British Rail plc

How much better would British railways be if British Rail had been privatized intact, rather than broken up? As it is, vast amounts of money are squandered on transactional costs, such that the private rail companies need government subsidies far in excess of those paid to the old state-owned British Rail.

It's not as though it even created any competition: geographical factors mean that instead it was just a case of one big monopoly being broken up into multiple smaller monopolies...
 
Considering that major structural and technical issues were still being addressed and only part way resolved to a satisfactory degree when privatization began in earnest, its difficult to say. Simply shelving off the entire structure doesn't resolve fundamental problems that existed within the system.

Given that sectorization was proving to be a move in the right direction, it is possible that had privatization not resulted in a split of the system, then a slightly better overall system, one tightly regulated by the government (it would be unlikely that having such a powerful monopoly would be welcomed by many) could be better.

However the passenger sector would still likely rely on considerable government subsidy for some time until fares and the freight arm can pick up the slack.
 
I'm going to resist a 20 page speculative rant and will try and be nice:

EC Directive 91/440 meant that rail operations and infrastructure operations must be run separately as separate entities. The network was broken up into 25 Franchise Operators and Railtrack as infrastructure operator. Although many national operators like DB & SNCF just split their railway operations into two, UK privatisation rules would have meant that the competition commission insisting on bids allowed for the two entities.

If there was 'uniform' privatisation, the first difference is that the rolling stock promised in the mid-1990s would not have taken another 15 years to have been rolled out properly. The rolling stock companies would not have made massive profits because the worst part of the privatisation was how train units were sold off for next to nothing and then sold for 1000% (I kid you not) profits.

I dispute George's point on subsidy; for the past 10 years, the industry has been paying the taxpayer back quite a nice chunk of cash. The recent recession has meant a number of operators qualify for revenue support under cap and collar mechanisms. Railtrack could have reinvested its money back in the industry but decided to hand over their cash to shareholders which allowed events like Hatfield to happen.
 
Substantially.

Franchising, transaction costs and monopolistic rolling stock companies provide golden oportunities for inefficiency. As I correctly predicted when I was 14 upon privatisation, incidently. Possibly if they had just split the freight companies from the rest, it would have been best.

Ijofa is wrong on subsidies. Rail subsidies have increased massively since privatisation.


Also, I hate it when people quote EC Directives as if they were natural laws, not ordinary laws that can be changed like any other.
 
What would privatisation changes mean for the actual services themselves? Would less 'wasted' money mean funds would be available for in-cab signalling to be introduced so the Intercity 225 can actually go 225km/h instead of being stuck at 201km/h? Would the tilting mechanism be fitted to these trains so average speeds can be raised significantly?
 
Ljofa is NOT wrong on subsidies - he works in the industry and has access to all the data.

The Daily Telegraph, one of Britains most reliable news sources and ideologically in favour of privatisation, disagree:

"The root of the problems is the high cost of running today's railways. Far from cutting costs, as we were promised, privatisation has led to a bureaucratic and expensive system, with the private companies at the mercy of ministerial interference. Subsidy is running at about £5 billion per year compared with the measly £1 billion (in today's money) that British Rail received in an average year two decades ago."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5544414/Warning-theres-trouble-ahead-for-Britains-railways.html

Can I see your data?
 
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