"FirstGroup ...... frontrunner for west coast rail franchise"

[S.A.C Martin]

That's really interesting to see the wage increases. Not knowing enough about it (hands in the air!), would that be in line with inflation or above the rate of inflation?

[Talltim]

Think how much you could have been paid if they didn't spend money on lawyers....

[Glorious NSE]

Thank goodness for the stationmaster (Mike), who's the only person in this thread who has taken the time to actually present a balanced view and give us an indication that there's issues with both nationalisation and privitisation.

 

Given that this thread isn't about whether privatisation or nationalisation have issues though, it's all something of a sidebar....

[Bon Accord]

That's really interesting to see the wage increases. Not knowing enough about it (hands in the air!), would that be in line with inflation or above the rate of inflation?

 

Going by my fag packet, if the basic wage in 1998 was £9.9k, then if that wage increased by average inflation, by 2002 it would have been approx £11k in comparison to £17.5k actual.

Ergo that wage scale increased by £6.5k above inflation or an increase of 176% from 1998 (44% per year).

[Raffles]

[OT]Only the 13 Mickey? 21 was my record (non-safety critical) and the most I ever saw was 93 days on the bounce.

 

BR held some of the most lucrative pay arrangements I have ever seen (12hr RDW Saturday anyone and an extra Sunday?) and certainly on the clerical side CO5 was a real money spinner. Privatisation, as mentioned, saw a lot of rationalisation of conditions but an increased basic salary. Those that caned the O/T lost out in most cases but those that did there flat 37/35 hrs per week saw their basic salary jump by a few thousand pounds overnight. Sundays went from Time and three-quarters to Time and one fifth...

 

GNER had a similar situation when they put their Ticket Office staff on annual hours contracts. KGX and EDB were the losers that time as they did night shifts but they got out-voted by all the other offices along the route.[/OT]

 

Heading back to the main subject, I've not seen much comment about the Virgin plan to ditch the Voyagers. Considering that Virgin seemed totally happy to lose XC (and the Voyagers) and they now seem keen to get shot of the Virgin WC ones, are they a PR disaster that Virgin want to distance themselves from now?

[Xerces Fobe2]

In an attempt to please both the pro and anti privatisation debate - kill two birds with one stone, get Beardie to run the UK

 

XF

[Fenman]

Its not in human nature to do your best if you dont have a (financial) interest in it...

 

Hm... so why do so many people on RMWeb produce such amazing models, with no financial interest (other than losing money hand over fist -- even the £100 challenge cost, er, not quite £100), and spend their time doing their best to help other people?

 

Why was RMWeb even set up in the first place since it wasn't a money-making machine (so far as I'm aware, anyway!)?

 

Why do real craftspeople put their heart and soul into their work, far more than the money they're paid?

 

Why do (some) people give up their seats on the train to others less able to stand? ...

 

In fact, why do most of us do anything?

 

While some people may be so obsessed with money that they are constantly calculating where the personal advantage is, I suspect most of us are actually constantly making decisions that have nothing to do with a financial interest.

 

And if a financial interest is so compelling, why is pretty much every private corporation such a terribly frustrating organism to do business with?

 

Paul

[jjb1970]

This is going off topic, but I believe it is now widely accepted that whilst good levels of pay are important to staff retention, morale and performance, people deliver their best when given stimulating and interesting work, have the opportunity to take responsibility for things and have an interest in what they do. There are plenty of companies who pay well and can't retain staff for a number of reasons, equally I currently work for an employer that is far from the best payer in my sector yet has extremely high staff retention rates.

As to whether nationalised industries work or not, based on my experience I really don't think privatisation has done anything for electricity generation (in which I used to work), was the CEGB perfect? No, but compared to the current mess it looks very attractive by comparison.

[lmsforever]

Reading today,s Mail there is an account of the bearded ones appearnce before the commitee ,it commented that he looked flustered ,tired ,scruffy ,and did not give a good performance at all. Perhaps he should now stick with planes and pop music,I always regreted that the female members of staff on his trains did not wear the same outfit as his airline staff .Lets hope this charade is ended quickly and First get on with the job.

[roythebus]

In an attempt to please both the pro and anti privatisation debate - kill two birds with one stone, get Beardie to run the UK

 

XF

Yes, I think Santa Claus would make a better job of it than the clowns that have tried to do so since time immemorial!

 

Renationalisation cannot happen under EU law as far as I can make out; and to answer the wages thread above, when I was on BR as a driver, I forget what my last annual pay was, but for working a 13 day fortnight regularly, on the 37 hour flexible rostering system which could involve actually working up to 65 hours, my pay was considerably less than a pal who was a driver on the DB. He got better holidays, a 35.5 hour week only, no o/t, and retired at 55 as he was "beamte", a civil servant. He also has a final salary pension of something like 90%.

 

The main thing that raised pay rates for BR drivers was the advent of Eurostar; SNCF drivers at the time were on about £32k, BR drivers about £22k from what I've heard. Many at Waterloo took the short walk from the BR signing on point to the Eurostar signing on point and were immediately £11k better off.

[Dave47549]

.

[JohnR]

 

 

Renationalisation cannot happen under EU law as far as I can make out;

 

Doesnt seem to have stopped all those nationalised railways taking over bits of our railways.

 

The EU directive actually only requires a seperate accounting system for track and trains - it doesnt even require them to be seperate companies! Different EU countries have interepreted things differently.

 

Only the UK split track and trains into different companies and sold both lots off. Most countries still have publicly owned track and train companies.

[DavidH]

Not. It could be seen by some as a clever fudge, but Network Rail aren't a government department.

 

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/713.aspx

[byron]

• It is quite wonderful to read all the plea's for re-nationalisation. Do you realise that means letting our government and civil service run the railway's. As far as I can see, they must be the most incompitent bunch of any that could be given the task. Look at the mess they made last time - no long term plan (or if there was it was changed as often as most folk change their socks), hardly any money available, and most decisions made with a view to political advantage.
  
• Just how the present mess is cleared up is a task for better folk than us on this forum, but please do not let government take back control.
  

Mike

[Talltim]

Nationalisation doesn't mean that the government have to have more or less control than privatisation. Look how micromanaged by the DfT the privatised railways are, far more than last time is was nationalised.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Nationalisation doesn't mean that the government have to have more or less control than privatisation. Look how micromanaged by the DfT the privatised railways are, far more than last time is was nationalised.

Effectively the railways are under state control, but with the actual day to day running contracted out to private companies who have to deliver against Government set targets, with some limited room to do their own thing. It's a very different model from, say the GWR, who could do pretty much what they wanted with regard to service levels etc, but very similar to a hospital contracting out it's IT or security guards.

 

If the calls for renationalisation get too great, then the Government could simply keep the current model and ask all of the the TOCs to paint their trains dark blue and stick a double arrow on the side (with "Operated by First/Stagecoach/DB" underneath in small letters that nobody will notice. Problem solved.

[Del]

Heading back to the main subject, I've not seen much comment about the Virgin plan to ditch the Voyagers. Considering that Virgin seemed totally happy to lose XC (and the Voyagers) and they now seem keen to get shot of the Virgin WC ones, are they a PR disaster that Virgin want to distance themselves from now?

According to Virgin's Twitter team, they are keeping the Voyagers (for a while at least):

 

Me:

@virgintrains say they can provide increased service pattern with 21 Baby Pendos replacing 20 Voyagers. How on earth can they manage that?

VT:

Hi the new Pendos would be in addition to the Voyagers, which we would move onto other non-electrified routes

Me:

Er, Sir Richard said yesterday that you would have a 100% Pendolino fleet...and your recent press releases suggest the same.

VT:

Some would be kept for non-electrified lines and phased out later

 

So make of that what you will!

[Glorious NSE]

Reports suggest that Voyagers are expected to remain untill circa 2016 on both operators plans,

 

First would be refurbing them in the interim and would then add 11? baby-Pendo's to the fleet in 2016 which would bump the Voyagers off the Glasgow trains at last. The Voyagers could then be used to do things like increase capacity (more double sets) and service to more off-wire locations, cut the Holyhead Pendolino drag, and so on.

 

Virgin would then hand back the Voyagers and replace them with baby-Pendo's plus some loco's for non-electrified bits. You might presume they replace the Voyagers on a like-for-like basis plus one additional one to free up the current long Holyhead Pendolino?

 

So yes, they would keep them for the moment and phase them out later.

 

First still end up with a substantially larger fleet running at the end of it though whichever way you cut it, irrespective of what they do to the capacity by changing the interiors or any further lobbying (that's been very successful down here - based on that I would not bet against them trying to develop things beyond their published plan either.)

[gronk the shunter]

• It is quite wonderful to read all the plea's for re-nationalisation. Do you realise that means letting our government and civil service run the railway's. As far as I can see, they must be the most incompitent bunch of any that could be given the task. Look at the mess they made last time - no long term plan (or if there was it was changed as often as most folk change their socks), hardly any money available, and most decisions made with a view to political advantage.
  
• Just how the present mess is cleared up is a task for better folk than us on this forum, but please do not let government take back control.
  

Mike

HAHAHAHA, is it April 1st already?? Or is this just sarcasm and I'm too stupid to realise?

Surely anyone that has followed the recent sagas in the mis-running of our country's railways would know that civil servants already micro manage the railways and do it consistently badly! As for a long term planning, remember the 202 new DMU's that never were? and how the government set up its own leasing company to procure them just months before abolishing the whole plan in favour of electrification. Up here in the north west there were several announcements on tv and radio that we were getting new diesel trains to relieve congestion on Northern and First transpennine which several years later still haven't arrived and with the delay to thameslink stock being ordered (again another DfT "success") it's highly likely that our new electric routes will be populated by 30 year old pacers and sprinters! Yes thank goodness that private enterprise reigns and not mismangement from government! (sarcasm there by the way)

 

Long term planning ? forget it, with short franchises and spending and rolling stock utilisation and procurement controlled by Dft there's little or no such thing. I personally do belive in nationalisation, but the current system, as we all know strangles any real benefit of competition and private enterprise. We have the drawbacks of both systems and the benefits of none.

[Xerces Fobe2]

So what next for the Voyagers after firgin WCML as they are not really suitable for high density suburban work - making then into razor blades would be my preferred option!

 

XF

[AndrewC]

So what next for the Voyagers after firgin WCML as they are not really suitable for high density suburban work - making then into razor blades would be my preferred option!

 

XF

Is there even enough metal in a voyager to make a razor blade?

[PLD]

So what next for the Voyagers after firgin WCML as they are not really suitable for high density suburban work - making then into razor blades would be my preferred option!

 

XF

Well I'd be quite happy to see some, preferably 5 car or even reformed as 6 car units, cascaded within F-group to Hull Trains in place of the B***** Adelantes they foisted on us from F-GW... (but with interiors to match the original HT Pioneers please...)

[Glorious NSE]

So what next for the Voyagers after firgin WCML as they are not really suitable for high density suburban work - making then into razor blades would be my preferred option!

 

If you read my post - assuming the Bearded one doesn't get his way (and I can't see how they can let that happen) then they will still be working for the franchise.

[The Stationmaster]

Really? So (for example) on the Western Region, who did the signallers, track maintainers, drivers, guards, station staff etc all work for, separate companies? Forced play acting at privatisation....sorry, sectorisation, is another notion entirely.

BR's ability to pull the proverbial rabbit from the hat in often very challenging circumstances was to my mind a shining reflection on a much maligned and underfunded organisation and its staff.

Just catching up round here but BR was not the only operator who could pull proverbial rabbits from the hat to keep the job going - operating companies (perhaps not all?) could do it too (I know because I was in one - doing it, just like I had in BR).

 

And yes some aspects of WR practice was different from other Regions just as practice on some other Regions was different from ours - we all ran on the same gauge but some ways of doing things still varied when the Regions ceased to exist in 1992.

[The Stationmaster]

 

It's irrelevant what standing you come from in my books. If you have an actual point to make, make it, but stop throwing out the "bring back BR" nonsense when nobody's asked for that. I can't fathom why it's so difficult for people to debate without resorting to snide asides.

Thank goodness for the stationmaster (Mike), who's the only person in this thread who has taken the time to actually present a balanced view and give us an indication that there's issues with both nationalisation and privitisation.

 

Thank you for those kind words Simon - alas (or probably 'just as well') I have been on my hols for a week with almost no newspapers, no internet, and far better things to do & see than the bearded one making a fool of himself on tv. Perhaps it's also just as well for this thread because I would have been doing a lot of tongue biting (my own as it happens) before scrubbing less than reasoned responses to some of what I am now reading.

 

I can't - and won't bother - to add much to my previous comments about what happened in the industry following privytisation apart from one post I made a little earlier in this thread and something I am going to add now. BR was not static, it kept changing - I was involved in reorganisations of, basically, much the same group of people (including myself) in 1986, 1988, 1992, and 1994 (when we went out of existence as an organisation as a result of yet another major internal change). All of those changes affected people and their futures - be it employed or redundant - plus other redundancies almost every year in between the ones I mentioned above. That was what BR was like in its later years and some parts of it and people in it spent more time involved with things like that than running a railway.

 

Mickey has made an excellent point about pay - traincrew, especially Drivers, have done very well out of privatisation with not just significant increases in earnings but more stable earnings and far better pension provision. That could never have happened in BR days and the reason I say that is because it was tried but the unions would not accept it. Equally many others (including me, twice) lost jobs in the four years before privatisation and while some of us were lucky (again including me, twice) and got jobs elsewhere in the industry many did not, and they weren't all volunteers.

 

I'm sorry but it simply was not and is not a case of 'BR good, privatisation bad' (and equally it isn't necessarily a case of 'BR good, privytisation bad' because even the split up and balkanisation of the railway has had its good points as well as its bad).