State run v state owned

[Baff]

Not being much of a rail user, I have to say the cost to the tapayer is of far greater concern to me than the cost to the end user.

[Thomas]

Hey I've just noticed the quote system doesnl't include what you quoted - once more - so people will have to click back....

Having USED the man in seat 61's suggestions and saved a fortune....

The first thing I would say is the UK seems to work very hard to conceal, or at least obfuscate, low fare options.

Pre-COVID I secured utterly ridiculous rail travel from newport to london paddington. The cost of riding saddo khant's tube from there to the south bank and back for the trade fair moira and i attended actuallty exceeded the price i paid for a second class seat in the hyundai special from newport to london one way.

But it was incredibly difficult to secure that.

In stark contrast, I can personally attest to the ease AND OPENNESS with which Deutshe Bahn's online web chat provided full disclosure of their cheapest fares from Lille to Brussels and back (no, i don't get it either, how a german train company sells tickets for the french TGV, but it worked) to me when I went online through a VPN, chatted in french, and asked to pick up tickets at the station some years ago. And i saved a good twenty, no thirty quid each way compared to what eurostar wanted to sell me for the whole ride. And I got an hour for a look around in Lille too ! result !

These days i could just have the ticket emailed to my phone so i would not even have to get off the damn train !

I think again from memory we did this on the old forum regarding a thread about railways in the disunited kingdom.

When comparisons were made between european nations , the uk came out as the most expensive per mile travelled with one of the poorest rail systems of the major european nations.

Some nations ( the ones who had much better rail systems than the yookay) subsidised travel on the trains to a degree from general taxation , while obviously the uk preferred not to do this .

Im not some idealogical zealot who is wedded to nationalising everything for the sake of it....im open and interested in differing  methods of funding but thats now 27 years we  have had this farce of a rail system and if something isnt working well , then its time to try something different no matter what uk government apologists say.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is madness.

It will be a few years yet before the scot gov ( thats hoping the snp stay in power of course) can do anything about the current franchise , but rest assured john , if scotland ever gets its independence from those feckers at westminster , i dont think you will find many people who want to carry on with the anglo saxon model on the rail system.

Quite clearly they are light years behind other nations  on cost , punctuality  , reliability and speed.

[johnofgwent]

so whats this article supposed to prove?

The fact that the uk has the most commercially aggressive fares in europe is exactly what the commuter is complaining about. Travelling peak time is what people want compared , not some shit route off peak time.

Also in your example , how does paris to dijon travelling tomorrow compare with london to sheffield?

Paris to dijon is some 43 miles longer than london to sheffield , say an extra half hour train journey at best. Some uk trains take over 2 hours to do local journeys that last 43 miles.

The comparison is absurd.

Hey I've just noticed the quote system doesnl't include what you quoted - once more - so people will have to click back....

Having USED the man in seat 61's suggestions and saved a fortune....

The first thing I would say is the UK seems to work very hard to conceal, or at least obfuscate, low fare options.

Pre-COVID I secured utterly ridiculous rail travel from newport to london paddington. The cost of riding saddo khant's tube from there to the south bank and back for the trade fair moira and i attended actuallty exceeded the price i paid for a second class seat in the hyundai special from newport to london one way.

But it was incredibly difficult to secure that.

In stark contrast, I can personally attest to the ease AND OPENNESS with which Deutshe Bahn's online web chat provided full disclosure of their cheapest fares from Lille to Brussels and back (no, i don't get it either, how a german train company sells tickets for the french TGV, but it worked) to me when I went online through a VPN, chatted in french, and asked to pick up tickets at the station some years ago. And i saved a good twenty, no thirty quid each way compared to what eurostar wanted to sell me for the whole ride. And I got an hour for a look around in Lille too ! result !

These days i could just have the ticket emailed to my phone so i would not even have to get off the damn train !

[patman post]

so whats this article supposed to prove?

The fact that the uk has the most commercially aggressive fares in europe is exactly what the commuter is complaining about. Travelling peak time is what people want compared , not some shit route off peak time.

Also in your example , how does paris to dijon travelling tomorrow compare with london to sheffield?

Paris to dijon is some 43 miles longer than london to sheffield , say an extra half hour train journey at best. Some uk trains take over 2 hours to do local journeys that last 43 miles.

The comparison is absurd.

Unfortunately I don't have access to your commuter. Though in Europe taxpayers fund more of the railways than the UK so all taxpayers pay.
The extract shows that the UK has only some of most expensive fares in Europe, and why. For the majority of journeys exampled, they can be taken for similar fares or less...

[Thomas]

No, that's fascinating, because it contradicts shitloads the wankers in the bay have been saying in reply to emails to me. Given that's an ASSEMBLY website, I think I will have to make some checks as I would not put it past the bastards to do an "Oceania Have Always Been At War With East Asia" on the people they take for fools

Go for it john. Im all for holding parliament to account , especially the devolved parliaments , and i include the scot govenrment in that also.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing politicians of any colour squriming under the spotlight.

[Thomas]

From an interesting site operated by a train geek — The Man in Seat 61:

The next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story.  The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too.  The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.  This is exactly what airlines have known, and been doing, for decades. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself, check some UK train fares at www.nationalrail.co.uk...

https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html

The site itself is worth a look, eg,

1. Booking a month in advance...
London to Sheffield :£12.50 on the 12:03, £15 on 11:55, £19 on 12:55 & several later trains.
Paris to Dijon: €27 (£25) on the 08:53, €42 on the 15:38, €49 on the 15:58, and €36 on the 16:53.
Rome to Florence: €29 (£25) on all departures around lunchtime
Nuremburg to Kassel: €35 (£29) on all departures around lunchtime

2. If travelling tomorrow...
London to Sheffield: £22 on the 11:55, 12:25; £41 on the 12:55.
Paris to Dijon: €84 (£70) on the 11:58 & 14:53 high-speed TGVs, but €42.80 on a slow TER train.
Rome to Florence: €43 (£36) on all departures
Nuremburg to Kassel: €73 (£61) on all departures

3. If travelling today...
London to Sheffield: £69.50 one-way or £70.50 return on all off-peak trains
Paris to Dijon: €49 (£41) the cheapest, available on some high-speed TGVs, still €42.80 on the slow TER train.
Rome to Florence: €43 (£36) on all departures
Nuremburg to Kassel: €73 (£61) on all departures

The overriding problem with UK train travel from the non-expense account passenger's point of view is the maze of fare structures that seem to conspire to obstruct them from easily booking the least expensive options...

so whats this article supposed to prove?

The fact that the uk has the most commercially aggressive fares in europe is exactly what the commuter is complaining about. Travelling peak time is what people want compared , not some shit route off peak time.

Also in your example , how does paris to dijon travelling tomorrow compare with london to sheffield?

Paris to dijon is some 43 miles longer than london to sheffield , say an extra half hour train journey at best. Some uk trains take over 2 hours to do local journeys that last 43 miles.

The comparison is absurd.

[johnofgwent]

ok john , im not sure about wider welsh transport devolution  , but according to this article..

No, that's fascinating, because it contradicts shitloads the wankers in the bay have been saying in reply to emails to me. Given that's an ASSEMBLY website, I think I will have to make some checks as I would not put it past the bastards to do an "Oceania Have Always Been At War With East Asia" on the people they take for fools

[patman post]

From an interesting site operated by a train geek — The Man in Seat 61:

The next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story.  The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too.  The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.  This is exactly what airlines have known, and been doing, for decades. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself, check some UK train fares at www.nationalrail.co.uk...

https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html

The site itself is worth a look, eg,

1. Booking a month in advance...
London to Sheffield :£12.50 on the 12:03, £15 on 11:55, £19 on 12:55 & several later trains.
Paris to Dijon: €27 (£25) on the 08:53, €42 on the 15:38, €49 on the 15:58, and €36 on the 16:53.
Rome to Florence: €29 (£25) on all departures around lunchtime
Nuremburg to Kassel: €35 (£29) on all departures around lunchtime

2. If travelling tomorrow...
London to Sheffield: £22 on the 11:55, 12:25; £41 on the 12:55.
Paris to Dijon: €84 (£70) on the 11:58 & 14:53 high-speed TGVs, but €42.80 on a slow TER train.
Rome to Florence: €43 (£36) on all departures
Nuremburg to Kassel: €73 (£61) on all departures

3. If travelling today...
London to Sheffield: £69.50 one-way or £70.50 return on all off-peak trains
Paris to Dijon: €49 (£41) the cheapest, available on some high-speed TGVs, still €42.80 on the slow TER train.
Rome to Florence: €43 (£36) on all departures
Nuremburg to Kassel: €73 (£61) on all departures

The overriding problem with UK train travel from the non-expense account passenger's point of view is the maze of fare structures that seem to conspire to obstruct them from easily booking the least expensive options...

[Thomas]

We already know the "british " have the most expensive and among the most poorly run railways in the entire western civilised world since the feck up of the shambolic tory/labour rail privatisation , so im not sure if i were  welsh i would be looking for british parties in either westminster or the senedd to solve this problem.

British trains cost FIVE times more than ones in Europe - what you can do about it
UK commuters and travellers are paying well over the odds according to a new investigation - but you don't have to stand for it

Train fares in Britain are officially the most expensive in Europe, a new investigation has found, with commuters in Britain forced to pay up to five times more than our friends across the continent.
Research into the cost of fares around Europe revealed travellers in Britain are having to cough up 35p more a mile compared to a journey in Rome, Italy (where commuters pay 15p a mile), and double the amount per mile as commuters in Belgium (24p).
In Britain, those travelling via train are subject to an eye-watering 50p per mile.

Put into perspective, a train journey from London to Birmingham covers an average distance of around 101 miles (163km). This translates as an average of £50.50 per journey.
In Belgium, a journey of the same distance, would cost £24.24, in Latvia, where average costs are 5p per mile, travellers can expect to pay just £5.05.

In the UK, train fares hiked up by 2.3% in January - in another kick in the teeth for passengers.
This is more than double the rate of inflation, and the biggest price hike of its kind for trains in around three years.

The research

Mirror Money teamed up with experts at Vouchercloud to investigate just how much UK travellers are paying in comparison to fares in Europe.
The study compared the cost of on-the-day travel from major European capital city train stations to the next major station.
It also selected the price for a single ticket, and the price per mile for each journey to negate any inconsistent distances.

http://archive.is/fRX4y

[Thomas]

Not really. Transport was a devolved matter long before that, I'm sure.

Prior to this year or maybe the year before, there were multiple franchises operating. The matter is heavily obfuscated by the now re-privatised Gods Wonderful Railway England operating London to Penzance  and many places in between, but also London - Bristol - Swansea - Carmarthen. Trains beyond there run to Milford Haven, Fishguard Harbour and a few other places too. They were run bu cross rail or Arriva Trains Wales or another bunch who also operated the run from Cardiff to Wrexham via Newport, Cwmbran, Abergavenny., Libanus (a shithole in the middle of nowhere in the brecon beacons) and thence north to Builth wells and Snowdonia etc. In short is is a train wreck.

They took away my free bus pass and gave me another one with a transport For Wales badge last year, I've never used it as the Corona Pox hit before I could.  The free bus pass was supposed to offer FREE train rides on two lines frequented by cottage burners reservior bombers and sheep worriers, and 30% OFF travel onlines mainly used by labour voters in the valleys. There is no discount on any line that goes through Newport.

ok john , im not sure about wider welsh transport devolution  , but according to this article..

https://senedd.wales/Research%20Documents/16-043%20Rail%20Franchising%20in%20Wales/16-043-Web-English.pdf

Awarding contracts for rail franchises were under westminsters department for transport from 2005 - 2017 , and in 2017 , westminster devolved the power to specify the terms and conditions of welsh rail franchises to the senedd , from where british  labour  in wales, corbyns labour  , awarded the contract to two private firms in 2018.

So the state of welsh rail seems to have been a westminster feck up till the new contract was put in place in 2018 , and then further brit nat labour in the senedd took the blame from then till now.

So i appreciate you hate devolution , but the common denominator in all the transport issues with welsh rail over the last few decades isnt the fault of devolution , but the british and then a british party in the senedd.

[johnofgwent]

Interesting subject on the rail system throughout the yookay john.

Wasnt the labour run welsh assembly given control of railways in 2017 and then labour ( corbyns labour? ) promptly gave the contract to two private sector companies from france and spain?

What little i have read of welsh railways shows rail has been a disaster under welsh labour.

Not really. Transport was a devolved matter long before that, I'm sure.

Prior to this year or maybe the year before, there were multiple franchises operating. The matter is heavily obfuscated by the now re-privatised Gods Wonderful Railway England operating London to Penzance  and many places in between, but also London - Bristol - Swansea - Carmarthen. Trains beyond there run to Milford Haven, Fishguard Harbour and a few other places too. They were run bu cross rail or Arriva Trains Wales or another bunch who also operated the run from Cardiff to Wrexham via Newport, Cwmbran, Abergavenny., Libanus (a shithole in the middle of nowhere in the brecon beacons) and thence north to Builth wells and Snowdonia etc. In short is is a train wreck.

They took away my free bus pass and gave me another one with a transport For Wales badge last year, I've never used it as the Corona Pox hit before I could.  The free bus pass was supposed to offer FREE train rides on two lines frequented by cottage burners reservior bombers and sheep worriers, and 30% OFF travel onlines mainly used by labour voters in the valleys. There is no discount on any line that goes through Newport.

[Thomas]

You might be interested in this article here john......how labour have tried ( and failed) to make political capital out of the snp not re nationalising railways in scotland , when it is currently legally impossible for them to do so.

Bear in mind as well , railways were privatised in 1993 , 27 years ago , and yet labour were in power 13 of those 27 years and did feck all about it at westminster.

The claim that the SNP are responsible for the continued operation of the ScotRail franchise by a private firm has been repeated numerous times by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, activist group Momentum and other senior Labour figures.

To understand the current controversy, we must assess the circumstances around the franchising of Scotland's railways to Abellio.

The company won the contract, worth £6bn, in 2014. It put them in charge of Scotland's rail services for up to a decade, taking effect from 1 April, 2015. Abellio replaced the previous franchise holder First ScotRail.

Abellio is the international arm of the state-owned Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) which runs services on the main rail network in the Netherlands.

When the ScotRail operation was put up for tender in 2013, there were five bids, all from private companies. Abellio was alongside First ScotRail, Arriva, MTR and National Express.

However, the video produced by TSSA implies that the SNP decided not to include a public sector bid for the service.

The Scottish Government did not have the power to make such a decision when the 2013 draft franchise was tendered. Bids were invited from November 2013 onward and the five bids were shortlisted in April 2014, with Abellio announced as the winner on 8 October.

So what powers did the Scottish Government have when the draft invitation to tender was released?

Britain's railways were nationalised from 1947 until the Railways Act of 1993.

The act handed control of the rail infrastructure to Railtrack, and 25 train operating companies were given franchises to provide rail services.

Railtrack was put into administration and Network Rail took over operation of the rail network in Scotland, England and Wales.

After Scottish devolution in 1999, the Scottish Government was handed a measure of power over transport, however railways remained largely under UK government control until the Railways Act 2005. This gave Scotland power to "manage and monitor the performance of ScotRail services" and the "sole responsibility for securing future ScotRail franchises".

Crucially, the 2005 act did not give Scottish ministers the power to include a public sector bid for the ScotRail franchise. This ability was only devolved in the Scotland Act 2016, which handed Scotland a host of new powers in response to the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014.

https://theferret.scot/snp-scotrail-franchise-public-ownership/


I think poor auld labour lost any credibility they had about "renationalising" anything when wurzel promised the party faithfull he would renationalise the already nationalised scottish water.

[Thomas]

The point of course is that when the foreign state enterprises that now run wales' trains as a private enterprise deal put in their bid to have the licence, they bargained without dickhead drakeford saying "stuff you, you can't take a third of the number of ticket buyers you planned to take on each train, and in any case we just told the gestapo to arrest anyone using it to go anywhere" so they're walking away.

Interesting subject on the rail system throughout the yookay john.

Wasnt the labour run welsh assembly given control of railways in 2017 and then labour ( corbyns labour? ) promptly gave the contract to two private sector companies from france and spain?

What little i have read of welsh railways shows rail has been a disaster under welsh labour.

[johnofgwent]

Just announced - Wales to renationalise its rail services.    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54635421

Abellio Scotrail, the rail operator in Scotland, is already state-owned by the Dutch government.

Railways in Northern Ireland are owned and  run by NI Railways, which is owned by the UK Government. NIR was never part of British Rail and it uses a wider track gauge.

Network Rail, which owns most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) is owned by the UK government.

In England, Northern Trains and the LNER are state-owned 'operator of last resort' organisations, after the failure of commercial franchises.

All looks a bit chaotic. Nobody would have ever dreamed up this scenario as the ideal way to run a national rail system.

The point of course is that when the foreign state enterprises that now run wales' trains as a private enterprise deal put in their bid to have the licence, they bargained without dickhead drakeford saying "stuff you, you can't take a third of the number of ticket buyers you planned to take on each train, and in any case we just told the gestapo to arrest anyone using it to go anywhere" so they're walking away.

[johnofgwent]

Haven't railways been a bit of a pig's ear since their inception? Don't I remember that at one time all the different regions used different gauges and have always been a bit of a mess?

That is entirely down to a total lack of national standard. I have had the pleasure (and it was) to work alongside some people who were hugely interested in local history and the historyof the legislative framework surrounding the permanent way and the companies that set up to establish permanent ways (the legal term for railways at the time of their growth)

The point you raise is one of engineering. The three gauges in common use in the country (narrow, standard and broad) came about for several reasons.

Brunel chose broad gauge for God's Wonderful Railway because the broader width meant the engines and rolling stock were more stable on the track. The fact the wheels were further apart meant the effective centre of gravity was much lower than for standarg gauge engines. There are sections of track bed around the Swindon, Didcot and Oxford area which had three rails, so as to accommodate standard and broad gauge stock, and
my colleague of the train engineering persuasion showed me the maths, over two pints of beer, that proved one of Brunel's Broad Gauge trains could take the curves a full TEN miles an hour faster than a standard gauge engine and carriages before it had to worry about derailing. So the bottom line was, he got you from Cornwall to London a damn sight faster than a similar LNER distance because his engines were bigger, and could go faster without risking disaster.

narrow gauge is predominantly seen in industrial plant where speed is of little relevance and out in the sticks where track bed laying is a bugger and the less of it you have to do, the better...