[rogerhb]

Tories are starting to clear their clutter of inheritance

At last the Conservative party has admitted that its railway privatisation was a mistake. The sinner has repented, albeit 15 years too late. The cost in underperformance, delay, waste and subsidy has been incalculable and unaccountable.

You can only sell the family silver once, and then if you have to rent it you're losing twice over.

Thatcherism(UK), Reagonomics(US), Rogernomics(NZ) were all smoke and mirror fleecing schemes.

[NTBKtrader]

Could they just nationalize it?

[SoothSayer]

I lived abroad when the UK rail was privatised.

When I left we had one single rail service.

Shortly after I got back, I wanted to get a train ticket ... it was impossible ... so many new rail companies, with widely different prices and separate timetables.

And have you seen the RailTrack family tree? Some companies own the track, some own the carriages, some run the trains ... nuts.



I didn't use the rail services for YEARS after that ... it was easier to drive, rather than spend 2 hours working out your route & price!

It's now a bit easier with the integrated web timetable service thank goodness.

They should have simply privatised one single British Rail ... we only needed to replace the surly, slobby, unionised staff with a keen hard working privatised staff.

[Karl]

You could not re-nationalise the railways as the expenditure from the public purse would have alarm bells ringing at the IMF. The UK international credit rating would be downgraded.

Dont quite agree with the comments on the railways prior to privatisation. A lot of work was put into the system to attract the eventual private investors. Ironically before privatisation we had got at times a superb product. Intercity really came into its own, with dining as good as anything I have experienced in travel. a lot was achieved alas for the wrong reasons.

[rogerhb]

Could they just nationalize it?

They certainly could but it would be embarrassing, unfortunately politicians prefer the unworkable to being embarressed.

Unfortunately most privatisations have been detrimental.

But once the govs got the privatisation bug into their thick heads they sold the family silver as fast as they could.

[Grifter]

Could they just nationalize it?

They certainly could but it would be embarrassing, unfortunately politicians prefer the unworkable to being embarressed.

Unfortunately most privatisations have been detrimental.

But once the govs got the privatisation bug into their thick heads they sold the family silver as fast as they could.

Yeah, short term tax breaks for selling us something we already owned. we bought it though, hook, line and copy of angling times.

[ubercynicmeister]

Tories are starting to clear their clutter of inheritance

At last the Conservative party has admitted that its railway privatisation was a mistake. The sinner has repented, albeit 15 years too late. The cost in underperformance, delay, waste and subsidy has been incalculable and unaccountable.

You can only sell the family silver once, and then if you have to rent it you're losing twice over.

Thatcherism(UK), Reagonomics(US), Rogernomics(NZ) were all smoke and mirror fleecing schemes.

YEP, and all you have to do is look at the Victorian privatisation to see what happens outside Britain...and then there's Pacific National, the Australian Privatised Rail Freight service that was supposed to be a New Age (Golden Age?) of Australian Rail.

It's being killed by the government run Queensland Rail (QR National) who are out-competing it at every turn. YUP, a govt run bodiy, which has to compete on the same playing field, with the same rules, costs and regulations...is wiping the floor with their private competitors. And they don't get more subsidies than their private competitor (Pacific National) who are demanding bigger tax-payer subsides from the Victoria Govt or they will shut down heaps of regional rail lines.

So Much For Privatisation, the Worst Mistake The West Has Ever Made.

[untothislast]

Much as I loathe them, the Tories managed a tremendous sleight of hand; the fundamental appeal to patriotic flag-waving proletariat wannabes - whilst simultaneously selling off the fabric of the country to largely foreign interests. And, incorporated within a programme of extensive privatisation, encouraging people to feel good about owning their 'own' homes, while transforming them into nothing more than rent-paying tenants of their own country. Brilliant!

[rogerhb]

Much as I loathe them, the Tories managed a tremendous sleight of hand; the fundamental appeal to patriotic flag-waving proletariat wannabes

... and having a successful colonial military adventure in the South Atlantic.

However it was all "buy now pay later"....

[evilgenius]

I'm glad to see talk about this as it is mandatory that public transit ramp up around the world. I have ridden the rails in Britain and have always preferred that mode of travel unless I was traveling in a packed car where we all shared the price of petrol.

I think few people know that rail in Britain used to go to many more places than it does now. The countryside is full of disused trackways which could be brought back in a crisis with government investment. It is possible to envision a future where public transport does go everywhere, not just in and out of London and to your town or city if it lies on such a path. Imagine a localized light-rail web thoroughly connected to the 'esisten' system. It would be salvation itself if you could catch a small train car from Guildford to one of the little B-road towns close in that aren't on the London line. It is a pain in the ass having to get a cab or call a friend to get a ride when you know it could be better (and less petrol intensive). And just imagine being able to travel latterally, like say from Godalming to Dorking, by light-rail.

Of course, Colorado doesn't have squat. Here they have turned down a monorail plan for relieving the Interstate highway congestion along the main mountain corridor. They want to widen and widen the highway. I miss Britain, even as is with its current rail problems, every time I get into my car.

[rogerhb]

I think few people know that rail in Britain used to go to many more places than it does now. The countryside is full of disused trackways which could be brought back in a crisis with government investment.

Dr Beeching anyone?

Alas most of the actual track was salvaged and the bridges either pulled down or fallen into disrepair.

Wainwright's Coast to Coast follows a few old railway routes, including one from Richmond to Catterick.

[SoothSayer]

Dr Beeching anyone?

Dr Beeching was a total shite ... his name is dirt in all generations of our family, and has been so for decades.

The Beeching Report

Dr Beeching

The evil SOB, Dr Beeching


(To be fair, some however say that Beeching was a nice chap. Paul McCartney even asked Dr Beeching to sort out Apple’s finances!)

[ubercynicmeister]

I think few people know that rail in Britain used to go to many more places than it does now. The countryside is full of disused trackways which could be brought back in a crisis with government investment.

LOL, an awful lot of Preservation Groups know about it. My father talked about the rout (ie: defeat) of Rail, but we now know that it was all done because the then British Transport Minister had been bought by the Road Lobby, as it is called in other places.

Oh, well, I dunno what the heck you;re gunna do with all those thousands of kilometres of motorways once the cars can't use it...mostly they go too far away from people to be much use Post Peak Oil. I suppose one could put rail on top...but then you'd need to rebuild the bridges.

Oh, well.

[rogerhb]

(To be fair, some however say that Beeching was a nice chap. Paul McCartney even asked Dr Beeching to sort out Apple’s finances!)

Did he decommission unprofitable tracks from their albums?

[ubercynicmeister]

Much as I loathe them, the Tories managed a tremendous sleight of hand; the fundamental appeal to patriotic flag-waving proletariat wannabes

... and having a successful colonial military adventure in the South Atlantic.

However it was all "buy now pay later"....

NO: the Falklands War darn near neded in complete disaster for the Brits. Y'see the military wanted to put their supplies all on a huge cargo ship, and send them via container off to the Task Force.

Pity the Argentinians found out about it (as in: what the HECK is this cargo ship - flying a British Flag - doing miles away from the regular cargo routes...let's see how it likes a few Exocet missiles).

The British troops ran out of bullets, because all of the supplies ended up sinkign with said ship. Luckily the Argentines surrendered just as the British were considering surrendering to them.

Pity it din't happen, in a way - Margret Thatcher would have resigned in utter disgrace as not even she could have bluffed THAT one out.

[rogerhb]

NO: the Falklands War darn near neded in complete disaster for the Brits.

To quote Wellington, "A damned close run thing.".

Also the Admiral in charge was livid when he heard the BBC announcing his next movements, similarly when the govt announced major ops just prior to Goose Green.

Was this the first reality-TV war?

[ubercynicmeister]

Dr Beeching anyone?

Dr Beeching was a total shite ... his name is dirt in all generations of our family, and has been so for decades.

The Beeching Report

Dr Beeching

The evil SOB, Dr Beeching


(To be fair, some however say that Beeching was a nice chap. Paul McCartney even asked Dr Beeching to sort out Apple’s finances!)

My father (who came from Glasgow) talked extensively about Dr Beeching, who was put in place to do one thing: destroy Britain's rail network and drive business onto Road.

Apparently Dr Beeching had been given the task of refurbishing Glasgow's trams went onto British Rail, and he made an utter stuff up of that, too. Before Dr Beeching, Glasgow had a well-run, well organised system that was easy to use and cheap.

After Dr Beeching they had no trams at all but break-down prone trolley busses, which didn't last for very long and eventually were retired to be replaced by diesel busses.

So, after the utter stuff-up of the Glasgow Trams, in which Dr Beeching had been shown to be firmly in the pocket of the road lobby, he was given the job of wrecking British Rail.

And BOY did he do a good job, too! More route-miles abandoned, just as they could be made into profit-making...and strangely the stuff that was abandoned was the stuff that anyone could see would be needed by industry a few years after the closure of the rail line.

So, given the then-expanding industry didn't have access to rail, they used road instead. And thus the Road Lobby were really happy with their disciple, Beeching.

James Kunstler refers to this period as "brutal". In Australia, it's known as the Great Industrial Vandalism of the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. of course they at least put something in the place of that which they destroyed - albiet not as good.

Starting in the 1980's, they downsized that idea, and just demolished industry without bothering to build ANYTHING in it's place. We thus do not have the locallised industry to replace that which we're about to lose access to because of Peak Oil.

This is why I believe we're screwed, and royally.