Few ideas are as strangled at birth quite as effectively as the government's planned Great British Railway has been. Wales and Scotland run their own railway systems. The new rail network the government has announced is for England alone.
Misnaming this enterprise is arrogant folly at play. But so too is the plan. This is just a revised franchise deal at the end of the day. Companies will still profit from running trains at public expense when the value that they add is hard to identify.
Rail equipment leasing companies will still also charge comparatively extortionate rates for leading rolling stock when the option of funding this as public borrowing at much lower cost is readily available.
So what will really change? Lots of uniforms and liveries. A fortune will be spent in paint. And there may be more rational ticketing. But what the public really wanted was a nationalisedvrail network, which is what is required when there is a natural monopoly supplier.
Governments have known nationalisation is the only real answer to rail management for more than a century now. It was actually seriously toyed with after WW1. Three national railways will work in that regard. Now was the time to deliver that outcome. But the government has ducked again to keep friends in industry and finance (in particular) happy. It's another rail disaster in the making.
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Again, Mirowski is right: the Neo-liberal response to ANY problem (including market failure) is yet more markets.
Awful.
….In Bedford, the peasants are revolting (against a planned new railway line). To be fair, everyone along the route are moaning. Of the options available, one feature is a 5KM viaduct crossing the A421 and the (soon to be altered) Black-Cat roundabout) A1….which according to their plans runs down the centre of the A421….hmmm. Bedford station is to be demolished and rebuilt, with a new multi-storey carpark (since the new lines will be on the present carpark)….and 63 houses and several businesses are to be bought and demolished. The new railway runs through virgin land and will need several viaducts and several deep cuttings. No doubt the route was known long ago to some, and there will be fortunes made by those with foresight (and prior knowledge of the routes).
This country has gone from a democracy to an autocracy, and now rivals third world countries for corruption.
https://eastwestrail.co.uk/
The consultation is prearranged….and by zoom..
Great British Railways – a new TV series fronted by Michael Portillo ?
I thought he had already done it?
Although even as a railways enthusiast (and I am) I find this tone sufficiently irritating to only watch it occasionally. And I own several Bradshaws.
Same horse, different jockey (getting more money to do things that don’t need to be done).
Craig
No new money for it I see as HS2 empties the pot. Also saw new estimate for Palace of Westminster refurbishment at 20 billion. Tankers of Krug champagne (vintage of course) to those in the right tail.
You probably know this better than I do, but doesn’t Network Rail look after the infrastructure on which TfW Rail and ScotRail (and the erstwhile English operators) run? Won’t GBR do the same?
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but it seems to me this is an acceptance that rail privatisation has not worked as hoped, and probably a move in the right direction. I wonder what the Conservatives will nationalise next.
But for public facing it will not be GBR
Trains remain devolved at operational level
I thought they were going for contractual concession service provision, rather than franchising. So will it be much different to catching a red London bus operated by Abellio, Arriva London, Go-Ahead, Metroline, Stagecoach, etc., all operating under contracts with a common authority, with similar pricing, terms and conditions?
How do SNCF, DB, RENFE, etc, operate? Has anyone managed to explain how the rail situation in the UK is so peculiar that we need to do something different to all the other major countries in Europe?
The new logic is as bizarre as the old
In 1919 the UK government knew rail competition did not work and should be limited. They ducked it then but delivered in 47.
Nothing about privatisation has ever made sense in railway terms
This was mentioned on BBC Radio Scotland. My inattentive ear may be leading me astray, but the presumption was that GBR would subsume Network Rail Scotland and control the infrastructure the soon to be nationalised Scotrail runs on. As one of GBR’s five regional divisions, Network Rail Scotland will have a union jack on it somehow.
Another issue to resolve on independence then….
When flailing around for a policy, what better solution than a name reminiscent of better times when the English decide absolutely everything? Two fingers to the Union. Surely the disintegration of the U.K. has now become a key policy demand of all progressive people. The bigotry and myopia of English nationalism is certainly viral in character. Its ability to mutate and infect all and every crevice of politics requires eternal vigilance, frequent booster doses of democracy and chasms of social distancing from any member of the English elite.
I could go on about the railways until you give up the will to live, but it seems to me that it comes back to the failure of the UK Political class to run the Nationalised Industries, indeed almost all our Industries properly.
Given that many of the franchises are curranty run by subsidiaries of European State Run Railways it doesnt seem that Nationalisation is a problem, but successive UK Governments are.
Agreed
I wonder Richard what Adrian Vaughan would make of this latest iteration of the private sector feeding trough our railways have become?
In 1839 the British government created the trade board to regulate the railways. The trade board found that rail companies were ignoring the regulations. So the 1844 rail act said that any company ignoring the regulations would be nationalised. Actually the original bill put forward by William Gladstone called for full nationalisation of the rail network. William Gladstone at that time was the president of the board of trade.
There never was a conflict between supporting free trade and state economic intervention.
I suspect that our Government and their backers will be promoting the “Publicly funded – Privately provided” model (syphon-economics) across the board. Transport services (rail & busses),Health-service, Local Authority services, education, social-care. It’s a form of capitalism that lends itself to cosy deals amongst those with the best connections. Perhaps one day we’ll look back on the supply of PPE as a trial run.
When I read the title I thought you had the same concern as me – literal rail disasters. Structural change can massively impact safety (see Railtrack) and I fear that having infrastructure and operations under the same leadership will serve only to save ministerial blushes whilst problems quietly develop.