Britain’s experiment in radical rail privatisation is over

[Oldddudders]

Just now, Andy Kirkham said:

It seems to me that governments have been so determined to show that privatisation was a success that they've poured huge sums into the privatised railway that they would never dreamed of giving to BR.

 

 

Absolutely true. More big schemes, more new trains. Undreamed-of levels of enhancement compared to BR days. And if lifestyle changes prompted by Covid endure, not a little of it will have been wasted. 

 

The effort BR put in at senior level to make ends meet meant that while negotiations should have been with DTp (as it then was), and thus arms-length with HM Treasury, it was more like nose-to-nose with the latter, according to my boss Dr Glyn Williams, Director, Financial Planning. 

[DY444]

23 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Were they? I think a determined Government, at a level far above DfT, brought in commercial lawyers and merchant bankers and these people together cooked up a market model and were invited to implement it. Their ideas were at 180 degrees to those of both Bob Reids (successive chairmen) and designed to ensure no chance of putting Humpty Dumpty back together. 

 

They may have been motivated by trying to ensure that Humpty Dumpty could not be recreated but what we've got now is almost the zombie half brother with the worst of both worlds.  We've got all the downside of state control and none of the advantages of a monolithic organisation.

Edited September 25, 2020 by DY444

[SteveyDee68]

Given that as a result of the pandemic "lockdown" that many employees and companies are seeing benefits from the 'work from home' model, and that as a result there may be a seismic shift in how our railways operate in terms of moving passengers, surely now would be the right time to cancel HS2? Who needs to commute to London 25 minutes faster - in 20 years time - if that kind of "commute" has become an outdated process?

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, DLT said:

There was a lot of political "spin" involved, from a government that was anti-railway.  Putting taxpayer's money into road-building was described as "Investing in Infrastructure" but putting it into BR was "Subsidising a Loss-Making Industry".

 

And yet, under the Tories between 1979 and 1994, money was invested in the railways - where BR could justify it; There was a considerable amount of electrification, including the ECML and swathes of East Anglia, and the Channel Tunnel got built; Which, let's not forget, the previous Labour administration had cancelled !

 

There is no doubt that privatisation caused immense complexity for our railways, and Railtrack's focus on its share price, at the expense of everything else, was a disaster, although I do believe (as a Railtrack employee at the time) that when Stephen Byers pulled the plug the company was actually starting to get its act together. And privatisation was not entirely without benefit; Would BR have introduced a Birmingham/Marylebone service in competition with the WCML, as Chiltern Railways did ? No, in fact BR ran down that route to the extent of singling parts of it (now redoubled of course). And the Open Access Operators are (or were, pre-Covid), a success story, providing services to places poorly served otherwise. 

 

We will have to wait and see what the new world order means for our railways, however I doubt that re-incarnating BR is likely !

 

[Oldddudders]

9 minutes ago, caradoc said:

And privatisation was not entirely without benefit; Would BR have introduced a Birmingham/Marylebone service in competition with the WCML, as Chiltern Railways did ? No, in fact BR ran down that route to the extent of singling parts of it (now redoubled of course).

BR was under pressure to maximise benefits from investment - just like any other organisation. But upgrading a railway takes years and beggars the service while it happens. So alternatives were deployed, with Blue Pullmen(!) introducing new glamour on the Midland route from Manchester to London while WCML works went on, and the GWR route from Brum ditto. Dr Beeching was of the opinion that only one route was viable between principal cities, so once WCML was fully electric, those alternatives were to be downgraded, because no-one would want to use them. 

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Given that as a result of the pandemic "lockdown" that many employees and companies are seeing benefits from the 'work from home' model, and that as a result there may be a seismic shift in how our railways operate in terms of moving passengers, surely now would be the right time to cancel HS2? Who needs to commute to London 25 minutes faster - in 20 years time - if that kind of "commute" has become an outdated process?

1. HS2 is not about going faster, it's about creating capacity on the WCML (and other main lines in the later phases).

2. I'm sure there will be a change to how many people live and travel once this is over, but it needs to actually be over to determine what the impact is, not at the moment when offices and tourist attractions cannot operate at full capacity even if they wanted to.

3. HS2 is employing huge numbers of people, and building infrastructure is a popular and pretty effective way for governments to deal with economic strife.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Given that as a result of the pandemic "lockdown" that many employees and companies are seeing benefits from the 'work from home' model, and that as a result there may be a seismic shift in how our railways operate in terms of moving passengers, surely now would be the right time to cancel HS2? Who needs to commute to London 25 minutes faster - in 20 years time - if that kind of "commute" has become an outdated process?

But your comment about '20 years time' defeats your own argument for stopping the project.  The thing about a railway is that investment is a long term thing - not just what you do before the next election when a new Govt comes in, not just something where you do what. yu do for today but not for tomorrow.

 

So if we start with the present Govt Treasury thoughts about 'the railway' they are based entirely on the present and, in railway terms probably very short term, impacts of Covid.  Don't forget that couple of weeks ago Govt (and The Treasury) were practically begging people to restart commuting to city centre offices; this week they're saying the exact opposite.  You can't even plan a proper and efficient railway timetable and operational cost base against that sort of short termism.  Remote working is undoubtedly here to stay which will probably have a big impact on some commuting - but from, a railway viewpoint that could be a good thing because you no longer have to resource to meet the unbalanced peak demand it creates.  But do we know yet just what the real impact will be if a vaccine is found and proved by, say, Christmas or next Easter - simple answer is that we don't (and neither does anybody else).

 

Do we yet have much idea what shifting to a less carbon based economy will do to travel demand, do we know if there will be enough lithium in Cornwall to really provide batteries for all of us to have an electric car?  Do we know if air travel can be 'cleaned up' or will it become more expensive with a big effect on demand and the way people take their holidays?  All of these things, and many more, are not areas where there will be an answer for some time.  So do we know if there will be a sudden rash of available capacity on the WCML rendering HS2 superfluous ?  We don't know that nor can we reliably even guess at it but what we do know is that at various times of day - and not just in commuter peak periods, WCML capacity is being sorely tried and that if that continues not only will there be no room for growth but maintenance will also suffer so from where we are today there is a need for extra line capacity.   But creating that capacity is always a long term job, you can't d it overnight.

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

It seems to me that governments have been so determined to show that privatisation was a success that they've poured huge sums into the privatised railway that they would never have dreamed of giving to BR.

 

 

A cynic might say that the owners of a private railway company are more likely to make donations to certain political parties than the managers of a state owned industry. That would be very cynical though and forgetting that many of the "private" companies running our railways are owned by the state owned transport undertakings of other countries. It's always good to know, when you buy your bus ticket in parts of London, that any profits from it will go to help Parisians enjoy better public transport.

 

I've seen independent opinions that BR was the most efficiently managed railway in Europe if not the world in terms of what it achieved with the resources made available to it. One reason for the huge subsidies to the privatised companies was that they and Major's government all thought that any private company  could easily achieve far greater efficiency than a "bureaucratic nationalised industry". They and the country soon discovered just how wrong they were.

It's also interesting that when railways were built and operated entirely by private companies they abandoned the "turnpike" model of the canals that separated operation and infrastructure with the Stockton and Darlington. As commercial enterprises they became incredbly vertically integrated very quickly indeed, Some of their directors may have been knaves but very few of them were fools. 

 

Any long term decisions about the future shape of Britain's railways made in the light of the short or even medium term effects of Covid will certainly be bad decisions. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Ohmisterporter]

My son was a driver in BR days and one benefit for train crews was the increase in pay after privatisation. The companies moved away from the low pay for five days a week and relying on drivers working weekends to make a decent wage. Naturally, with higher pay rates they still worked weekends for even more pay. The thing is, they didn't have to. I know my son could pay his mortgage and other bills on a flat week, he just loved the job and worked plenty of overtime anyway. As for those who say, "I like my job so much I would do it for nothing", I have heard about them but never met one.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

7 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Given that as a result of the pandemic "lockdown" that many employees and companies are seeing benefits from the 'work from home' model, and that as a result there may be a seismic shift in how our railways operate in terms of moving passengers, surely now would be the right time to cancel HS2? Who needs to commute to London 25 minutes faster - in 20 years time - if that kind of "commute" has become an outdated process?

 

Actually, whilst I suspect that commuting may change, it will actually be more suitable for the likes of HS2 in the future.

 

Until March I was a daily commuter into London. I live in a small rural town, about fives minutes walk from countryside, and I have had a lot of colleagues saying they are fed up with living in London and the larger satellite towns (with the lack of space in their homes, as well as lack of green environs) want something more rural. For employers such as mine, I can see the working from home approach staying, with one or two days in the office and the rest at home.

 

This will result in people moving out of London and other big towns, happy to put up with a long commute if it is only for a couple of days a week (and given many trains are now wifi fitted, quite a lot of work can be done on the commute). You hear of regular commuters to London from Leeds or Birmingham and I think this, and other further destinations, will become more regular. Especially given the disparity of house prices and other costs of living. 

 

I was in Hereford the other week. A nice city and surrounding area, and nowhere near as busy as Sussex. I found myself checking the trains to London to see if a regular (not daily!) commute is viable.

 

This, of course, won't be the death of the suburban network and we won't see a wholesale move of city workers out to more far flung locations, but  there will be a reasonable proportion who do, and it will be interesting to see if rail companies recognise and address this.

 

For HS2, if they do achieve the journey time from Birmingham to London to 52 minutes, then anywhere within 30 minutes of the HS2 station in Birmingham becomes faster to commute than parts of West Sussex! 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Claude_Dreyfus
typo

[Dagworth]

Don’t forget that “city workers” are not just the ones sat at desks. The cleaners and maintenance staff, the people who sell you your coffee and lunch, the people building the office block next door are all commuters too. They just aren’t able to work from home. 
 

Andi
 

 

[Bernard Lamb]

4 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Given that as a result of the pandemic "lockdown" that many employees and companies are seeing benefits from the 'work from home' model, and that as a result there may be a seismic shift in how our railways operate in terms of moving passengers, surely now would be the right time to cancel HS2? Who needs to commute to London 25 minutes faster - in 20 years time - if that kind of "commute" has become an outdated process?

Oh Gawd another HS2 basher.

We are too far down the road now to cancel HS2, even if the idea had any merit. HS2 is for long distance travel and will free up the old lines for freight and shorter distance commuter traffic. Eventually we will get back to trying to be green and the current surge in road versus rail will change. In my area there are various development schemes one involving 11k houses. As there are very few local jobs the new residents will need to commute. Quite possibly not to offices in London but rather to warehouses in Milton Keynes or Daventry. Hopefully many will go by train. It just needs encouragement by whatever system comes about.

Bernard 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

26 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Don’t forget that “city workers” are not just the ones sat at desks. The cleaners and maintenance staff, the people who sell you your coffee and lunch, the people building the office block next door are all commuters too. They just aren’t able to work from home. 
 

Andi
 

 

 

I'm not forgetting, and I am not debating the rights and wrongs of working from home and the impacts being felt by the wider industries and non-office workers in cities. However office space in the city is extremely expensive and companies are already reviewing whether or not they renew leases on that extra floor, given the enthusiasm some quarters have the working from home. It is inevitable that some workers will never return to full-time in the city...simply because it is cheaper for employers to have work from home. 

 

I am not saying that cities will become ghost towns once this is all over...but the gradual drift to working from home from some workers has been happening for some time now, somewhat accelerated by the lockdown, and there is no reason to suggest this will reverse. Companies have invested heavily to support working from home; some to the point in purchasing monitors, laptops and docking stations etc, so that staff who can work from home can do so more efficiently. 

 

It is in the interests of the TOCs to recognise this change, both with operating patterns and fare structures.

[wombatofludham]

5 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Would BR have introduced a Birmingham/Marylebone service in competition with the WCML, as Chiltern Railways did ? No, in fact BR ran down that route to the extent of singling parts of it (now redoubled of course).

 

 

Except BR DID introduce the Snow Hill to Marylebone service.  OK it was worked by Class 165 units but was aggressively marketed as a cheaper, fun way to London, especially from the outer suburban stations south of Birmingham.  Admittedly it was in the period of "shadow franchising" but it was definitely pre privatisation.  Chiltern, to be fair, have taken the concept and run with it, some would argue to the detriment of their core commuter market as they seem to focus more on competition with FGW at Oxford and Avanti and LNWR at Birmingham than providing stops and extra capacity at their monopoly commuter hubs, but the idea of the Chiltern line as competition to the London and Birmingham was very much a Network Southeast and Reggie Rail idea.

 

8 hours ago, Quarryscapes said:

But what does i tall actually mean in practical terms? I ask because at the very moment I was reading the news story (which gives zero information), my partner was sending in her job application to Transport For Wales, who still have publicised plans for the next 15 years or so, and last time I looked out the window, were still running trains past it. So what is ACTUALLY happening to the railways?

 

Ironically, as I understand it, the Welsh model is what the Dumbwits for Transport in London are adopting - management contracts at a fixed price.  In Wales, the so-called "Not for Profit" (which is rubbish as the management fee will include profit) concession was a combination of operating contractor and specialist procurement contractor to manage the South Wales Metro ideas and new rolling stock provision, but it is the Transport for Wales arm of the Welsh Government who specify the outputs pay out accordingly, except on the two former InterCity routes.  So, in Wales, nothing will be changing.  It might be the Cardiff Crachach running the show and obsessed with Greater Cardiff as a result, but they are our Crachach and we can have a greater say in the next set of elections to the Senedd.

Is your partner looking to join the Cambrian operations?

[SteveyDee68]

54 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Oh Gawd another HS2 basher.

 

Hi Bernard

 

I asked a question, not expressed an opinion!

 

When at Music College, I remember a heated debate sparked by a comment from our Professor during a conducting tutorial. At the end and as we left, I asked him quietly if he really believed what he had said. With a twinkle in his eye, he responded, "Sometimes by playing Devil's Advocate it stimulates dicussion". A couple of weeks later during a particularly dull class, I made an observation about male composers/conductors that resulted in a full blown argument particularly with the female students. Leaving class, that same Professor quietly observed, "I see you are representing the case for Lucifer this week!"

 

I admit that my question was asked in a BBC "Question Time" style of appearing to be a rhetorical question, as that actually stimulates argument!  I am not bashing HS2, as investment in railway infrastructure is - IMHO - a "good thing", as long as it is not wasted or a "vanity project". (Unfortunately, our current PM is not exactly unknown for pursuing vanity projects, hence my question!)

 

The answers are, as I expected, interesting and informed. As mentioned previously, governments seem only interested in the short term - what can they be seen to have achieved before the next General Election. Wouldn't it be wonderful if long term plans could be formulated by professionals and not be interfered with by amateurs (aka politicians)?!

[woodenhead]

15 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

I admit that my question was asked in a BBC "Question Time" style of appearing to be a rhetorical question, as that actually stimulates argument!  I am not bashing HS2, as investment in railway infrastructure is - IMHO - a "good thing", as long as it is not wasted or a "vanity project". (Unfortunately, our current PM is not exactly unknown for pursuing vanity projects, hence my question!)

Dont forget HS2 predates the vanity of our current leader, hence talk now of a bridge to Northern Ireland, for some reason he likes nautical themes - Boris Island, the green bridge over the Thames and now a viaduct ovder the Irish channel.

[SteveyDee68]

1 minute ago, woodenhead said:

Dont forget HS2 predates the vanity of our current leader, hence talk now of a bridge to Northern Ireland, for some reason he likes nautical themes - Boris Island, the green bridge over the Thames and now a viaduct ovder the Irish channel.

 

I hadn't forgotten! But Mr Johnson likes to big himself up, especially if it is a successful project that someone else actually did most of the work for (think London's "Boris Bikes")

 

Of course, if his name is attached to something disastrous he can always depend upon some fake news about him building models* out of bits of old cardboard to attempt to skew the internet search engine results! (Try searching "Boris Bus" ... videos of his "hobby" attempt to discourage you looking at either the big red "Brexit" bus or the new, financially disastrous "Routemaster" bus that he promoted so eagerly!)

 

 

 

* I don't wish to fall foul of our Moderators, so please note that it was the PM who mentioned "models" and therefore made this subject fair fodder for ridicule on RMWeb! (Incidentally, has anybody actually seen these models, perhaps parked on a model overbridge hiding the exit to the hidden millions children sidings?!)

 

Hat, coat...

[Zomboid]

25 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

new, financially disastrous "Routemaster" bus

Shame that, as a passenger I thought they were actually brilliant. The conventional 2 door London buses are pretty poor by comparison.

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Shame that, as a passenger I thought they were actually brilliant. The conventional 2 door London buses are pretty poor by comparison.

IIRC there were massive complaints that they were like Saunas inside at the nearest hint of warm weather - the official line was that having opening windows would interfere with the operation of the fancy ‘air cooling’ not NOT ‘air conditioning’ system that was suposed to make for a comfortable travelling environment.

 

Then you have the little matter that without a conductor on board H&S demands the rear ‘open platform’ Boris so enthused about has to be closed off lest someone fall out of it or try to board it when the bus is moving.

 

Ultimately the only reason the Borismaster / ‘new routemaster’ exists is because of Boris’s massive ego. An ‘off the shelf’ design from traditional suppliers of London busses would have been cheaper for London council tax payers - and a dam sight more comfortable in hot weather. But that counts for little when the person at the top wants a ‘legacy’ to leave behind...

[SteveyDee68]

2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Shame that, as a passenger I thought they were actually brilliant. The conventional 2 door London buses are pretty poor by comparison.

 

I'm sure there is a documentary about how much each of those buses cost (they are staggeringly expensive) and how the R&D costs were expected to be repaid by international sales etc. I am sure it said that not a single new Routemaster bus has been sold, other than to Transport for London!

 

From Wikipedia...

 

The withdrawal of the Routemaster became an issue during the 2008 London mayoral election with Boris Johnson elected mayor with a campaign pledge being to introduce a new Routemaster.

 

(Hence the nickname "Boris Bus")

 

The first engineering prototype was driven by Boris Johnson at a public demonstration on 27 May 2011

 

(Definitely making sure he was being seen delivering on his pledge! The prototype broke down three days later, although that was due to running out of fuel rather than anything mechanical.)

 

During the 2012 London mayoral election, former Mayor of London and Labour candidate Ken Livingstone said that, if elected, he would buy no more New Buses for London because of the price.

 

However, Boris Johnson won the election and in September 2012 approved the order for 600 of the new buses, with public funding required estimated at about £160 million.

 

(My maths says that each bus was therefore estimated to cost £266,666 each. Back in 2012, a mid-spec double deck bus would cost approx £150,000 so the new Routemaster was already £100,000+ more expensive!)

 

In January 2016, an additional order was placed ... bringing the total to 1,000

 

The cost of each bus was £355,000 over the four-year procurement period.

 

(Now, if each of the thousand buses cost £355k, that means the total cost was £355M!!! Over double the original estimate!)

 

At the end of 2016 it was announced that London Mayor Sadiq Khan had discontinued procurement of the vehicles to save money and help pay for a promised four-year public transport fares freeze.

 

The Wikipedia entry lists all the complaints, breakdowns and problems with the buses. Even trials with First West Yorkshire and Stagecoach Strathtay failed, so no operators other TfL have ever added them to their fleets. 

 

Finally...

 

In 2020 Transport for London announced that the New Routemasters would be converted so passengers only enter by the front door, with the middle and rear doors becoming exit-only. 

 

Which rather negates the whole concept of having a New Routemaster with a rear 'hop on - hop off' platform entrance! I wonder if we might therefore count the New Routemaster as a BoJo vanity project?

 

Apologies for getting rather OT, except that a bus on a bridge is a model railway layout cliché!

Edited September 25, 2020 by SteveyDee68
Typos!!!

[SteveyDee68]

6 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

IIRC there were massive complaints that they were like Saunas inside at the nearest hint of warm weather - the official line was that having opening windows would interfere with the operation of the fancy ‘air cooling’ not NOT ‘air conditioning’ system that was suposed to make for a comfortable travelling environment.

 

Then you have the little matter that without a conductor on board H&S demands the rear ‘open platform’ Boris so enthused about has to be closed off lest someone fall out of it or try to board it when the bus is moving.

 

Ultimately the only reason the Borismaster / ‘new routemaster’ exists is because of Boris’s massive ego. An ‘off the shelf’ design from traditional suppliers of London busses would have been cheaper for London council tax payers - and a dam sight more comfortable in hot weather. But that counts for little when the person at the top wants a ‘legacy’ to leave behind...

 

I was so busy writing up my response that I missed your own! Your last paragraph says it all! 

[mdvle]

4 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

I admit that my question was asked in a BBC "Question Time" style of appearing to be a rhetorical question, as that actually stimulates argument!  I am not bashing HS2, as investment in railway infrastructure is - IMHO - a "good thing", as long as it is not wasted or a "vanity project". (Unfortunately, our current PM is not exactly unknown for pursuing vanity projects, hence my question!)

 

A suggestion then for you - there are 2 other HS2 threads on RMweb (one locked thanks to questions like yours) that you can go and read and see both the reasons for HS2 (not faster commuting) and that this has been in the works for a decade or more already.

 

 

[Zomboid]

7 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Ultimately the only reason the Borismaster / ‘new routemaster’ exists is because of Boris’s massive ego. An ‘off the shelf’ design from traditional suppliers of London busses would have been cheaper for London council tax payers - and a dam sight more comfortable in hot weather. But that counts for little when the person at the top wants a ‘legacy’ to leave behind..

I agree that they only exist because of Boris' ego. And I'm sure I'm in a minority here, but having used them as part of my commute for about a year, the actual product knocks the other buses they use in London out of the park. In my opinion.

 

Not that they don't deserve any criticism, but the 2 sets of stairs and 3 door boarding made a big difference to how long they sat at stops for, and I personally have no complaints about the on board environment.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Zomboid

[FoxUnpopuli]

Regardless of the politican spin of any form, I have to say the New Routemaster, from a concept and design point of view, was a good idea, well executed.  It's a fine looking beast, and indeed iconic.  Would you rather have the capitial full of rectilinear Mercedes?  There's something to be said for the 'Broken Window' theory.

 

I don't care who signed the 'do it' box, but I'm glad they did.

 

As for the OP, a very interesting article, and good points made.  All large-budget projects have momentum beyond fine control.  Economic circumstance, changes of government, social opinion, project mis-management (sadly) all have their way of destroying worthy projects - read the Abercrombie plan, or the history of the V-bombers or Harrier or Concorde, various new town or city development programmes or indeed HS2 and its predecessor UK railway infrastructure improvement projects from the Beeching plan forward.

 

Large projects deserve a small, focussed team without overbearing governance once they are agreed and begun.  That way, at least something gets done which some people might not like, rather than a dozen false starts, wasted years and a failure to achieve anything from the same budget.  There's a Draconian "Greater Good" ethos in there, but I'm getting fed up of the only reason anything getting done is because it makes money for some bunch of 'investors' with no balls unless it lines their offshore bank accounts.

 

Well, that was an unexpected rant.  Sorry about that.

Edited September 26, 2020 by FoxUnpopuli

[corneliuslundie]

I was going to make much the same point as vdvle, simply because there seems to be no point in having several threads discussing the same point. We already have two on very similar topics about the current proposals for the railways, again running in parallel. and with considerably overlapping content, and much of that had already been said on the current HS2 thread.

At least under such circumstances they usually go off topic in different directions!

That said, it is interesting to read various views of the new Routemaster. I used to work in London and often hopped on and off Routemasters (usually as they were stopped or almost so) but I have not experienced the Boris version. Never mind, now we can have the railway spin-off, aka the Boris Pacer! Design proposals invited!

Jonathan