Thread: UK to nationalise train operators from May

Britain's Labour government will carry out the first renationalisation of a private train operator in May, transport minister Heidi Alexander announced Wednesday (Dec 4).


Returning all of the country's rail operators into public ownership is among the key policies launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer since his party's re-election five months ago.


Train passengers in Britain suffer from frequent cancellations to their journeys in addition to high ticket prices.


"For too long, the British public has had to put up with rail services that simply don't work," Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said in a statement.


"A complex system of private train operators has too often failed its users."


Alexander said South Western Railway, offering journeys between London and towns in southern England, will be the first to transfer into public ownership in May.


This will be followed by two more operators serving English towns and cities by late 2025.


Despite the transition, passengers are set to face higher fares from March, based on an annual government calculation.

Alexander has been in the job just a few days, replacing Louise Haigh who resigned as transport secretary on Friday.


That followed revelations that she pleaded guilty to a criminal offence before becoming a member of parliament.


Haigh also oversaw the progress of Britain's new high-speed HS2 train line, which has been mired in controversy since the previous Conservative government axed key legs of the railway because of spiralling costs.


Four of the 14 operators in England are already run by the state owing to poor performance in recent years.


The main rail operators in Scotland and Wales, where transport policy is handled by the devolved administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff, are also state-owned.


The government has said it will be able to avoid having to pay compensation fees to rail operators, with all the current contracts set to expire by 2027.


The privatisation of rail operations took place in the mid-1990s under the Conservative prime minister John Major, but the rail network remained public, run by Network Rail.

UK to nationalise train operators from May - CNA

On balance, the privatised rail operators have screwed things up and the ticketing is a complete nightmare with people making genuine mistakes finding themselves with criminal convictions because they travelled on the wrong train or at the wrong time. On my last visit I went to Didcot Parkway, a reasonably large station, to buy a ticket. There were three windows open serving customers and all were busy. It took the guy more than 10 minutes to find a sensibly priced and reasonably direct option for me, partly because 2 or 3 different operators were involved along the route. I thanked him and asked how the fook I was supposed to buy a ticket at the machine when he was an expert and it took him so long. He replied that Didcot was one of the stations where the ticket office was scheduled for closure. Shrug. And if you are in a wheelchair you have no chance - they have ramps and lifts but the ticket machines are above head height. But don't board a train without a valid ticket because the inspector CAN sell you a ticket but he can also be a coont and report you for fare evasion.
Rant not over, just pausing for breath....

Not before time.

And already 30% more illegals returned than in the whole of last year.

Plus Starmer effortlessly putting Kemi in her place week after week.

by far the main element of rail cost is in the track and signalling infrastructure, and that has been nationalised for years.

about three quarters of a ticket price is a Network Rail charge.

as regards the actual trains, the rail unions have made clear their opposition to any productivity gains and so the stage is set - higher prices or reduced services. higher prices will reduce use, making reduced services inevitable.

labour lies. union bullying. socialism never works.

..... and talking of uk rail unions and their latest pay deal ...

The train drivers’ trade union is claiming victory after Labour handed it a bumper pay rise without demanding an end to so-called Spanish practices – including the right to re-start one’s lunch break if spoken to by a manager.

Members of Aslef have been granted a 14.25 per cent pay rise, covering the last three years, after the Government agreed a “no strings” deal with union negotiators.

Yet the agreement, described by Mick Whelan, the Aslef general secretary, as a “clean deal”, failed to secure any reforms to outdated, costly and restrictive working practices, colloquially known as Spanish practices.

Last year it was revealed that one of these costly working practices includes the right to paid time off for medical checks if staff use microwaves.

The policy, dating from the 1980s, and first reported by The Sun, read:

“All staff working with microwave ovens shall be permitted to take time off from work, with pay, for a medical check of any effects on them from the microwave ovens.”

Another practice consists of re-starting scheduled breaks whenever passing bosses greet staff on their downtime.

“Imagine your line manager stopping to say ‘hello’ when you are on a formal break,” said Huw Merriman, the former rail minister, in 2022. “In the office or on-site, that’s a positive sign of teamwork. Ludicrously, in the rail industry the rule book decrees that the break has to restart from the beginning.”


The Telegraph revealed in the same year that teams of nine people were being sent to jobs such as changing a plug socket.

An industry source explained at the time: “Let’s imagine you want to change a single socket to a double in your kitchen. Potentially you’d need an electrician, a tiler and a plumber as your dishwasher waste pipe will need adjusting too.

“In Network Rail we can’t roster individuals, only teams and we can’t multi-skill those teams so we’d need to send a team of three electricians, three tilers and three plumbers – nine people to do a job one person could do.”

Yet another one of the pejoratively-named Spanish practices includes rail staff being paid for walking to and from their trains.

Staff moving from offices or mess rooms to trains insist on being paid for the time it takes to walk between rest area and place of work.

Unions have faced accusations that these “walking allowances”, which in some cases were reportedly set at 12 minutes for journeys by foot that would take 60 seconds, squander millions of pounds every year by paying wages to people for time when they are not actually working.

Elsewhere on the railways, Network Rail, the infrastructure company, tried to launch Blink, a mobile messaging app, in 2023 to communicate with its employees. It reportedly took almost a year to roll out because of union resistance.

In a letter to members of the RMT last April, Mick Lynch, the union’s boss, said that it had entered a formal dispute with the company over the app.

He wrote: “The use of the Blink app with the analytical data it provides to management could potentially be used to mitigate the impact of any industrial action members may be called on to take via the data made available to management from the Blink app.”

Hopefully Avanti West Coast will be next on that list.

It's actually impressive how they almost never manage to have a train departing London on time.

If they haven't already been cancelled, of course.

Avanti West Coast achieves PS1bn turnover despite ranking low on UK reliability charts - Business Live

Yet with a 1 billion pound turnover.

Originally Posted by cyrille

And already 30% more illegals returned than in the whole of last year.

What medication are you?

Maybe this is a reality in world Cyrille or you just put it out there to get a reaction ��

You're annoyed by the problem, not the solution.

Dimbo.

Originally Posted by cyrille

solution

What solution you mong?

By Christ, you are thick.

Look at the thread title, moron.

So you think Nationalisation is the solution?

You need to get out more...

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The public want a working railway system.

They had one before the privatisation wave of public assets that M. Thatcher started and John Major continued with. Infrastructure is too important for us all and can't be trusted in the hands of profiteers.

Originally Posted by Molle

They had one before the privatisation wave of public assets that M. Thatcher started and John Major continued with. Infrastructure is too important for us all and can't be trusted in the hands of profiteers.

And Chitty is so drunk and so astonishingly stupid that he seems to have convinced himself it is Labour's fault.

I doubt he's alone. Is it any wonder the future looks fraught?

Originally Posted by Molle

They had one before the privatisation wave of public assets that M. Thatcher started and John Major continued with. Infrastructure is too important for us all and can't be trusted in the hands of profiteers.

They also had a wave of strikes that didn't have public sympathy and got her elected in the first place.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

if they actually had an interest in the company performing well.


Why does it need to be a profit centre?

Asked and answered.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Why does it need to be a profit centre?

with out profit ...

1. there are no funds for wage increases.
2. there are no funds for infrastructure or rolling stock upgrades.
3. there is no incentive to increase productivity or efficiency.
4. the taxpayer will end up paying more and more each year to fund it.

just look at how the nhs swallows up more and more funding each year with no improvement in service delivered. its run by ideological planning committees instead of economic graduate managers.

rail privatisation was badly thought out and poorly implemented and re-nationalisation by a union dominated labour government will be even worse.

Rail Privatisation - Success or Failure? - Economics Help

Originally Posted by taxexile

with out profit ...

1. there are no funds for wage increases.
2. there are no funds for infrastructure or rolling stock upgrades.
3. there is no incentive to increase productivity or efficiency.
4. the taxpayer will end up paying more and more each year to fund it.

just look at how the nhs swallows up more and more funding each year with no improvement in service delivered. its run by ideological planning committees instead of economic graduate managers.

rail privatisation was badly thought out and poorly implemented and re-nationalisation by a union dominated labour government will be even worse.

Rail Privatisation - Success or Failure? - Economics Help

Yes, why don't you just take one line out of context and paint the scenario you think fits?

I said:

A joint government/employee ownership would be the best solution.

Yes, investment is needed, but on an ongoing basis profits can be used to fund wage increases or, you know, a profit share?

And thus:

3. there is no incentive to increase productivity or efficiency.

Getting direct rewards for your efforts is infinitely preferable to going on strike to get them, which is what happened the last time.

Try and think out side the wholly private/wholly nationalised options for even a minute.

And don't compare it with the NHS, the tories have been deliberately trying to fuck that up for years to try and force privatisation.

They would love the US model for the personal benefits it would bring them.