Ben Elton the great railway disaster CH4

[lapford34102]

Anyone else watch this, really interesting programme

 

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/ben-elton-the-great-railway-disaster

 

Stu

[Wickham Green too]

I should have it recorded .............

[Siberian Snooper]

I watched most of it, I thought it was very good, I will try and find the time to go on catch up and watch the beginning.

[Ray H]

I too thought it was a good view. Let's hope it initiates serious thinking by somebody somewhere who has the ear of some politicians.

[Neil]

I thought it excellent too. One stand out was how much more running the railway costs by being open to private enterprise rather than if it had been run by BR (all figures adjusted for inflation).

[4630]

7 minutes ago, Neil said:

One stand out was how much more running the railway costs by being open to private enterprise rather than if it had been run by BR (all figures adjusted for inflation).

It’s good that that fact is now getting wider prominence through programmes such as this and the ‘quality’ newspapers. 
 

Of course writers for some of the railway publications, particularly Roger Ford in Modern Railways, have been highlighting this issue and its affect on the railways funding and its operations for quite a few years now. But no one was listening, or perhaps more relevantly wanted to listen.  

[Mike_Walker]

But full of factual errors showing little understanding of how the industry is structured and the degree of political interference.

 

Two examples:

1 TOCs or their owners do not decide how much track access charges they pay NR - that's set by the ORR.

2 If TOCs don't recruit enough drivers as their owners want to maximise profits how come GWR recruited and trained a huge number of drivers just pre-pandemic but TPE didn't?  Both are FirstGroup companies but it was the government that blocked TPE from doing it through it's new management contracts.

 

I could go on further but I'm just off to a birthday party being thrown by our local TOC to celebrate 150 years of it's most important piece of railway!

 

[Derekl]

I watched and was surprised at the overall quality of the programme. There were detailed interviews with people who seemed well informed. I could not see that it was "full of" factual errors. It is always easy to nitpick with one or two fairly minor errors in the overall scheme of things. Whatever GWR did pre-pandemic, it would be naive to argue that TOCs (in the period prior to the pandemic) were not profit motivated. That is their function and that was the intention of privatisation. Overall, the point was that we have a largely inefficient railway at great expense, which is the effect of the ill-conceived privatisation. I thought it well made.

[Ray H]

Previously (and of late) I had assumed that the only people to make money out of the privatisation were accountants and legal people.

 

I had overlooked that the ROSCOs had also made the extra buck (or several).

 

Off topic slightly (and apologies for doing so) is re-nationalisation or similar any kind of option? How would widely diverse TOC pay scales for similar jobs be absorbed without the understandable cries of unfairness from those grades having to face a pay cut to bring everyone back to a single pay scale per grade?

 

Likewise, the ROSCOs. How much would it cost to bring all the rolling stock back under a single umbrella?

 

Would either or both of the above become a price too high to pay for a unified railway system?

 

In the last 30+ years we have seen the gradual disappearance of the all round railway person - those that had gained all round knowledge of how the business (and its various departments) functioned.  That knowledge (and associated experience) wasn't gained in a few years. What would be the cost in time and money of restoring that desperately needed skill?

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

6 minutes ago, Ray H said:

... In the last 30+ years we have seen the gradual disappearance of the all round railway person - those that had gained all round knowledge of how the business (and its various departments) functioned.  ...

Those who remain are probably reading this ......... 🙂

[Mike_Walker]

5 hours ago, Derekl said:

I watched and was surprised at the overall quality of the programme. There were detailed interviews with people who seemed well informed. I could not see that it was "full of" factual errors. It is always easy to nitpick with one or two fairly minor errors in the overall scheme of things. Whatever GWR did pre-pandemic, it would be naive to argue that TOCs (in the period prior to the pandemic) were not profit motivated. That is their function and that was the intention of privatisation. Overall, the point was that we have a largely inefficient railway at great expense, which is the effect of the ill-conceived privatisation. I thought it well made.

The profitability of the TOCs pre-pandemic was not the great cash cow that many seem to believe.  Take a look at the annual reports of the various owning groups and you will see how meagre they were which is why so many decided not to bid for franchises in future leaving the door open for European operators to enter the market but they too are dropping out, Abellio for one whilst DB is still trying to find a buyer for Arriva.

 

Some groups were better than others.  First generally took a positive approach but as group they've been struggling for several years with weak performance in the markets and rumours of takeovers.  My point about driver recruitment at GWR and TPE is that both (and Avanti another First company) were actively progressing driver recruitment to the levels required going forward and allowing for wastage, retirement, etc. GWR were lucky in that they had largely completed their programme before the pandemic struck whilst TPE and Avanti were caught up in it.  Training and recruitment had to stop and now the railways are run under direct contract to the DfT it is that body that calls the shots.  In the case of both TPE and Avanti the DfT (at the instruction of the Treasury) dictated that training and recruitment should stop.  In the case of TPE it was the same MD, Matt Golton, who was in charge who was also standing in for Mark Hopwood at GWR when their big recruitment/training drive was in full swing and had it been left to him TPE recruitment and training would have resumed as soon as pandemic conditions permitted.

 

As a self confessed "leftie" I was surprised Elton didn't take the opportunity to lift the lid on how this government micro-manages today's rail industry.

 

32 minutes ago, Ray H said:

Previously (and of late) I had assumed that the only people to make money out of the privatisation were accountants and legal people.

 

I had overlooked that the ROSCOs had also made the extra buck (or several).

 

Off topic slightly (and apologies for doing so) is re-nationalisation or similar any kind of option? How would widely diverse TOC pay scales for similar jobs be absorbed without the understandable cries of unfairness from those grades having to face a pay cut to bring everyone back to a single pay scale per grade?

 

Likewise, the ROSCOs. How much would it cost to bring all the rolling stock back under a single umbrella?

 

Would either or both of the above become a price too high to pay for a unified railway system?

 

In the last 30+ years we have seen the gradual disappearance of the all round railway person - those that had gained all round knowledge of how the business (and its various departments) functioned.  That knowledge (and associated experience) wasn't gained in a few years. What would be the cost in time and money of restoring that desperately needed skill?

 

 

All of which is why no government, of any party, will fully renationalise the railways; UK plc simply can't afford it.  GB Railways is merely a rebranding of what's going on now.  We've never had a fully privatised railway since 1948 (some would argue 1923) but whereas BR was largely left to its own devices, today's railway is micromanaged to the n'th degree.  Until that changes the downward spiral will continue but the civil servants have got their hands on the trainset and won't let go.

 

If you thought the transport minister's comment on the C4 programme last night about the DfT not "being the Department for Trains" was bad you should have heard what I was told about a comment from the most senior civil servant at the DfT recently by a senior manager today.

[Covkid]

Hadn't the chance to watch it because I was one of manyu trying to make our real railway work !!! Will try and watch it on catchup now  but there is one hugely significant point which doesn't seem to be addressed. Many moan about the high salary of the person sitting behind the wondscreen, but why not try and make the whole process more cost effective. Have each train driver drive a train conveying more seats so that the costs per passengers are reduced. The recent acquisitions of CAF DMUs are - three different designs and classifications with minor differences, but many of the collective fleets of 195 196 and 197 are 2 car DMUs.  This means that each of those cars has a full cab of expensive electronic kit on every car.  If the train were formed of three cars the seats were train would be greater which means the driver and guard would be conveying more pax for the relative cost of the train, which theoretically  ultimately means fares might not be so expensive.  You then come into the realms of running fewer, longer trains which reduces the crowded nature of the system and improves performance. 

 

In the non-privatised world the entity formerly known as BR would have procured class 195 for Northern, West Midlands and Wales, training and introduction to service theoretically should have been significantly simpler and many other benefits possible.  A Hull - Llandudno or Scarborough - Bangor service could be worked by Northern to Manchester or Chester, for a Welsh crew forward.   How many of you remember such trains when they were worked by class 40, 45 and 47, then repladed by 150/2s.

 

There are many many issues which could be resolved, which were very much broken by John Major's government of the time.        

[chris p bacon]

3 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

If you thought the transport minister's comment on the C4 programme last night about the DfT not "being the Department for Trains" was bad you should have heard what I was told about a comment from the most senior civil servant at the DfT recently by a senior manager today.

Go on...tell us...😉

[Trainshed Terry]

I have just watched this program, and I found very interesting, particle regarding the profits are going. I have always said that privatistion was a bad idea to start with, and how true the out come and the current state of the railways today.

 

Time to bring the industry back under government control and to stop the flow of money going over seas.

 

Terry

[AY Mod]

It's an interesting and informative piece of work but there's been a couple of references to magnificent Victorian works - IIRC those were 'private' railways funded by share sale. It's not all black and white; we may have poor operators, services and control but at least it's a safer railway with better accessibility and facilities.

[Wickham Green too]

12 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

... but at least it's a safer railway with better accessibility and facilities.

Depends on the facilities you desire ...... onboard catering is almost completely absent ! ☹️

[AY Mod]

9 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

onboard catering is almost completely absent ! 

 

Apart from a cuppa that's largely a blessing.

[andyman7]

7 hours ago, Ray H said:

Previously (and of late) I had assumed that the only people to make money out of the privatisation were accountants and legal people.

 

I had overlooked that the ROSCOs had also made the extra buck (or several).

 

Off topic slightly (and apologies for doing so) is re-nationalisation or similar any kind of option? How would widely diverse TOC pay scales for similar jobs be absorbed without the understandable cries of unfairness from those grades having to face a pay cut to bring everyone back to a single pay scale per grade?

 

Likewise, the ROSCOs. How much would it cost to bring all the rolling stock back under a single umbrella?

 

Would either or both of the above become a price too high to pay for a unified railway system?

 

In the last 30+ years we have seen the gradual disappearance of the all round railway person - those that had gained all round knowledge of how the business (and its various departments) functioned.  That knowledge (and associated experience) wasn't gained in a few years. What would be the cost in time and money of restoring that desperately needed skill?

 

It was an entertaining programme but didn't probe too deeply into the underlying factors that have driven some of the more controversial decisions.

BR was underfunded, having been chronically unable to to renew the underlying asset base (track, signals, stations etc) at anything like the required level. Therefore a significant chunk of the additional costs can be ascribed to the catch-up funding and an ongoing higher level of maintenance. That's the real irony that Ben and everyone misses - BR was abolished because it was deemed 'grossly inefficient' yet once the network was broken up and regulated, the true cost for running the network turned out to be higher. It is true that cost control since then has been poorer, but although people say that BR should just have been given the cash, the paradox is that the state seems to be permanently incapable of funding any kind of utility or network to the required level - the short term pressure on cash always trumps the long term investment need.

This takes me to the ROSCOS - they were given a golden ticket to make money in the early days but the reason they ended up in the hands of banks and offshore investment structures is because that is where the multi-million pound investment in new trains comes from. A bit like using PFI to build schools and hospitals, it is long term a poor value way of obtaining the kit but in the absence of Governments being able to fund these where will the money come from?

The completely dire state of the public finances right now, with high taxes and a constant clamour for more bailouts and extra money for deserving causes such as health doesn't really provide much hope that any Government is going to be able to replace the funding that private investors can stump up, providing of course that they earn a return on it... 

[Northmoor]

I've recorded the programme but not watched it yet. 

 

Buying out the ROSCOs is the part the Nationalisers never want to address.  We (the Nation) would have to spend several £Bn and would have exactly the same trains in the evening, that we'd had in the morning; it doesn't buy you a single new carriage.  They'd just be owned by someone different, the legal profession would have to be paid handsomely to process the deals and the politicians would have to explain why we had just paid a vast sum of taxpayers' money to the banks.

 

Oh and those trains would be worth less the following day and less the day after that, until they are worth only scrap value, because trains are like anything else (other than houses and land, apparently), they depreciate.  So you'd have to pay out to build some more, but oh dear, the country's a bit short of money at the moment and you wouldn't want us to transfer funding from the NHS would you, Mr and Mrs Voter? 

[david.hill64]

I've not watched the programme yet, so perhaps am not in the best place to comment, but.....

 

BR was 30 years ago and we are in a completely different world now and unlikely to return to the old one even if it were a good idea to do so. The current structure of the railways does add additional costs - every TOC needs its Engineering and Operations Directors responsible for their safety case for example. Companies now employ staff in roles that never existed before - how many 'Diversity Managers' did BR employ for example? The approach to safety - especially workforce safety - is much more robust than before, but this comes at a cost particularly in the amount of time actually available to do work onsite. Trying to make a meaningful comparison between the costs in BR's time and the costs now is fraught with difficulties. Having said that, I think that BR at the end had for the most part morphed into an effective organisation and given the equivalent funding to that available now we would have an excellent railway.

 

BR was lucky in that most of the time it didn't have to pay the full cost of the trains that it bought but at the end it was starting to do so with the 365 procurement (and don't forget that the class 50 was leased at first). The rule of thumb in a ROSCO was that the cost of a new train and its associated heavy maintenance split evenly three ways between supplier's price, maintainer's price and the cost of the capital required to pay those two. BR effectively got free money for its capital budget and that hid the true cost. Remember that ROSCOs were twice subject to competition enquiries that found that they did not abuse the market position. 

[Oldddudders]

Don't forget that if there hadn't been ROSCOs, our hobby would not have had Exactoscale! The late Andrew Jukes re-mortgaged his house to make his bid for Eversholt, and was subject to media abuse when he sold his share for a reputed £16m. Setting up a commercially-viable finescale track system will have cost a bit, but at the time he was reported to say the money was in trust for his family, I think. 

[meil]

18 hours ago, Ray H said:

Off topic slightly (and apologies for doing so) is re-nationalisation or similar any kind of option?

 

 

The railways are already Nationalised. However the Government chooses to run the Nationalised railway by contracting out services, by way of concession contracts, to private companies to run the trains.

Edited June 28, 2023 by meil

[david.hill64]

21 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Don't forget that if there hadn't been ROSCOs, our hobby would not have had Exactoscale! The late Andrew Jukes re-mortgaged his house to make his bid for Eversholt, and was subject to media abuse when he sold his share for a reputed £16m. Setting up a commercially-viable finescale track system will have cost a bit, but at the time he was reported to say the money was in trust for his family, I think. 

I worked for Eversholt but never knew that Andrew had an interest in anything other than 12" to 1'. Like the other directors in Eversholt he risked everything financially to take the risk. If it had gone wrong they would have been bankrupt and homeless.

[C126]

I liked the programme very much, and even my partner thought it amusing and informative.  A shame he did not touch on the dismal 'Restoring Your Railway Fund', but there was only so much time available.  Will watch it again soon.  I hope there might be a follow-up, perhaps in six months.  Hurrah for Mr Elton.

[whart57]

A point Ben Elton made a number of times during the programme, and stressed in his conclusion - but not raised here - is that the value of an efficient railway system is not visible in railway company accounts. It is the value of the connections that railways enable and they are not just monetary values. Since Beeching railway investment has been stymied by accountancy thinking about returns and costs with the result that lines were closed that needn't have been, new projects were starved of the funding needed to make them successful and every decision argued over in very narrow terms. The exception is the Elizabeth Line, but that was in London so had the ear of politicians and senior civil servants tuned to different frequencies. Accountancy thinking has screwed up HS2 to the point you think the politicians are manoeuvring things towards cancellation. (As an aside, wouldn't HS2 have been a different project if construction had started from the Manchester and Leeds ends towards London)