains were privatized it took a few months for the new operators to fit central locking and fix the problem, all BR did after years was stick reflective tape on the doors. Its hard to believe that when BR ran the trains a 125 mph train had doors you had to lean out of the window to open. I worked as a Civil Servant in the days of British Rail and was hardly ever on time for work due to delays, cancellations and breakdowns. Exasperated one day I apologized to my boss, he said "its not your problem, the Government employ you and they run the trains, its up to them to decide". After privatization I was hardly ever late again. Yes the system has problems, but no one who experienced BR will ever want to go back to nationalized rail. The next stage must be a forward to to a much more automated system.
Yeah, and you think that's going to happen (let alone even possible) when everyone dimglow enough to vote votes for the Jimmy Saville Appreciation Society? And if by a miracle the money is made available it'll be wasted, or nicked by another department. I know, I've worked in the No Hope Service.
After 5 years without a car I moved to the UK and I bought one. Went by trains for a couple of weeks and couldn't stand the constant BS. Keep up the strikes so nobody's gonna trust the trains, revenue will crash and you won't have a job anymore.
Ask your parents about BT. 90%+ of people didn't own their own landline. You rented it off BT. You needed a new line installed? Weeks. Now? Because competition you get internet installed the half day you choose at a week's notice easily. British Leyland? Pretty sure lorries and jags are better today than in the 70s. Thomas Cook? You think the government should be selling us holidays? Or pickfords for moving companies?
@@danielwebb8402 You can tell most people commenting on this subject still have their mothers milk smeared over their faces. Why they think the government, any government is competent at running anything is beyond me. Kids today think it's wrong to earn a profit.
Most Japanese railways make their money off of land aquisition and management. Therefore they do not rely on the trains to make them profitable, so they provide a decent service.
that's true, but they still make a profit off of building retail/leisure space around their stations. is Britain willing to implement that? Sure, it's up to the public I guess, but the current system must go either wayt
tbf this is the case for most organisations. Both the NHS and a system like mandatory private insurance (like in the Netherlands) generally work about as well as the other until the government intervenes in a way they shouldn't have (ie causing financial instability). It's the practical rules and management that's the problem, not who's name is on the paper.
Like a lot of things in modern Britain, the privatisation of our railways has been an unmitigated disaster for the consumer who are no longer the highest priority for the train operating companies who are more interested in lining their own shareholders pockets.
If Thatcher wouldn't do it, then rail privatization will never work. Its way more expensive for fares now its private - countless govt billions given since privatization. Another bodge, another billion.
Scotland - I’m very surprised you never addressed the big topic is Scotland when it comes to nationalised train service….. we’ll because we re nationalised Scotrail as of 1 Apr 2022 ? Only times scotland was mentioned was all negative rather than tell people the positive ?
When the Scottish Government took it over from Abellio (a rubbish service by a European company) a lot of services were axed. I think it's too soon to say if the new setup works. No train for me today near Aberdeen as the English workers were on strike. We're still joined up to them.
@@danielwebb8402 If we think about it, so for example data suggests that millennials drive less. Cars have become more expensive, living costs have increased more than wages and people are in general more conscious of how transport impacts the climate. This all increases train usage. So in short, privatization may not have anything to do with the increased number of people using it. Then there is the fact that some people, like myself like using trains more than flying, and take the train when it is possible. The time it takes to go to an airport, be there on time, go through the check in (hope that your luggage isnt too heavy), security, etc, fly ,wait for the luggage, and than go from the airport, can sometimes take more time than just go to the nearest train station take how many trains and busses you need and than arrive relatively close to your destination. In situations were it takes more time by train, usually its a much better experience. Because, honestly flying can be such an abysmal experience.
Don't forget that the rails had to be renationalised due to the fact privatisation lead to cuts in maintance and lead to quite a number of Rail accidents and d eaths.
It's statements like that that make railways so expensive. Deaths per mile are far lower than any other mode of transport but, because they make the news, rail is forced into expensively excessive safety.
I've lived in the UK for over 8 years now, and honestly I didn't really see much of a problem with trains. Before the current strikes, I've rarely dealt with any significant delays or cancellations. While whenever I've been to Germany, I've nearly missed my flights every time because the trains to the airports were always cancelled. And I don't think I've ever taken a train in Germany which wasn't delayed. Also, I didn't find trains in central or northern European countries to be cheaper than in the UK. Here I've found the prices to be decent if you buy your tickets in advance online.
Privatising healthcare in the US made healthcare more expensive. Privatising transportation in the UK made public transport less reliable. I'm starting to think that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were wrong.
And more expensive like if I want to travel from Plymouth to Glasgow to visit that costs nearly 300 hundred pounds I can shave off 100 to get a train from London to Glasgow. It shouldn't be like that. it should be affordable to travel. If I move onto my own I might not be able to afford that route and take 16h bus journey instead where trains cut that time in half on the direct route.
"Privatising healthcare in the US made healthcare more expensive." That is not actually the case. If it truly was an open and free market this would not have happened. But same as with many other things in the US corruption has lead to government-created monopolies and a half-regulated market - aka the worst situation you can have.
I lived in Munich Germany for over four years and when came back to UK all the services seem crap not just trains but doctor and dentist. Way behind a lot of countries in Europe, Sweden for example they do not have any bullshit snow on the tracks or at airport issues
The UK doesn't have snowy winters like Scandinavia, and third rail in the south east is very susceptible to icing. It is deemed not worth investing a ton of money into mitigation measures that will only come about once a year if that, rather that accept that once in a while there will be weather related delays. The other issue in the UK, in particular the SE, is that some airports and rail routes are saturated with no slack in the system, so it only takes a minor perturbation to cause delays and cancellations, and having to slow trains down due to icy conditions or spacing aircraft further apart at airports is one such minor perturbation.
The biggest problem for me is how rail companies think travelling through London constitutes a 5x (roughly) increase in the price it costs for your ticket. If I wanted to get between Ashford (Kent) to Southampton as I often do going via London costs £75-85 whereas going via Brighton costs £15-£20.
What is not appreciated is that the 'unprofitable' branch routes feed into the 'profitable' mainline routes. The whole thing needs to be seen systemically, including the knock on costs of road use
Strikes bother me and they should 🙌 strikes are the only way to get the greedy elites to pay liveable humane wages. This chaos has been long deserved. I have to go all the way to Durham from London and it’s been a nightmare as it should be 🤝
@@alexk7511 The strikes aren't even about pay. If you paid any attention you'd hear that the Government wants to reduce maintenance staff and make maintenance turn around times tighter, and introduce more unsafe working methods like DOO. They also want to scrap ticket offices because they're 'only' used by the elderly and disabled.
British railways don’t suck. Sure, there’s lots of delays and is expensive and has lots of old stock, but that’s due to a variety of complications. The truth is that the global relative frequency on most lines, and the highly concentrated and localised coverage enable such excellent mobility and connectivity, that you don’t dream of in most parts of the world. I moved from China in 2015, and was thoroughly impressed in the way trains operated here. People who compliment Chinese trains don’t realise how not local or everyday they are. British railways is not bad, the frustration comes from how potentially much, much better it could be had everything been done right.
Rail ridership didn't increase because of privatisation: it increased because of changing attitudes and habits. Also, the private rail companies, whilst failing, somehow managed to pay huge dividends to share holders!
Unfortunately attitudes in government towards public transport have never changed. It's always been seen as a fringe means of transport by people running the country. Rail could be a huge asset to this country, as it has been shown in other countries like Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan. Reliable, cheap and large capacity rail services change everything. And of course, high speed rail is transformative too. It enables a whole new level of social mobility, and economic activity. But the government is just too set in it's attitude to see that.
We're going to London tomorrow morning to visit a friend. The price for 3 people is £106 (including the return). If I drive, we'll spend £20 on diesel, £15 for parking and less than £20 for the tube. Guess how we're going to London.
Look at the London - Hastings line. One franchise. No consumer option. Think Of A Number Fares, because you’ve a complete monopoly. Greed and Privatisation ruined our trains.
Very briefly, railways and Scotland and Wales are devolved to each respective nation. For Scotland as Rail was devolved they are able to choose their franchise bid, that last one being Abellio. However due to issues with the franchise the Scottish government chose to end the franchise short rather then running the full length (agreed before the pandemic). From what I’ve understood with everything taken in house Scotrail is now dependent on the Scottish government, in a sense it’s not created as an arms length independent body to the government. Meaning for strikes agreements were made between the government and the unions rather than the Train Operating Company (TOC). And new rolling stock is being procured through the government. This type of nationalisation has its up and downs. This is in contrast to Wales nationalisation which is run at arms length to the government.
What you describe fir Scots Rail is similar to what is happening in Wales. Transport For Wales (the company) lost the contract last year and Transport For Wales (the Welsh Government Body, confusing, I know) took over, but kept Transport For Wales (the company) involved to help run things. Pay negotiations were successful with drivers and rail staff, so no strikes, although most lines are still owned by Network Rail so the strikes with the Department For Transport have still affected Wales. Transport For Wales (both the company and the Government body) have been pushing hard to buy brand new trains (class 231s, 576s, 195s, and Tram trains) and are electrifying the lines to improve service. They will own the new trains, rather than lease them, so will have more trains available in service.
Scotrail hasn't really been renationalised properly. And at the moment, until the eu laws imposed on our railways are revoked and rewritten, it cannot be renationalised. Even the SNP understand this. The SNP election manifesto explicitly said that they would "set up a public body to bid for the next Scotrail franchise". So what you think is a 'renationalisation' is actually a 'direct award' to a government department, as allowed in the eu laws, for a period of no more than 5 years. After which it must be retendered to the private sector. So rather than it being a renationalisation, and a reintegration of our railway, it is actually a continuation of the existing eu structure imposed upon the railways, with seperate train operations, seperate track infrastructure, and eternal retendering of the train operations every few years.
@@trevormax82 TfW didn’t loose any contract. With the onset of the pandemic like with England operator franchises where cancelled. However with rail being devolved in Wales (for franchise) Wales decided to take it in house. However, the current nationalised body of TfW didn’t order any new trains. All train on order were ordered by Keolis Amey (previous holder). The current holder (Welsh government) has only taken on additional Mk.4 coaches which are Ex-Grand Central ones (cancelled Blackpool to Euston service). I am not sure if they will “own” the trains as trains were ordered under Keolis Amey, however if you have evidence to suggest otherwise please do share.
Not even remotely. Both videos do not even begin to touch on the reason behind the failure. It has no relationship with regulation or franchizement, but rather due to the structure of rail-lines themselves. While Japan and Hong Kong has passenger rail-ways run by companies that own the network, the UK separated them. While evidence suggest the efficient depends on the density of the line, in aggregation separation does more damage than integration - Reason why Japanese rail lines only have problems in low density areas, while UK railways always have problems.
@@nils191 you do understand that the seperation you mention, was mandated by the EEC in directive 91/440 back in 1991. Which lead directly to the UK governments 1993 railway act. Which was their way of taking the UK railway directly to the end result of what the eu wanted. The Germans enacted the directive in their 1994 bahn reform act, hiding it in the legislation to reunite the railways of east and west Germany (by mandating the break up of their integrated railway operations!)
@@amateurcameraman Your point? It's a well established fact in the literature that railway separation is associated with higher costs on average for high density lines. Mizutani has on several occasions empirically demonstrated the fact. As for Germany, you're not entirely correct that Germany has "reunited the lines." Germany employs what's known as the holding company model, not the integrated model, which itself possess its own incredibly weaknesses which are unique to it.
@@watertower3969 Because of misalignment of interest and transaction costs. What you're mentioning is the reason why separation causes higher costs, because those exact costs of managing and maintaining tracks are put unto the rail passenger companies and doesn't result in the improvements that would benefit them. If passenger train operators owned their own tracks, they have an incentive to improve them and actually maintain them to ensure safety and lower cost of managing the passenger trains themselves. The empirical literature consistently find that vertical separation is incredibly damaging, it raises costs in high density lines and reduces coordination. This is why Japan's privatization was successful where the UK failed, in Japan tracks are operated by the same company that runs on them.
@@watertower3969 Also, just to continue this. According to Fumitoshi Mizutani, Andrew Smith, Chris Nash and Shuji Uranishi in their 2015 paper on the subject, they estimate that the EU's imposition of full vertical separation would in aggregation be responsible for a net cost of 6 billion EUROs a year, being mostly paid by taxpayers. This figure is even larger in more recent literature, but it goes to show the damaging effects of vertical separation that the EU actively encourages.
The Japanese system, particularly the Tokyo metropolitan subway system, are a testament to a well working privatized system. But it isn't cheap. And maybe there is a cultural thing that explains why it works so well.
I think you half hit the nail on the head. Part of the secret is simply 'is trains a system you as a nation are willing to spend money on or is it cars cars cars cars that get all the subsedies and trains are a side project'?
Japan's system is kind of privatised on paper but in practice JR group acts like an pseudo-oligopoly over most of the rail network (and some provincial governments still own their regional operator). To an outsider the system looks like it's mostly nationalised even though it isn't, with private rail services having a minority position running unusual routes, rural branch lines and some commuter networks as well as metro systems. So in a way Japan created a successful privatised rail system by having a system that's not actually much different in the way it functions to a nationalised system.
@@Croz89 Good point. Plus Japans interlocking of big companies and the government post WW2 both culturally as well as in terms of organisation is quite unique in the world.
Its not cost that I hate, although it's a factor. Its unreliable service. You cannot rely on a train as you get told it's delayed 5 minutes after it's already late, then it updates minute by minute as you are standing on the platform that it will be there in a minute. 15 minutes later it's cancelled.
prices have gone up by 48%?? .. I am sorry but in 1991 I could get a one day travel card from Reading to London for approx £12.50. These days it costs over £50. hence I dispute your claim.
The point missing in the story are the employees. The rail companies can reduce the pay to increase profit. Now the employees strike. That is a down side of the privatization principle and worth noting in this video.
You either want high salaries and benefits for employees your you want lower prices, you cant have both without putting the people from all around the country that, on average, dont use the trains that much or dont even have them in their towns, paying for your ticket too from their taxes.
You should probably have mentioned that the Great British Railways thing got shelved by Liz Truss and I don't think Sunak has any plans to revive it amid everything else that's going on, so it's not certain it will ever be implemented.
FFS. One of the few good ideas those morons have had and they're flagging on it, instead of getting firmly behind supporting it like any decent government would.
Privatisation did NOT lead to an increase in passenger numbers, privatisation just so happened to coincide with a massive socioeconomic shift that would have seen massive increases in passengers regardless
Being Irish and living in Manchester 23 years, where our railways were never privatised, even after changing through the old CIE (which still exists as a holding company) and then Irish Rail, where we have partnerships with NI Railways on the Dublin - Belfast Route (Enterprise Train) - I use SailRail (managed by TfW and the ferry companies) via Holyhead in North Wales to visit family in Ireland and the experience is a nightmare, changing trains at Chester, Crewe and Lladnuo - the problem is not really public v privatisation of the railways, its more about mismanagement, incompetence and wastage of available funds (increased funding/investment is not the solution) which is also indirectly creating problems in industrial relations with the rail trade unions - in order to improve efficiency, bring down the cost of fares, increase standards of service to passengers, make rail projects be completed in half the timescales and for half the costs, the ONLY solution, in conjunction with renationalising of the railways, is to bring in an external rail operator/management team from the Far East, such as from CCP China, Japan or Taiwan, passing all of the relevant laws as required through Parliament to make it happen, ditch all of the existing U.K. rail bodies, give this new body complete and direct control of the U.K. railways, complete with a certain level of annual taxpayer funding and investment in each area, such as tracks, signals, trains, stations, new rail projects, improved passenger services, lower rail fares, increased restrictions placed on the power of trade unions to strike and to keep this in place for at least the next 20 years
Thatcher started all the pre privatisation work, your assertion is incorrect. By breaking it down into small slices, they created systemic inefficiency. The rail went from underfunded and unable to provide services, to overfunded and wasteful. It's all about what the media will let them get away with.
Most TL;DR viewers are too young to understand that British Rail was a terrible service, it may have been cheaper but you only got there half the time and it took twice as long as it should have.
That's because there had been zero investment for decades. British Rail was flexible though. I remember a train didn't turn up and because we were on a tight schedule the stationmaster put us in the guards carriage of a freight train. That would never happen now but it saved us a missed flight.
Every country in Europe did reviews of the British Rail system to see if they should do the same, everyone called it flawed and keep their old mainly national train services.
Yeah, no, that's just outright false. There've been multiple EU rail packages aimed at privatisation and open access (and in general open access has led to better rail options for rail users)
Remember folks that nationalisation isn't a panacea either. BR was nationalised by the 1960s when the Government holding the purse strings decided it needed rationalising and we got Beeching and his axe that decimated the network. Now whilst that was initiated by road building Tory transport minister Marples (conflict of interest) it was continued by Castle in the following Labour Government. And Beeching had come after the massively expensive 1950s BR Modernisation Programme which, amongst other things, pissed money up the wall on lots of different diesel locomotive designs and technologies because BR was still pretty fragmented along the lines of the pre-nationalisation Big Four companies (with LMS & LNER up in Scotland being merged into their own fifth region). After Beeching, BR in the 1970s was in often managed decline with creaky old trains, strikes(!), awful customer service and just a few bright spots like the HST. It was sectorisation of BR in the 1980s with some renewed investment that turned that corner and meant BR sandwiches weren't quite the joke they had been by 1993. So privatisation can result in shitty railway service, and nationalisation can too. And both can at times provide very good services, but we often don't remember the good times as much as the bad.
German trains are so much better, there is no comparison. I know you complain about Deutsche Bahn a lot over there, but trust me, at least you actually have the infrastructure linking towns together. The UK has large black spots where there is no rail service at all, and no fast roads, you just have to drive through it stuck behind tractors the whole way. It's worse than the 1920s, because the roads haven't changed much, they carry far more traffic, and the railway is gone. There's no equivalent of the S-Bahn. You just get nothing or a bus if you're lucky.
@@thegearknob7161 it's relevant that most European countries started from scratch after ww2 regards rail and to an extent road. So they were able to plan more effectively. The UK still has a Victorian railway in many places. You can't knock down bridges and allow for double decker trains for example and you can't take out all the corners and fun faster trains. Well you can do those things but you'd need to flatten a lot of housing and build hundreds of bridges.
I would prefer a system similar to TfL, but across the entire country, governments set routes, governments set prices, government set standards, but private operators, that get paid a set amount per service, regardless of customer numbers, this should be across all trains, busses, trams, etc… But then I also thing we should have a transport tax, that everyone pays, and have no cost to travel on public transport for local routes, and a small fee for long distance routes.
if there was a way of getting oyster but for every bit of transport in the UK. That would be marvalous and the system would be quite simple to imploment.
Next up: British roads, schools, crime, health, town centres, weather and food.
Oh boy
Wow what a great idea 😯 I was thinking of selling my soul for a quid but this sounds even more profitable
Privatised, privatised privatised! And who own them all? EU companies!
And your Mum is on the 5 minute free view at midnight. Loads of teenage boy's knocking one out before they steal a car.
@João P K While I’m not the commenter, their statement registers more as a dig at British Eurosceptics
I live in LDN and need to get to Leicester often - it's a 50 minute fast train, or a 1.30hour slow train. It's often quoted as the single highest rail fare in Europe, and if you buy it on the day, it could cost you up to £130. Absolute madness.
It's funny when you can go to another country cheaper, and end up paying more just taking the train to the airport
I live in Leicester and its literally cheaper for me to drive to London and pay a parking fine than take the train
🤯
While I hate British Rail (and yes I'm old enough to have been on them) I do want to know how these train companies can justify their prices.
It's because while it's privatised it's also been monopolised. If you want to get from a to b you have one choice of company.
@@SaintGerbilUK the government set rail prices
As an Austrian I always thought we have the best rail company with ÖBB in the world when it comes to passenger transport, but then I finally went to Japan and oh boy, they are on another level. And years later (about 5 years ago) I went to the UK and oh boy, they are on another level - just in the opposite direction.
Yeah you guys have a pretty good system going but no one can compete with Japan's quality and reliability of service.
i went to japan and shanghai, and while tokyo and kyoto's metro were great compared to anywhere in the UK, i have to admit the shanghai & beijing metro were nicer imho. there are not enough carriages for the metro in tokyo, i've never been so squashed in my life during rush hour and then you can't move to even leave the metro at your stop when it's that packed. shanghai one even during rush hour was not packed anything like that, and it was far cheaper. you could travel loads of stops and it only costs like 2p each time in shanghai. in tokyo it's like £3.50 or more for a few stops. i guess also the shanghai and beijing metro carriages being newer helps a bit too.
if it was compared to an actual longer train journey from city to city, i liked the experience more for the journey from tokyo to kyoto in japan, when it's not like a 1st class ticket. it was really fast and there was enough space - really great experience. the shanghai to beijing train is usually packed at peak holiday times, sometimes people with boxes of eggs lol. however, you will always have a reserved seat and there is lots of space in 2nd class seats for that train. the space you have in 2nd class for a way cheaper ticket for the shanghai to beijing train compared with the edinburgh to kings cross is astonishing. it's about 3x more leg room compared to the train to london, and way cheaper, about £20 for a bigger distance too. and the 1st class seats for these trains are some of the nicest ones i've experienced, and it's still very affordable, in fact the 1st class journey was cheaper than the economy journey from tokyo to kyoto. i think the nationalisation of the railways and how cheap the tickets are for really nice leg room and seating on the most popular journeys, make it near impossible to argue for privatisation. also how fast the service improved... disregarding personal political opinions, something is going right with the amazing expansion of railway travel over there.
@@samw5924 i would argue china's metro (shanghai/beijing) is far better and more affordable. their direct from shanghai to beijing in 1st class is cheaper than the japan equivalent for economy, and it is also better imo. if you disregarded the price in japan, then i liked japan's long journey trains better than the ones i had in china. but they were far closer than i would have ever imagined before i went there. it seems they are improving fast, and it's very affordable. however i loved that tokyo had more lines. it seems like tokyo could have been far the best, but things like the plaza accord have really made their progress in a lot of areas come to a halt for a few decades now. i hope things change soon.
Austrian trains are great, but for everyone in Europe it should be obvious, that Switzerland has the best train network on the continent
we're on the 7th level.
It’s a classic case of privatizing the profit and socializing the loss.
What profit. It's loss making. Running at a £16 billion at last count. On Some unprofitable welsh lines, it would be cheaper for the government to pay for taxis.
@@patchpeek is this happens in 3rd world country they will call it corruption.
@@patchpeek >what profit? It's loss making
There is a saying: if your company is turning in a profit, that means you have a very bad accountant.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 there is no third world angloid. It's developing.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 it’s crony capitalism not corruption wink wink
Now I ain't British. But as someone who visited England last year it was a fascinating experience seeing the massive difference in price that existed in England and Scandinavia Germany. I think it was during 22 summer that Germany had a pass that cost 20 euros or something and could give you free transport anywhere in Germany for entire summer. Meanwhile a 4 hour train ride from a large English city to a mid sized English city would have cost me 100 pounds.
The price difference is ridiculous
Scandinavia germany?
Yes. German taxpayers paid for people to use the train. Not magic.
It's 9 euros/month for all transport except high speed rail. Best thing that ever happened to Germany since invention of bread.
And the difference is made up for by taxpayers in Germany, who pay in part for a ticket...even if they never use the railway, ever. Upfront costs are cheaper, just like the NHS in the UK is "free". At the end of the day someone, somewhere, pays.
@@richardgregory3684 upfront costs are not indeed cheaper.. specially if you need to make a profit as a private company
The main problem with the privatisation is that there is no competition. If I want to go from A to B at a particular time there is only one company I can use. So it is effectively a monopoly.
Nationalisation would mean there’s even less competition, it would literally be one company, zero competition at all.
So in other words they arent really privatised at all. The government has such a tight grip that what we actually have is a nationalised rail system with subcontractors.
@@kelly4187 They are privatised, because they get to keep the profits if they make them (and some operators do - not all the franchises went bust in normal times).
@@almostanengineer Railways formulate natural monopolies, in essence this means it's difficult to introduce competition.
Here from the OECD: "In essence natural monopolies exist because of economies of scale and economies of scope which are significant relative to market demand. Natural monopolies are thought to exist in some portions of industries such as electricity, railroads, natural gas, and telecommunications. Because productive efficiency requires that only one firm exist, natural monopolies are typically subject to government regulation. Regulations may include price, quality, and/or entry conditions."
@@kelly4187 It is impossible to nationalize railways. Private companies can't be trusted to not crash their trains into another company's trains. That's why the Gov has to own and operate the signals and tracks. This is also why privatization just created 4-5 monopolies. Privatising the railways was, is, and always will be impossible. It should never have been attempted.
And this is all before we even talk about the rolling stock companies which own the actual trains and lease them to operators. There would be competition between those rolling stock companies, but tracks can only accommodate certain types of trains (diesel, electric overhead, third rail etc).
So the "privatisation" just created 2 layers of monopolies which run on tax payer money.
Spending and saving don't have to be incompatible - you just have to think in the long term. Invest money in new technology to save on the costs of running a line. But what also needs to be remembered is that investment in lines leads to a better, more attractive service, which leads to increased passenger numbers. That's exactly what happened with the Overground, but that's only one of many examples one could cite.
The trouble is that rail does not scale well. The most used routes are already full and it is impossible to build major new railways in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost - Just look at HS1/HS2.
Your channel is brilliant! Very informative on the history of rail in Britain.
@@SmileyEmoji42 With HS2 becoming the main north-south high speed route, capacity on existing routes can increase (if high speed is removed). The reason it has not scaled well is we mix high and low speed rail. With the correct decisions this can be overcome.
Jago the LEGEND is in the chat. All hail Jago
@@CyclingSteve I've worked on train scheduling software designed to get maximum track utilisation. Trust me. The main limiting factor compared to road transport is that you can't easily go around another train or go a different route. HS2 has been so politicaly painful that no government is going to want to do any more of that.
Can we pause for a second...did privatisation CAUSE rail passenger numbers to go up, or is it merely a correlation? Was there always going to be an increase regardless of the privatisation?
Correct
I think mostly correlation. The UK population has risen about 18% since 1990, mostly in the cities. So I imagine that plays a part. Also, commuting to work became a bigger part of British life as jobs moved away from industrial zones to city centres.
There’s probably other factors too. But those are the big ones to my mind.
Err. 40 years of decline immediately reversed because billions of private cash was invested in it. Quite obviously!
@@patchpeek so increased funding resulted in greater usage? But no where in that explanation is it necessary for that investment to be private as opposed to public (or a combination of the two)
Amtrak in the United States saw a similar increase in ridership during the same period, and no such privatization had occurred.
I lived in Spain for a few years, their transport is publicly owned. Strange then that their trains were always on time and some of the cheapest in Europe. The fact of the matter is that Britain is a mismanaged country- not just in terms of rail but most things. Why is fuel more expensive here than on the continent? Alcohol? Housing? That's what Tory rule for 40 of the last 53 years have done to this country.
I have to agree. I lived in Spain for 33 years. I went back last year and wanted to try the fast service Barcelona/Madrid. Just a couple of hours and excellent service. The pricing was based on the times so you could look up and get a really cheap ticket by travelling off peak. It’s so successful that the airline service between the two cities is less and less used.
Funny how Spain has recently allowed a host of privatized operators to use the rail system ie Iryo. You clearly have an ideological hatred of the Tory party and blame every Ill in the country on them. As to fuel being more expensive that is due to the higher tax take by the government, can’t see Labour reducing that. Housing well that is the lack of available land something France and Spain do not need to be concerned about in relative terms. If you look at higher density countries like the Netherlands and Germany then property is equally costly. Try understanding the issues in greater depth rather than just knee jerk political hatred.
@@neilboulton9813 there is no need for ideological hate,simply take the last 13 years of tory goverment,nhs is breaking,cost of living,strikes,economic decline,rivers and coast full of sewage,the list is endless.if you still vote tory,you are lost.
@@neilboulton9813 You've nullified your own argument with your very 1st statement. *Recently* being the key word. Even then, you don't seem to understand your own argument. Spain has opened up their railways, but it's not anywhere near as privatised as Britain. No more than 1% of all routes are privatised. Renfe (Spain's public operator) still has a monopoly. If these new contractors fail to meet the expected service, Renfe will take over those services. In fact, most recently, Renfe announced a free travel scheme for short to medium train journeys. *When was the last time* you heard of Nothern or Virgin offering such a scheme?
Re fuel- well done for answering the rhetorical questions and proving my point exactly. Higher taxation when France for eg is providing fuel subsidies. The Tories could do that, but they choose not to.
As for housing in Germany being equally costly- that is disingenous to say the least. Germany has rental caps and as a quick look, lets compare housing in Berlin vs London. Source: Numbeo. Rentals for a one bed flat slap bang in the middle of London is near as makes no difference £2k. Berlin? Just over half that. You can thank the Tories for the mini budget as those figures are set to increase. So for someone who is advising me to understand the issues better, I don't think you're best qualified to give that advice by any measure.
As for your accusation, well you're right- I despise a party that deports Windrush people to their country of heritage due to the colour of their skin. Imagine if white Americans were deported back to Britain? A party that calls a divisive referendum without a plan. A party that has been in power for over a decade while blaming the EU, immigrants, disabled, poor and Labour (who haven't been in power of course). A party that doesn't give our NHS workers workers a pay rise while kleptocracy benefits people like Mone to the tune of £29m. £29m pays for 55000 nurses. So yes atleast in that regard, you're quite right, but my 'hatred' is well justified. You are of course incorrect to call it 'knee-jerk'.
As a counter accusation, you come across as a Tory member who refuses to take responsibility for the fact that Britain's problems are largely down to the party that has been in power the majority of the time. So much for personal responsibility eh?
@@blazzz13 👏👏👏
The UK Govt since the 50s ( both Parties) have been about short term profit, minimal investment. We used to have a network of railway lines running to virtually ever village and large industrial complex in the UK. How easy it would have been to go carbon neutral if still the case. Electric or hydrogen driven trains not only doing away with cars and truck convoys, but people and freight literally being delivered door to door. I remember Nationalised Red Star Parcels back in the 50s and 70s. You could deliver large loads to you nearest station and guaranteed it would be available for collection from another station withing 48 hours. Interesting that Auty Maggie smashed the Unions and broke up Nationalised Services to end constant strikes. Remind me again how Privatisation has brought reliability and affordability to our travelling experience ?
I do believe that Beechin (Labour) wrote a report that closed many railway lines because they were unprofitable, ie people who didnt use them were subsidising those that did through their taxes which the Government then used to subsidise British Rail - as it was. Anyone who was a regular or iregular user of British Rail did not object to privatisation, and anyone who can remember British Rail would not want to go back to that. You do realise Maggie was elected mainly because she said she was going to break the hold that trade uions had on everyones everday life. Your reminsnce of Red Star Parcels means you were either very lucky or your rose tinted glasses need replacing - I had the opposite experience. Despite living within 500 yds of a railway station I prefered to drive or use the busses, the bus always turned up, the seats were always usable and the conductors were always friendly, a far more reliable and pleasant and convenient experience.
@@Willywin If you had read the first line of my post, you would have noticed I said that both political parties were historically at fault for the mess we are now in. Perhaps you would like to answer the question I ask at the end, as to how we are in no better situation than had the railways system remained owned by us the tax payer. I stand by my view on the Red Star parcel service and only wish it still existed. Thank you for your deeply insightful comment.
@@Willywin beeching wanted to reconfigure for shipping container freight. Lines he wanted to keep and invest in like the varsity line were pulled up by transport minister earnest maples(whose concrete company had a contract for the motorways and didn't want the expense of bridges over railway lines) are now being put back at great expense. Maples managed to blame beeching fir closures even though maples was closing lines against advice.
I mean not really both parties. There is so many examples to the contrary where labor have invested in long term strategy.
@@Willywin i remember british rail (it was privatised in 92/93 I think ? it was ok I went all over britain on a limited budget you could not do it today willy loser
Missing a big important point here! While yes the railways were privatised, the UK government actually ended up spending way more money and investing a whole lot more into them than they ever did under British Rail and nationalisation, which is likely the reason why ridership has increased so much - not much to do with privatisation at all.
Yeah, privatisation didn't mean the service better at all, subsided by the tax payer did.
In addition to that, I’d assume the biggest reason for the increase in ridership is simple sociological changes with growing cities, congestion, lower proportions of people learning to drive etc.
The current privatised model is vastly superior to the previous British Rail
Take it from someone who has traveled on British Rail when they were a thing.
Well said
I really don’t think it is, the privatised model is fatally flawed, whereas British Rail was significantly underfunded and poorly managed but the core model was better than the private model.
This misses the real reason why UK trains are terrible. The service is non existent outside of major cities. Arguing over public/private is moot when there is no track in the first place.
My town of about 13,000 people used to have a train station. That closed under Beeching and the track was built over so now it can't be replaced. The nearest station is an hour by bus away. Once you get there, you can go east to London, or west to Weymouth. However at Weymouth the line ends for absolutely no reason. If you wanted to go further west to Exeter, you would have to head east and go around, adding like an extra hour or so onto the journey again. So of the three directions it's possible to go (south is the sea), they covered one of them! Well done!
So if I wanted to use public transport to get to Exeter, it would take me over 4 hours. I can get a boat to France in that time.
It saddens me to think that 100 years ago, the public transport was actually faster than it is today, and probably quicker than driving too because our traffic and road infrastructure is so poor too.
I went on holiday to Germany recently. I used the train there more in that week than I have done in the UK in my whole lifetime. That's how little use they are.
The impact of the beeching cuts has never been properly acknowledged or addressed. Bus services were never going to match the capacity of previous rail lines, but even less so when we've had Conservative governments consistently opposed to spending significantly on public transport. They have always been intent on supporting more traffic on the roads and "self-accountability" over solutions that are better for the environment, support "Levelling up" of deprived communities, and boost the economy. And besides all of that, it's clear that the road system will become ever more usuable as time goes on, unless the government actually fixes the railway network and expands it.
You don't pay taxes in Germany so it is unreasonable to compare ticket prices. When using rail abroad you are essentialy spongeing off the foreign taxpayers.
@@SmileyEmoji42 Nah, he was just returning the favour that the German government bestows upon it's citizens who use the German rail network which is funded partially by the revenues generated from the German state rail provider's ownership of various rail franchises in the UK and the sky high ticket prices that British rail travellers pay...
@@SmileyEmoji42 I never mentioned price. This isn't about price at all. Cost is irrelevant if the service doesn't exist in the first place.
swansea has the same problem especially in towns like cila and gorseinon and pontardawe
Short answer yes
Long answer YYYYEEEESSSS
Britain si slowly coming to terms with the idea that some services, like transport, energy, health, education, are things that improve quality of life, economic potential and cannot be run profitably if they are to be run well. And that's totally fine, they're an INVESTMENT in the country, in the future. A Private company, however benevolent it says it is, always tries to make the most money and will cut corners to get there. It's either low fares, or high quality of service, you can't have both, it never happens, except in the dreams of ultra liberals who think they'll solve a country's economy by selling off it's infrastructure. Short-mindedness at it's best.
Of course i'm not implying that public run transport has to have high fares, it just costs more, but that cost is paid for through taxes mostly, while fares remain low or free (the way germany has recently implemented it)
That's not completely true. Privatisation only works very well for in-demand routes. In scenarios like these, it does a great job. But as for a whole system privatisation doesn't work well.
Slowly? Health and education have been free and provided by government since at least the second world war.
UK health system is much more centrally government run than the European average.
What the hell are you talking about, you serious? Everything is privatized in Switzerland even health, go to NHS in UK and wait 1 month to get an appoinment they even don't check you, they see you as a drain on resources because they don't make any profit from it
And what education you prefer private of runned by state?
What health service you preffer, Private or runned by State?
What transport you prefer, private or runned by State?
Even energy sector is runned by private companies because if it was runned by state the energy you consume would be super expensive and less efective.
Even medical license is important because no comapany will even try to create medicine,if some company can easily just copy the recipe and make it no company will invest in the medicine
Most of the medicine you accept that helps you survive are because there is a profit
Cmon man
Don't be that socialist, you're one that will go and wait for the newest iphone
Trouble is, if you allowed private companies to choose what routes to keep ... pretty much the ones which don't make money which means more rural and remote ones. The higher volume ones would only be left and these probably the most profitable. So to make any money, private operators cut costs which means no upgrades and running everything until it breaks.
But also, as we found out with Beeching, closing those rural lines would mean the profitable lines get less profitable. Because all of a sudden, people who used the rural lines to go ride the profitable lines can no longer do so, so drive instead of trying to take the train.
That's not how the UK Rail franchise agreements work. Operators do not get to choose what routes to operate as they are baked into the contracts that these companies sign in order to operate these services, for instance, Govia Thameslink Railway t/a Southern Railways simply cannot just choose to cease operating services on the "Newhaven Marine Branch line" at a whim, instead they must go to the government and seek permission and then go though a long and expensive 11 page process before they can actually stop running trains hence the term "Ghost" or "Parliamentary Train Service" because it is cheaper to operate non-advertised trains than try to discontinue service.
There is also the fact that many rural-services were in decline under British Railways starting in the 1960s under the Beeching Cuts and they never ended with most of the lines closed since "privatisation" having had planned closures for over a decade with no private company willing to invest in these rural services because of the "Atlas Shrugged effect" (see the § in the book where Dagny Taggart operated trains in the PR of Mexico before nationalisation)
I think you need to take a history lesson on what happened just after the UK rail network was nationalised. The rail network was actually better when it was privatised originally
And overcrowded trains too mind you. Fewer trains with more passengers = maximum profit.
I never understood the competition thing - when I am waiting for a train, my first thought isn't "I'll wait for a TransPennine instead of this Avanti that's waiting right here." I want to get on a train and get to my destination. This leads on to route weirdness - travelling from Liverpool to Wilmslow I can get a ticket that's valid either via Manchester or Crewe, but not both. They take broadly the same amount of time, and are broadly similar in price. Or travelling from Northampton to Liverpool I found it was significantly cheaper to get off the train that was going to Manchester, buy a new ticket, wait 20 minutes and get the next train via a slightly different route. You couldn't buy that ticket combo online (as one ticket), I had to go to the ticket office in my 20 minute stopover.
Maybe, just maybe, this new plan will simplify things for passengers. But I'm not holding my breath.
The competition is mostly for the franchise contracts, which is not a bad idea, but the way it's set up in this country is the wrong way around. In most of western Europe, private railway operators run under 'concessions', where they get a fixed fee to run services well for a while, with bonuses or penalties if they fail to meet certain targets.
It sounds a lot like the US Amtrak train. It’s partially public and partially private. They are forced to have certain routes but also are trying to make a profit as a for profit organization.
amtrack is full public a "federaly chartered cooperation" but its suposted to be run like its private with like a CEO and board and everything but they are all picked by the government. well its ended up with a lot of issues. fares through the roof ts cheaper to fly or even just drive then take the train. and they are also straight up running out of trains. no investment leads to unprofitability with leads to no investment. but it's up to the government to make that first step and spend some money on it to allow it to work.
@@nick4506 The Americans hate the train. They hate Amtrak, hate not wasting the earth's resources if they don't use aircraft or a car. Self from start to finish. I saw a video on YT that showed that over 50% of travellers on Amtrak are tourists!!!
@@Demun1649 we have 40x the land mass of the UK. We can't cover it all in trains & they wouldn't be used like they are in Europe unless we forced people to live in even more centralized locations.
@@bbbbbbb51 It used to be covered in trains, and populations are already centralized enough to make some routes super viable. You can keep using cars especially as rural areas are better served by them, but having the option to take a train is optimal.
@@bbbbbbb51 You do force people to live in places they don't want to live., The First Nations, the indigenous peoples, the first and only real Americans get forced to live on reservations, and treated as if they are in prison.
As to using trains? The average American sees trains as an equalising measure, therefore not part of an Americans lifestyle. Go by train, not wasting the earth's resources, not producing palnet destroying pollution, sharing a carriage with people of different cultures and colour, not the sortt of thing a WASP would willingly do.
Americans prefer to use petrol guzzling monster engines that do not just use unneccesary fuel but also pollute the atmosphere. It is their right to destroy the countryside if they can or want to do so.
Trains should be a National service.
Does a national service strike? Maybe a health one? Why can't we leave the government away from any business
Yes, but a careful liberalization has been proven to work.
For example in Italy a liberalization of trains led to better service, lower prices AND bigger profits for the public train company (less market share, less margin per ticket, but a market that has expanded so much that the extra number of users more than makes up for it) . But it was done in such a way that unprofitable bits have remained entirely nationalized, to avoid what has happened in the UK. Only high volume and profitable tracts have the private sector in it, and literally everyone is happier for it.
I'd say this is the one case where the liberalization has actually been a win for everyone involved. My guess is that since we did that AFTER you fucked up, we learned from your mistakes. Too bad your own government didn't.
Also the fact that trains in Italy are massively better than before, doesn't mean they're good :p just try to travel by train in Lombardia and get ready to wait through 2 hours delays. Before it was much worse tho.
Yes - have other people pay for it!
Businesses only care about the money.
If the customers wishes overlap with huge margins, customers are lucky, if not there is no other way for them to use any kind of public transportation in this case.
You can see this with the American healthcare system.
Businesses are only good at acquiring a lot of money in a short time span, but that’s not what we want.
The government should just be better at dealing with those essential, public goods and services.
trains are natural monopolies anyways (Peter Thiel) and so competition is not really possible. the only that it does is worsen the experience for the end user in terms of tickets or interchange coordination or even new routes prioritisation. they need to proper nationalise it.
Remember that when you rejoin the EU, you will that to liberalize the railways again. EU policy.
"The inability to cope with major change, combined with increasing competition from other modes of transport eventually led to massive financial failures for JNR." (Kim & Huang 2020)
"How can we maintain the incentive for a TO unit to improve its cost efficiency in a vertical integration system? Pittman (2011) and Mizutani et al. (2009) have suggested possible methods: horizontal separation and incentive regulations.8 According to Pittman (2011), competitive pressures can be produced in two ways under horizontal separation. First, the competition for parallel, origin, and destination corridors can occur among multiple (vertically integrated) railway companies. Second, competition can occur between various modes such as automobiles, air, and seaborne transport." (Nakamuraa & Sakaib 2020)
Just a few references:
E. Nakamuraa & H Sakaib (2020). Does vertical integration facilitate coordination between infrastructure management and train operating units in the rail sector? Implications for Japanese railways. Elseveir.
C. J. Kim & M. C. Huang 2020. THE PRIVATIZATION OF JAPAN RAILWAYS AND JAPAN POST: WHY, HOW, AND NOW. ADBInstitute. No. 1039
Agree natural monopoly. But that doesn't automatically mean worse experience. There is zero incentive for improvement under nationalisation. The quality of rolling stock improved hardly at all in the 25 years pre privatisation Vs the 25 years since for example. As they show in this video's graph, the volume of passengers has increased hugely.
@@danielwebb8402 the number of passangers has increased with the number of urban residents.
Also how do the train companies change the quality of the trains themselves?
@Stixin st
Because they buy them. Order them.
How do you change the quality of your TV? Buying a new one rather than keeping the old one / buying identical replacement.
I used to dislike overcrowding until I went to Beijing and experienced their morning rush hour... After that, I have no more complaints regarding overcrowding here in the UK.
@@solusmaximus2566 Crohn’s Disease?
I guess I will buy you some grade A Alpine spring water to cure it.
It would be interesting to evaluate how the renationalisation of the railways in Scotland and Wales has impacted performance/operations compared against the quasi-private system in England. Also, how this relates to Network Rail (which is UK wide and operates the signalling and maintains the rails) e.g. Scotrail currently aren’t on strike but when Network Rail decides to go on strike, services are disrupted/limited.
Quasi-private isn't really the word I'd use. More like quasi-public. Ever since franchising collapsed during the pandemic, the rail operator companies have basically controlled by and subsidised by the government - something that's expected to continue once the GBR thing gets underway.
Having recently moved to Scotland we think Scotrail is far better than anything English especially the dismal Northern Rail (Fail). Same with NHS Scotland. But can Scotland afford it?
Would scotland be paying for this? Or expect daddy england to cover that too?
@@aaroncousins4750 it’s devolved so it comes out of Scotland’s fixed budget (e.g. Scotland can’t spend more than they receive in tax and Barnett consequentials)
I’m from Wales and the trains and railways suck just as bad constant delays and cancellations are often. Only thing i would say journeys are not too expensive I guess, a ticket to London where I’m from would cost about £44 now (just checked, been about 9 months since I used a train).
Think you missed a key point here about the current NRC contracts indemnifying all losses for the TOCs. This means that the TOC is still paid even if they are unable to run the service- strikes, broken trains, staff shortages etc. This is why Avanti have come under a lot of scrutiny lately.
What is TOC?
@@tudalex train operating company
So, no consequences for providing a bad service + no incentive whatsoever to provide a good service?
@@tudalex Train Operating Companies (rail franchise holders). Since some are foreign state sector companies, it's socialism by proxy with UK government subsidizing profits.
The TOC's have received more money every year than BR received in the entire last 5 years of their existence. REMEMBER THIS FACT!!!!
As an American who visited the UK in May 2022, I used the train system to visit all the places on my list. My experiences were not bad at all. My first trip from Southampton to York required only one change and the connecting train was on time with a wait time of about 10 minutes. I subsequently travelled on to Scotland and then back down to Chester, Exeter, Penzance, Winchester and London. Only once was there delay of more than 15 minutes. The trains were clean enough and comfortable. The ticket price seemed a bit steep but you can save if you book ahead of time online. In the USA, no one travels by train except for people who live in the NYC area. So I am not an expert in train amenities and performance. I suppose being a tourist is one thing, and a regular commuter another, but I found the train personnel very helpful and the service not bad. Overall, I would give the British trains a mark of at least B.
@@syzl___ I wasn't including city subway systems. I was referring to inter city travel above ground travel, like the travel mentioned in my comment. Amtrak exists but I hear it is very expensive. Personally, I don't know a soul who has used Amtrak. I live in Florida. When I lived in New York state, I would occasionaly take the train to NYC but that was in the 1960"s and 70's
@@maginot2u I'm an American (from Oregon) who now lives in the UK. I think the UK system seems a lot nicer by comparison with what we have in America, so moving here it was like wow this isn't bad, but on a world standard - having now travelled through central Europe by train - the UK trains don't even compete. Its all matter of perspective I think.
At last someone talking sense! The UK railway is nowhere near as bad as most here are saying. Yes there are problems but there are issues on all the European railways too. I've been on most and none are perfect. The fast French trains are great but very expensive and a huge scar was inflicted on the countryside to accommodate the new tracks.
@@rowanpdx I agree. I live in Scotland and like yourself have experienced railways in numerous countries. When I was last in Europe I experienced a lot of delays and cancellations. It was peak summer and the systems in several countries were not coping with the volume of passengers.
British people like to hate Britain, hence this video from a British channel hating Britain. It's for the clicks. The trains aren't the best, but they're also not anywhere near as awful as they're being portrayed. Some are stupidly expensive, I agree, but I can travel from my city to central London for £10 on a brand new train. It takes 90 mins to 2 hours depending on the service. It's cheaper than by car, and faster than by car which would take about 3 hours once you hit congestion.
The very first 'fact' you state is that '[privatisation] has massively increased passenger numbers and increased investment'. A shocking misrepresentation of correlation vs causation.
the ridiculous truth is its not the private sector's fault. Privatization works on paper but it cannot achieve it's full potential due to over politicizing and strict anti-competition regulations so the basic answer is the railways were never truly privatized or nationalized just an unhealthy mix of both
Check the rest of Europe.
UK simply doesn't have a clue about how to run transport systems or design/maintain road.
I study in Cambridge but my family lives in Manchester so I regularly pay £65 to see my loved ones. I often have 2-3 changes and it is supposed to take 4.5 hours, but delays and such means I usually end up travelling for 6 hours, longer if a delay means missing my change. Split save cuts it down to £55 ish but then I have zero flexibility and can easily end up stranded somewhere due to train cancellations (I often end up changing route on the day to save time etc).
I love public transport when it’s done right; intra city transport in Manchester and Paris, for example, are great. But paying so much for an unnecessarily long and incredibly unpleasant journey, and having no other choice if I wanna go home and see family and friends is so frustrating. I was once standing the whole journey from Manchester to Leeds, then half the journey from Leeds to Stevenage, which in my opinion is just not acceptable when you’re paying £65 for a ticket.
Trying to get my license and a car ASAP but being a student and this cost of living crisis isn’t helping things at all. Welp.
The biggest takeaway from your comment (especially because you're not alone in your situation) Is that the sheer expense of rail travel in Britain forces people who would otherwise have no reason to get a car, to get one. We have so many people who feel like they have no other option but to get a car and join the rush hour on motorways, because that's still better than rail travel that is both expensive and insanely unreliable. Sorry to hear about your conundrum.
As someone from East Anglia, It saddens me how badly connected the UK rail is on East-West Axis. There’s only two lines between London and Sheffield going East-West and both aren’t electrified.
Grantham-Nottingham-Derby line which is a rural line somewhat
Peterborough-Leicester-Birmingham line which is probably at or overcapacity as it’s also an important freight line connecting Felixstowe to Birmingham.
The Beeching cuts sadly dismantled the line between Cambridge and Oxford which was actually a terrible mistake in hindsight as it’s one of the lines trying to be revived.
Going to any town south of Leicester requires you to change at London if you wanna go east-west which is tricky since there’s also no East-West equivalent to the Thameslink which goes North-south. :/
Have you tried looking up National Express coaches? Might save you a few quid.
£65, luxury. I live near Horsham and my family lives in Salford. For me to visit them by train costs around £120 return compared to around £60 in fuel to drive. I wonder why the UK has some of the most congested roads in Europe.
The gov mishandled the situation & they're reapng what they sow from the days of thatcher.
They literally said in the video that it was under John Major not Thatcher?
@@TheDion56 Don't expect people to know facts before forming an opinion. Especially if the fact clearly explained to them isn't consistent with their pre point of view.
@@TheDion56 thatcher didn’t scrap the rail becuase even she knew that was too far, and then it happened anyways. Welcome to the toxic British consciousness that has infected them. Don’t need the EU; don’t need public rails, don’t need NHS, and now they’re fucked
I live in a country where there are basically no trains unless you live in a major city. I think the train network in the UK is amazing..
Another big factor is the inertia of the British people themselves. In the face of terrible levels of service at rip-off prices, they are simply prepared to accept it. You see this with housing too. Terrible quality at huge expense. Keeping unprofitable lines open, and even opening new ones, is not merely serving a social good either. Doing so results in positive cost externalities (indirect economic benefits), which are rarely factored in. But really, the British will continue to accept the degradation in their living standards (even celebrating it in some twisted form of stoicism). In a sense, they deserve to suffer.
You know, when you have a GBP (Great British Public, not the pound) that believes in such massive lies as "The British Empire was a positive force for civilisation", "We can rightfully claim as ours territories that are 8,000 km away" or "The EU and foreigners are to blame for all our problems", then it's much easier to make that Public swallow smaller lies such as "Privatisation will benefit workers and transport users". It might help if those people could develop thinking skills superior to those of a three year-old toddler...
Maybe because most people can’t afford a train ticket in the uk?!
I worked for a private ambulance company, and the exact same franchising problem is happening in the NHS. Private companies are overselling their ability to provide a particular service (in my case, non-emergency ambulance transport), taking as much profit from hospitals as possible while they have the contract, only to fail and fail hard, before handing the contract to someone else who goes on to do the same. It's been going on almost as long as the trains, but hardly anyone realises. It's one of the reasons the NHS is spending so much money whilst the service remains so poor.
Outsourcing and management consultants are killing the NHS.
This outsourcing nonsense is ruining the NHS. So why doesn't it stop? It's always to do with money. In this case there is a profit going to someone who owns the private ambulance company and likely doesn't use the NHS.
"Were they always like this?" No.
"Do they have to be like this?" No.
"Were they always like this". No, they were far far worse when Nationalised, which is why there was half the passenger numbers.
@@patchpeek and half the number of trains in service 👍
@@patchpeek I've always been a very regular train user and this is easily the worst it's been in at least 10 years. By a clear country mile
I remember this happening. British Rail were never great - I remember it being a running joke that they were always late - but even then, every man on the street knew that privatising it wouldn't work - turning an essential service into a business is never a good idea. Every other country that has nationally owned railways does it a lot better than we do. We now have a situation where certain trips cost a lot more than one of equivalent distance (and ridiculously so if you need to travel during "peak times") just because they happen to be popular, and as a result, we have the most complicated, and least cost effective, ticket pricing system I have ever seen - and buying a ticket on the day (like you can in every other country I've ever been to) is the worst way to travel by train, unless your employer is paying for it.
It’s also a bit sad the UK is also kinda subsidising the Netherland’s rail network as Abellio (A subsidiary of Netherland’s state owned rail operator) used to be a major stakeholder in 4/17 of the UK’s rail franchises and they were big ones as well- East Anglia, Scot rail, East and West Midlands. They just recently lost Scotrail to the scottish parliament.
Paying 12£ for 3 stops, more or less then 50km , in italy the same distance cost 1.5€ for what? Trains always late and cancelled or overcrowded
If you want to learn more about trains I recommend listening to rail natter with Gareth Dennis as he's doing a breakdown of the 1993 railway act and how it caused all this chaos
Finally, a TLDR video I can critically assess, because I know a thing or two about the topic area!
First off, 0:45, correlation not causation! Just look at Northern Ireland. They've had a nationalised system for exactly the same time period, and their passenger numbers have also increased.
2:10, you mention profitable routes and unprofitable routes, and you are partially correct there. The benefit of the nationalised system wasn't primarily that the tax payer could foot the bill for the unprofitable routes though. The benefit of the nationalised system was that, without the requirement to make money, the profitable routes could subsidise the unprofitable routes, and then any left over routes would be subsidised by the tax payer.
4:21 Argh! There is so much wrong with that line you drew. I know it's just graphics, but Avanti West Coast have never run a London-Inverness train, and they don't run via the East Coast Mainline either... (The line drawn on the video shows the ECML from east of Leeds (York) to Aberdeen). The only train that does do London-Inverness is the Caledonian Sleeper, which runs via Crewe, Preston and Carlisle.
5:50 This was not the beginning of the end. This was the speeding up of an already apparent pattern (at least to us in the industry). We already knew privatisation was on it's way out, and this was effectively the final nail in the coffin.
6:00 Don't hold your hopes too high... Apart from the GBRTT (Great British Railways Transition Team), the Government have actively done nothing to actually put this into law. And with the recent political shenanigans, we in the industry fear that this has very much been kicked into the long grass...
6:50 Ahhh... Christian Wolmar... To be fair to TLDR, this isn't one of his more egregious comments, but generally, he is an outsider looking in, which doesn't help him. Sure, he's written a good book or two, but I don't usually rely on him as a source of information about the rail industry. Especially since he seems to have misunderstood the key arguments towards continuing with HS2.
Ultimately, this is a fairly solid video. Yes, I have mixed feelings about it, but none of the errors are particularly bad. It's certainly better than other videos out there that have attempted to cover the same topic. At least the worst error in this video was an incorrectly drawn line, and not spouting fiction claiming it's fact!
Translink go brrr 👍👍
I was thinking that the root cause of the ridership increase was the end of company towns causing people to have to commute to economic centers for their jobs.
4.21 - Just to be trainspotterishly pedantic, the Caledonian Sleeper is not the only train that does London-Inverness. There is a daily service (the "Highland Chieftain") from London (King's Cross) to Inverness via the ECML to Edinburgh, then via Stirling, Perth and Aviemore. I agree that the red line on the map bears no relation to any actual train service.
Good post! And from those I've looked at you are the only person apart from me to mention HS2. Surely that's the elephant in the room here?
I wrote my dissertation on government and railways and what I found was that the biggest problem of the railway is that politicians and civil servants don’t understand how to run a railway and thus keep buggering it up. This applies both before and after privatisation as regardless of what the ministers say the government still makes a lot of decisions even now
Exactly, currently the DFT (government) control the infrastructure they set the timetables set the ticket pricing structures and staffing levels all of which they are trying to make worse hence the current strike action
One thing privatisation obviously has done is make it unclear whether the government should be holding talks with the RMT/ASLEF or whether it is solely the responsibility of the rail operator.
It is clear. It is solely the responsibility of the rail operator.
The unions are pretending it is unclear. As suits their political objective.
@@danielwebb8402 So the government doesn't have any duty to train-reliant citizens to restore functioning train services? Why even have the DfT?
I'm not dogmatically opposed to governments taking a somewhat arms-length approach to stuff like rail. But when the private sector fails to do what the government has paid it to do, surely the government has to intervene, right? That's just contract management 101.
@@alexpotts6520
"The government should step in now" is a different point to "Unclear who should have been responsible originally". Is maybe a better way of putting my point.
The unions both complain the government won't get involved and that the government have got involved (in setting the terms of simply "Do what you want. But no more taxpayer money").
@@danielwebb8402 I think we're broadly in agreement then, that the government does have a moral responsibility to intervene even though contractually that ought to be handled by the operator.
In any world that train drivers can moan about earning ‘only’ £60k pa, then the trains are bound to be crap.
Privatisation didn't cause it because it was already a chaotic mess beforehand. The simple reason is that passenger rail is a money burner that isn't worth doing objectively.
I recently had to travel by train from the North West to Somerset. It was one of the worst experiences of my life! The trains were overcrowded, two of them broke down and I didn't even get a seat until I got to Bristol, 3 hours into the journey. What's more it was on a day without strikes so there was no excuse. Luckily the reason I was going to Somerset was to pick up a car so at least my journey home was pleasant.
I think the biggest reason is simply the price of tickets me and my wife looked at going to London for a weekend and the cost was ludicrous...I haven't checked since as I know they do fluctuate.
It was significantly cheaper for me to travel from Manchester to London on one day, stay overnight in a city-centre hotel, dine out, and travel back the following day than it would have been to get a morning peak-time ticket and do the journey in a day.
I've had enough of the thieving bastards taking my money and providing horrible delayed and overcrowded services. I've been bumping train fares and vow to continue as long as possible.
They need to double down on privatisation and privatise the tracks/infrastructure as well as the train services. That way the train companies would have full incentive to improve and speed up the lines etc.
Privatisation didn't fix the railways, let's put it that way. BR had big problems, it needed massive investment. They will never be economically viable so there will always be that tension between who pays.
I was part of a study abroad to the University of St. Andrews, which included a weekend trip to London and a free BritRail pass. On the train ride back (which was Kings Cross to Haymarket), the train was so pack, we stood near the exit door for 8 hours with barely any room. And this was a couple months before the Omicron Variant.
On an LNER train? They had mandatory seat reservations at the time.
@@mikelovesbacon Yes, but there were also the seats that were more first come, first serve.
I recently was in a train from Edinburgh Waverley to London Kings Cross and can also confirm that the carriages were crowded, with people standing near the exits and some even sitting on the floor. Fortunately I had a reservation as I had booked in advance but I feel sorry for those who may have missed a reservation AND paid a higher price by not booking in advance. Absolutely appalling; we should force our politicians to go on such services and remove all rights to expenses for car journeys/fuel/parking etc.
I went to Australia last summer and they cost 4£ for a 4hr train into Sydney, was absolutely shocked our trains are horrendous
Don't think that nationalising the railways will make them any better. If you think that, please read this message, it may change your mind about it.
I am from Italy, a country where the railways are mostly nationalised, and our train system is absolutely screwed. Most regional routes are served by old, dirty trains, without air conditioning, smelly and overcrowded. Some trains in the south truly resemble the scenery of a post-apocalyptic film. Most of them are always late, of hours, not minutes. Sit in a major Italian train station for a couple of hours, and you will always hear every few seconds the phrase "the train from X to X is delayed of X amount of hours because of {stupid nonsense excuse}. We are sorry for the inconvenience".
But how about train prices? are they cheap? I always hear British people complain about their train prices. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that nationalising won't help that either. Our greedy Italian nationalised system is as expensive as the British one, I've tested a few routes in the UK compared to Italian similar ones (in terms of population of the two cities and km of the route) and the prices are nearly the same. The only difference is that the Italian ones are slightly more predictable, while the British ones fluctuate a lot depending on demand. This however can be a good thing, if you buy British train tickets well in advance, you will save money. Italian fares are just always expensive...
"But that's not true! I've been to Italy and the trains were so amazing! So clean! So beautiful!" I hear you say. Ah, let me guess: did you take one of those fast red trains from one major city or a tourist destination to another, like from Milan to Rome or from Rome to Florence? That, my friend, is either a Frecciarossa or an Italo, which are the only two privatised routes, which compete against each other and therefore are the only ones in the country that provide a good service.
So, in a nutshell, the only decent services we have are the ones that are privatised. Competition makes companies improve their services. Nationalised services solely rely on the goodwill of the managers to improve, because they have no economical drive, as everyone will use their services no matter if they are good or not. You don't like an Italian regional train? Well, walk then...
UK rail prices are the most expensive in Europe because of they’ve been privatised. Italy train system sounds terrible but that’s probably down to bad institutions and corrupt politicians as opposed to the concept of nationalised rail. Germany and Netherlands have nationalised rail and it runs more efficiently and is a quarter of the price of similar distance British rail journeys. Essentials such as public transport and utilities with such high barriers to entry should never have been privatised because a lot of people have no alternative which means that these companies can do whatever they want since they have no competition and hold monopolies on certain routes.
I see what you're saying, but I think those privatised rails work because tourists have a choice. They can choose which tourist destination they want to visit. If I work in Birmingham, I can't choose to commute from Cardiff if I live in Manchester. Therefore, there can't be competition. If I'm a tourist I can choose whatever the better line is because whatever, still a tourist city.
You’re saying Italian issue with trains are EVERYONE’s issue. You’re wrong. Your country has awful public transport and doesn’t fund them properly. Trains work better than any other people mover.
It's similar here in Croatia. We have a nationalized passenger train company, HŽ putnički prijevoz. Their trains have recently been getting quite nice, they ordered many new Končar trains. But the trains weren't ever the main problem. It was the damn rail infrastructure.
Going from one major city (let's say, Zagreb) to a smaller (for this comparison, let's say Šibenik) is a trip which is calculated in tens of hours. It's roughly 350km long, yet the trains need 12 hours to cross that distance. In many parts of the journey the train goes slower than a bicycle. Ticket prices are actually not that high about 20€ is the maximum. The example trip I gave would cost around 12€.
I'm convinced that the rails haven't been upgraded since the Austrians placed them in the 19th century.
Howdy, an American here. Our rail network is fully privatized. Tickets are absurdly expensive, what passenger lines there are are slow and have spotty schedules because the rail companies prioritize cargo trains
It's crazy how after 2 years of not getting on a single train, the first time I decide to take a train in all that time and there's 40+ min delays.
Fully Reminding me why I refuse to take a train 😂.
The UK railway is NOT privatised! The existence of 20 private rail operators maintains the illusion of a privatised rail industry, but Britain's rail network has been (to all intents & purposes) almost entirely re-nationalised. Yet the government is hiding behind the train operators, without the latter being free to fix the problems.
No one is acting as 'Fat Controller' on today's railway. The TOCs are reduced to management contracts under DfT's thumb, neither DfT or Transport Ministry see it as their job, and NR does not have a remit to run the railway. GBR is still just an idea. There is no-one at the wheel.
I've long warned those who call for rail re-nationalisation to be careful what they wish for. We now have a re-nationalised railway and it is highly dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. Bring back Virgin West Coast! Our trains were never better.
So most complaints are reliability not cost outside of London (where you have a decent service from experience). Try having a train line that in last 5 years has gone from every 15 minutes to hourly and is always delayed or cancelled. Its the lack of continued investment on rail that has caused the issue, unless you are down south the rail services has been allowed to fall apart.
Nah, I defo complain about the prices going from 350 a month just to get from Dundee to Sterling. It would likely cost 400 now or something since that was 2018. 15-20 pound journeys from Medway to London. If I want to go for longer journeys to Scotland I need to pay 200 pounds nearly enough, Plymouth it costs 300 just to take a different route. That's, not sustainable pricing. I might just have to fly next time.
Northern litterally is known as the worst operator in the UK.
And theres a firm reason why.
Let’s not forget the Beeching Axe of the 1960s…
That came from the cut backs of the modernisation plan that lead to a bunch of shitty diesels being recklessly bought.
Whatever was succesful from that kept running till around now.
I’m from the US but currently in Spain 🇪🇸 and my anecdotal experience is the Spanish Train system is phenomenal. The high-speed trains are straight 🔥
The UK seems like it’s on a fast track to privatized hell. Its disappointing to see. Look at the horrible situation the US is in, don’t become as bad as us.
Amtrak is publicly owned and it's shit.
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv Amtrak is the worst of both, public and privates. Its a non-govt, private for-profit company that receives millions of dollars in govt subsidies.
I agree it’s a garbage service that never runs on time and cancels half their routes at the last minute. It sucks.
I don’t think you understand how the Uk system works. You probably haven’t been here. It’s not fully privatised nor is on the track for more privatisation. Watch the video again.
@@RRaymer 0:35 “here in the UK the railways are privatized and have been since the late 90’s”
@@cobracommander8133 TLDR News is plain wrong.
6/25 rail companies, and all the infrastructure nationwide, is state owned.
9/10 rail operators with the highest customer satisfaction score are privately owned.
Brilliant summary, and believe me few manage it so well.
One aside. In 2002 Railtrack collapsed and was taken over by the Government in the form of Network Rail after an intolerable number of major rail accidents. While Railtrack were not solely at fault for all, the Hatfield disaster where a rail disastrously failed underneath a train passing over was the tipping point and was blamed on their inadequate management of track inspection and renewal of worn out infrastructure.
The consequent reaction demanded by the then Labour Government exposed the poor state and knowledge of Railtrack's inherited infrastructure, their poor record of investment. inadequate asset management and the vast sums of money needed to bring it up to an acceptable standard.
In fact many problems were a legacy from BR times where years of underfunding had created a long backlog of renewals. Railtrack PLC had done little to address the renewals deficit in their time in charge and were left financially exposed and the then Labour Government would not use taxpayers money to bail out Railtrack PLC shareholders to address the major amount of urgent work needed. That was then.
Network Rail are now faced with a similar squeeze on their budget from central Government and the renewals backlog is likely once again to grow rapidly. The saving grace is that knowledge of asset condition and the planned renewals workbank is far better developed since the dark days of Railtrack PLC.
Trains are barely private. The railways are maintained by the government and so are the timetables.
Actually, we aren't really sure that privatisation lead to increased passenger numbers, those numbers were already climbing before privatisation and the growth was also noticed in Northern Ireland, a place that saw no privatisation of railways at all...
Sigh... At least you guys HAVE a transit train system.
The U.S. system is a non existent compared to yours.
apart from the NEC.
Though amtrak is planning on expanding more.
quite a big note in ohio.
@@davidty2006 huh.
What's Amtrak trying to do in midwestern Florida... I mean Ohio?
Trains, stations, and routes are so arduous to set up that it's always going to be a monopoly and always going to be expensive. It's not possible to make them profitable but also a fair price for people to use them daily.
That's why a national service makes more sense. There's no competition privately anyways so that's not a concern. But the government is incentivised to make it cheap so that the public can travel cheaply, reliably, and quickly to key infrastructures so that they can earn and spend more money. The "profit" isn't from the tickets, but in people paying more taxes from earning (income) and spending (VAT) money.
This is why the only "profitable" trains are massive resorts/theme parks with internal trams - the riders will spend money for the resort/theme park and food/drinks/souvenirs, so the profit is the destination, not the transport itself.
That's what private railway companies in Japan realized, so they mostly engaged into the retail and real estate business along their lines
You look to young to recall what British Rail was actually like. Trains broke down, were randomly cancelled, everything was run down and filthy. In all the time BR ran the route I used to commute I NEVER got a seat. Its was common for briefcases to be sold as "strong enough to sit on" as 25% of commuters would have to sit on their cases every day. When the trains were privatized they put new trains on with about double the seating and I got a seat 95% of the time. Don't forget that BR completely ignored safety warnings and ran slam door trains with passengers falling to their death for years ignoring all warnings. When the trains were privatized it took a few months for the new operators to fit central locking and fix the problem, all BR did after years was stick reflective tape on the doors. Its hard to believe that when BR ran the trains a 125 mph train had doors you had to lean out of the window to open. I worked as a Civil Servant in the days of British Rail and was hardly ever on time for work due to delays, cancellations and breakdowns. Exasperated one day I apologized to my boss, he said "its not your problem, the Government employ you and they run the trains, its up to them to decide". After privatization I was hardly ever late again. Yes the system has problems, but no one who experienced BR will ever want to go back to nationalized rail. The next stage must be a forward to to a much more automated system.
Yeah, and you think that's going to happen (let alone even possible) when everyone dimglow enough to vote votes for the Jimmy Saville Appreciation Society?
And if by a miracle the money is made available it'll be wasted, or nicked by another department. I know, I've worked in the No Hope Service.
After 5 years without a car I moved to the UK and I bought one. Went by trains for a couple of weeks and couldn't stand the constant BS. Keep up the strikes so nobody's gonna trust the trains, revenue will crash and you won't have a job anymore.
I can't think of any privatised industry that has improved their service to the customer.
Reality bomb 👏
You are truly a skilled troll👌
There aren't any.
Ask your parents about BT. 90%+ of people didn't own their own landline. You rented it off BT. You needed a new line installed? Weeks. Now? Because competition you get internet installed the half day you choose at a week's notice easily.
British Leyland? Pretty sure lorries and jags are better today than in the 70s.
Thomas Cook? You think the government should be selling us holidays? Or pickfords for moving companies?
@@danielwebb8402 You can tell most people commenting on this subject still have their mothers milk smeared over their faces. Why they think the government, any government is competent at running anything is beyond me. Kids today think it's wrong to earn a profit.
Most of Japanese railways is privatised, so the problem is implementation.
Most Japanese railways make their money off of land aquisition and management. Therefore they do not rely on the trains to make them profitable, so they provide a decent service.
that's true, but they still make a profit off of building retail/leisure space around their stations. is Britain willing to implement that? Sure, it's up to the public I guess, but the current system must go either wayt
tbf this is the case for most organisations. Both the NHS and a system like mandatory private insurance (like in the Netherlands) generally work about as well as the other until the government intervenes in a way they shouldn't have (ie causing financial instability). It's the practical rules and management that's the problem, not who's name is on the paper.
The Scottish routes have stunning scenery
Like a lot of things in modern Britain, the privatisation of our railways has been an unmitigated disaster for the consumer who are no longer the highest priority for the train operating companies who are more interested in lining their own shareholders pockets.
If Thatcher wouldn't do it, then rail privatization will never work. Its way more expensive for fares now its private - countless govt billions given since privatization. Another bodge, another billion.
Scotland - I’m very surprised you never addressed the big topic is Scotland when it comes to nationalised train service….. we’ll because we re nationalised Scotrail as of 1 Apr 2022 ? Only times scotland was mentioned was all negative rather than tell people the positive ?
When the Scottish Government took it over from Abellio (a rubbish service by a European company) a lot of services were axed. I think it's too soon to say if the new setup works. No train for me today near Aberdeen as the English workers were on strike. We're still joined up to them.
The increase in passengers may not have anything to do with privatization.
But all the cons since must do
@@danielwebb8402 If we think about it, so for example data suggests that millennials drive less. Cars have become more expensive, living costs have increased more than wages and people are in general more conscious of how transport impacts the climate. This all increases train usage. So in short, privatization may not have anything to do with the increased number of people using it.
Then there is the fact that some people, like myself like using trains more than flying, and take the train when it is possible. The time it takes to go to an airport, be there on time, go through the check in (hope that your luggage isnt too heavy), security, etc, fly ,wait for the luggage, and than go from the airport, can sometimes take more time than just go to the nearest train station take how many trains and busses you need and than arrive relatively close to your destination. In situations were it takes more time by train, usually its a much better experience. Because, honestly flying can be such an abysmal experience.
Don't forget that the rails had to be renationalised due to the fact privatisation lead to cuts in maintance and lead to quite a number of Rail accidents and d eaths.
It's statements like that that make railways so expensive. Deaths per mile are far lower than any other mode of transport but, because they make the news, rail is forced into expensively excessive safety.
I've lived in the UK for over 8 years now, and honestly I didn't really see much of a problem with trains. Before the current strikes, I've rarely dealt with any significant delays or cancellations. While whenever I've been to Germany, I've nearly missed my flights every time because the trains to the airports were always cancelled. And I don't think I've ever taken a train in Germany which wasn't delayed. Also, I didn't find trains in central or northern European countries to be cheaper than in the UK. Here I've found the prices to be decent if you buy your tickets in advance online.
You clearly are not old enough to remember just how badly the government did when they ran the rail service...both Conservative and Labour.
Privatising healthcare in the US made healthcare more expensive.
Privatising transportation in the UK made public transport less reliable.
I'm starting to think that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were wrong.
No way really 💀👀
When was healthcare in the US publicly funded like in UK / Europe?
And more expensive like if I want to travel from Plymouth to Glasgow to visit that costs nearly 300 hundred pounds I can shave off 100 to get a train from London to Glasgow. It shouldn't be like that. it should be affordable to travel. If I move onto my own I might not be able to afford that route and take 16h bus journey instead where trains cut that time in half on the direct route.
"Privatising healthcare in the US made healthcare more expensive."
That is not actually the case. If it truly was an open and free market this would not have happened. But same as with many other things in the US corruption has lead to government-created monopolies and a half-regulated market - aka the worst situation you can have.
Trickle down economics for you
Chiltern is the only good private operator
I think this may be largely due to the region they cover.
@@martineyles also down to Adrian shooter
I lived in Munich Germany for over four years and when came back to UK all the services seem crap not just trains but doctor and dentist. Way behind a lot of countries in Europe, Sweden for example they do not have any bullshit snow on the tracks or at airport issues
Sweden pays a lot for snow-clearing infrastructure. Big fleets of snow ploughs etc. it’s a question of infrastructure spending and will.
The UK doesn't have snowy winters like Scandinavia, and third rail in the south east is very susceptible to icing. It is deemed not worth investing a ton of money into mitigation measures that will only come about once a year if that, rather that accept that once in a while there will be weather related delays. The other issue in the UK, in particular the SE, is that some airports and rail routes are saturated with no slack in the system, so it only takes a minor perturbation to cause delays and cancellations, and having to slow trains down due to icy conditions or spacing aircraft further apart at airports is one such minor perturbation.
The biggest problem for me is how rail companies think travelling through London constitutes a 5x (roughly) increase in the price it costs for your ticket. If I wanted to get between Ashford (Kent) to Southampton as I often do going via London costs £75-85 whereas going via Brighton costs £15-£20.
What is not appreciated is that the 'unprofitable' branch routes feed into the 'profitable' mainline routes. The whole thing needs to be seen systemically, including the knock on costs of road use
Strikes bother me and they should 🙌 strikes are the only way to get the greedy elites to pay liveable humane wages. This chaos has been long deserved. I have to go all the way to Durham from London and it’s been a nightmare as it should be 🤝
People would have more sympathy for those striking if they weren’t already earning 10-20% more than the UK average wage.
@@alexk7511 I don’t know where to start with that level of submissive ignorance, sorry.
@@alexk7511 The strikes aren't even about pay. If you paid any attention you'd hear that the Government wants to reduce maintenance staff and make maintenance turn around times tighter, and introduce more unsafe working methods like DOO. They also want to scrap ticket offices because they're 'only' used by the elderly and disabled.
@@mylordSC They increase the fare anyway. They could literally pay the staff more and the CEOs less and it wouldn't impact the fares.
You sound like a great person.
British railways don’t suck. Sure, there’s lots of delays and is expensive and has lots of old stock, but that’s due to a variety of complications.
The truth is that the global relative frequency on most lines, and the highly concentrated and localised coverage enable such excellent mobility and connectivity, that you don’t dream of in most parts of the world. I moved from China in 2015, and was thoroughly impressed in the way trains operated here. People who compliment Chinese trains don’t realise how not local or everyday they are.
British railways is not bad, the frustration comes from how potentially much, much better it could be had everything been done right.
Rail ridership didn't increase because of privatisation: it increased because of changing attitudes and habits.
Also, the private rail companies, whilst failing, somehow managed to pay huge dividends to share holders!
Unfortunately attitudes in government towards public transport have never changed. It's always been seen as a fringe means of transport by people running the country. Rail could be a huge asset to this country, as it has been shown in other countries like Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan. Reliable, cheap and large capacity rail services change everything. And of course, high speed rail is transformative too. It enables a whole new level of social mobility, and economic activity. But the government is just too set in it's attitude to see that.
We're going to London tomorrow morning to visit a friend. The price for 3 people is £106 (including the return). If I drive, we'll spend £20 on diesel, £15 for parking and less than £20 for the tube. Guess how we're going to London.
If you walked, slept in bus shelters and ate roadkill you could do it for far less.
@@Purple_flower09 I actually walked once to London with a friend. It took us 9 hours, so I'll stick with the car!
Look at the London - Hastings line. One franchise. No consumer option. Think Of A Number Fares, because you’ve a complete monopoly. Greed and Privatisation ruined our trains.
Could you also explain the renationalisation of Scottish Rail and how this plays into all of this?
Has it been successful?
Korean overlords are asking the right questions
Very briefly, railways and Scotland and Wales are devolved to each respective nation.
For Scotland as Rail was devolved they are able to choose their franchise bid, that last one being Abellio. However due to issues with the franchise the Scottish government chose to end the franchise short rather then running the full length (agreed before the pandemic).
From what I’ve understood with everything taken in house Scotrail is now dependent on the Scottish government, in a sense it’s not created as an arms length independent body to the government.
Meaning for strikes agreements were made between the government and the unions rather than the Train Operating Company (TOC). And new rolling stock is being procured through the government.
This type of nationalisation has its up and downs.
This is in contrast to Wales nationalisation which is run at arms length to the government.
What you describe fir Scots Rail is similar to what is happening in Wales.
Transport For Wales (the company) lost the contract last year and Transport For Wales (the Welsh Government Body, confusing, I know) took over, but kept Transport For Wales (the company) involved to help run things.
Pay negotiations were successful with drivers and rail staff, so no strikes, although most lines are still owned by Network Rail so the strikes with the Department For Transport have still affected Wales.
Transport For Wales (both the company and the Government body) have been pushing hard to buy brand new trains (class 231s, 576s, 195s, and Tram trains) and are electrifying the lines to improve service. They will own the new trains, rather than lease them, so will have more trains available in service.
Scotrail hasn't really been renationalised properly. And at the moment, until the eu laws imposed on our railways are revoked and rewritten, it cannot be renationalised. Even the SNP understand this. The SNP election manifesto explicitly said that they would "set up a public body to bid for the next Scotrail franchise". So what you think is a 'renationalisation' is actually a 'direct award' to a government department, as allowed in the eu laws, for a period of no more than 5 years. After which it must be retendered to the private sector. So rather than it being a renationalisation, and a reintegration of our railway, it is actually a continuation of the existing eu structure imposed upon the railways, with seperate train operations, seperate track infrastructure, and eternal retendering of the train operations every few years.
@@trevormax82 TfW didn’t loose any contract. With the onset of the pandemic like with England operator franchises where cancelled. However with rail being devolved in Wales (for franchise) Wales decided to take it in house.
However, the current nationalised body of TfW didn’t order any new trains. All train on order were ordered by Keolis Amey (previous holder).
The current holder (Welsh government) has only taken on additional Mk.4 coaches which are Ex-Grand Central ones (cancelled Blackpool to Euston service).
I am not sure if they will “own” the trains as trains were ordered under Keolis Amey, however if you have evidence to suggest otherwise please do share.
I think Wendover productions sums it well in his episode about the topic.
Not even remotely. Both videos do not even begin to touch on the reason behind the failure. It has no relationship with regulation or franchizement, but rather due to the structure of rail-lines themselves. While Japan and Hong Kong has passenger rail-ways run by companies that own the network, the UK separated them. While evidence suggest the efficient depends on the density of the line, in aggregation separation does more damage than integration - Reason why Japanese rail lines only have problems in low density areas, while UK railways always have problems.
@@nils191 you do understand that the seperation you mention, was mandated by the EEC in directive 91/440 back in 1991. Which lead directly to the UK governments 1993 railway act. Which was their way of taking the UK railway directly to the end result of what the eu wanted. The Germans enacted the directive in their 1994 bahn reform act, hiding it in the legislation to reunite the railways of east and west Germany (by mandating the break up of their integrated railway operations!)
@@amateurcameraman Your point? It's a well established fact in the literature that railway separation is associated with higher costs on average for high density lines. Mizutani has on several occasions empirically demonstrated the fact.
As for Germany, you're not entirely correct that Germany has "reunited the lines." Germany employs what's known as the holding company model, not the integrated model, which itself possess its own incredibly weaknesses which are unique to it.
@@watertower3969 Because of misalignment of interest and transaction costs. What you're mentioning is the reason why separation causes higher costs, because those exact costs of managing and maintaining tracks are put unto the rail passenger companies and doesn't result in the improvements that would benefit them.
If passenger train operators owned their own tracks, they have an incentive to improve them and actually maintain them to ensure safety and lower cost of managing the passenger trains themselves. The empirical literature consistently find that vertical separation is incredibly damaging, it raises costs in high density lines and reduces coordination. This is why Japan's privatization was successful where the UK failed, in Japan tracks are operated by the same company that runs on them.
@@watertower3969 Also, just to continue this. According to Fumitoshi Mizutani, Andrew Smith, Chris Nash and Shuji Uranishi in their 2015 paper on the subject, they estimate that the EU's imposition of full vertical separation would in aggregation be responsible for a net cost of 6 billion EUROs a year, being mostly paid by taxpayers.
This figure is even larger in more recent literature, but it goes to show the damaging effects of vertical separation that the EU actively encourages.
Railways in Scotland are nationised ,God help us .Brittish Rail was a disaster
When I was in Japan the train arrived 3 minutes early and the conductor profusely apologized to the public on the platform.
The Japanese system, particularly the Tokyo metropolitan subway system, are a testament to a well working privatized system.
But it isn't cheap. And maybe there is a cultural thing that explains why it works so well.
I think you half hit the nail on the head. Part of the secret is simply 'is trains a system you as a nation are willing to spend money on or is it cars cars cars cars that get all the subsedies and trains are a side project'?
Japan's system is kind of privatised on paper but in practice JR group acts like an pseudo-oligopoly over most of the rail network (and some provincial governments still own their regional operator). To an outsider the system looks like it's mostly nationalised even though it isn't, with private rail services having a minority position running unusual routes, rural branch lines and some commuter networks as well as metro systems. So in a way Japan created a successful privatised rail system by having a system that's not actually much different in the way it functions to a nationalised system.
@@Croz89 Good point. Plus Japans interlocking of big companies and the government post WW2 both culturally as well as in terms of organisation is quite unique in the world.
Just like our electric grid huh.
I do enjoy the assumption, but let me humor the question. What do you base the idea that the electric grid privatization failed?
Its not cost that I hate, although it's a factor. Its unreliable service. You cannot rely on a train as you get told it's delayed 5 minutes after it's already late, then it updates minute by minute as you are standing on the platform that it will be there in a minute. 15 minutes later it's cancelled.
prices have gone up by 48%?? .. I am sorry but in 1991 I could get a one day travel card from Reading to London for approx £12.50. These days it costs over £50. hence I dispute your claim.
A lot is said about the earnings of railway staff, not a lot mentioned about the millions made by a few at the time of privatisation.
The point missing in the story are the employees. The rail companies can reduce the pay to increase profit. Now the employees strike. That is a down side of the privatization principle and worth noting in this video.
You either want high salaries and benefits for employees your you want lower prices, you cant have both without putting the people from all around the country that, on average, dont use the trains that much or dont even have them in their towns, paying for your ticket too from their taxes.
Because public employees don't strike? Say...... nurses at the moment?
You should probably have mentioned that the Great British Railways thing got shelved by Liz Truss and I don't think Sunak has any plans to revive it amid everything else that's going on, so it's not certain it will ever be implemented.
FFS. One of the few good ideas those morons have had and they're flagging on it, instead of getting firmly behind supporting it like any decent government would.
Surprised sunak can muster the mental fortitude to write his name and date on the top of the page, he's about as useful as a chocolate teapot
Privatisation did NOT lead to an increase in passenger numbers, privatisation just so happened to coincide with a massive socioeconomic shift that would have seen massive increases in passengers regardless
Being Irish and living in Manchester 23 years, where our railways were never privatised, even after changing through the old CIE (which still exists as a holding company) and then Irish Rail, where we have partnerships with NI Railways on the Dublin - Belfast Route (Enterprise Train) - I use SailRail (managed by TfW and the ferry companies) via Holyhead in North Wales to visit family in Ireland and the experience is a nightmare, changing trains at Chester, Crewe and Lladnuo - the problem is not really public v privatisation of the railways, its more about mismanagement, incompetence and wastage of available funds (increased funding/investment is not the solution) which is also indirectly creating problems in industrial relations with the rail trade unions - in order to improve efficiency, bring down the cost of fares, increase standards of service to passengers, make rail projects be completed in half the timescales and for half the costs, the ONLY solution, in conjunction with renationalising of the railways, is to bring in an external rail operator/management team from the Far East, such as from CCP China, Japan or Taiwan, passing all of the relevant laws as required through Parliament to make it happen, ditch all of the existing U.K. rail bodies, give this new body complete and direct control of the U.K. railways, complete with a certain level of annual taxpayer funding and investment in each area, such as tracks, signals, trains, stations, new rail projects, improved passenger services, lower rail fares, increased restrictions placed on the power of trade unions to strike and to keep this in place for at least the next 20 years
Thatcher started all the pre privatisation work, your assertion is incorrect.
By breaking it down into small slices, they created systemic inefficiency.
The rail went from underfunded and unable to provide services, to overfunded and wasteful.
It's all about what the media will let them get away with.
Most TL;DR viewers are too young to understand that British Rail was a terrible service, it may have been cheaper but you only got there half the time and it took twice as long as it should have.
That's because there had been zero investment for decades. British Rail was flexible though. I remember a train didn't turn up and because we were on a tight schedule the stationmaster put us in the guards carriage of a freight train. That would never happen now but it saved us a missed flight.
Every country in Europe did reviews of the British Rail system to see if they should do the same, everyone called it flawed and keep their old mainly national train services.
Yeah, no, that's just outright false. There've been multiple EU rail packages aimed at privatisation and open access (and in general open access has led to better rail options for rail users)
Pathetic.... there are only 3 causes of the rail network issues: ( 1) unions, ( 2) Unions and ( 3) government that allow unions to exist
Remember folks that nationalisation isn't a panacea either. BR was nationalised by the 1960s when the Government holding the purse strings decided it needed rationalising and we got Beeching and his axe that decimated the network. Now whilst that was initiated by road building Tory transport minister Marples (conflict of interest) it was continued by Castle in the following Labour Government. And Beeching had come after the massively expensive 1950s BR Modernisation Programme which, amongst other things, pissed money up the wall on lots of different diesel locomotive designs and technologies because BR was still pretty fragmented along the lines of the pre-nationalisation Big Four companies (with LMS & LNER up in Scotland being merged into their own fifth region). After Beeching, BR in the 1970s was in often managed decline with creaky old trains, strikes(!), awful customer service and just a few bright spots like the HST. It was sectorisation of BR in the 1980s with some renewed investment that turned that corner and meant BR sandwiches weren't quite the joke they had been by 1993.
So privatisation can result in shitty railway service, and nationalisation can too. And both can at times provide very good services, but we often don't remember the good times as much as the bad.
In Germany we have the exact same issue.
Oh really, I thought DB ran most routes?
German trains are so much better, there is no comparison. I know you complain about Deutsche Bahn a lot over there, but trust me, at least you actually have the infrastructure linking towns together. The UK has large black spots where there is no rail service at all, and no fast roads, you just have to drive through it stuck behind tractors the whole way. It's worse than the 1920s, because the roads haven't changed much, they carry far more traffic, and the railway is gone. There's no equivalent of the S-Bahn. You just get nothing or a bus if you're lucky.
@@thegearknob7161 it's relevant that most European countries started from scratch after ww2 regards rail and to an extent road. So they were able to plan more effectively. The UK still has a Victorian railway in many places. You can't knock down bridges and allow for double decker trains for example and you can't take out all the corners and fun faster trains. Well you can do those things but you'd need to flatten a lot of housing and build hundreds of bridges.
I would prefer a system similar to TfL, but across the entire country, governments set routes, governments set prices, government set standards, but private operators, that get paid a set amount per service, regardless of customer numbers, this should be across all trains, busses, trams, etc…
But then I also thing we should have a transport tax, that everyone pays, and have no cost to travel on public transport for local routes, and a small fee for long distance routes.
if there was a way of getting oyster but for every bit of transport in the UK.
That would be marvalous and the system would be quite simple to imploment.
@@davidty2006 The netherlands has a universal transport card system. I see no reason why it shouldn't be an aspiration here.
There probably should also be incentives for good performance as well, in addition to a performance penalty to encourage improvements and investments.