Be Excellent To Each Other

I spent many years thinking Yemen was made up.

I thought Timbuktu was a pretend place made up by my grandad to tell me funny stories.

That's a great game.

Thinking about Virgingate (oh, how I've longed to write that), other than Mr Corbyn's rather embarrassing failure to find a crammed train, I'm not sure it's the most effective way to argue for renationalisation. A new BR might still have deal with over-demand and under-supply at peak times, and it's not clear to me how just changing ownership would resolve this. I'd be happier if they would say what shape a re-nationalised railway would take, especially given that the infrastructure is already state-owned and there's large amounts of public money and public direction already in the system. Just recreating BR and letting the system rust won't be a step in the right direction.

That said, letting a national operator bid for franchises would be a good step because it doesn't make sense that SNCF or DB (who run the wonderful Chiltern line) can operate trains and cream off the 3% but the government can't and it would introduce some more competition at franchise time.

Renationalisation would presumably make the tickets (far) cheaper, which would make crowding worse.

In the same way that making the tickets more expensive has made it better?

Seen on Twitter re virgingate. Never before has such a fuss been made about a virgin berth.

Indeed, it's a poor argument. "this train is overcrowded* for a small part of the journey, let's nationalise"

* - if your definition of overcrowding is "no seats'

Are you suggesting that supply and demand doesn't exist?

I think the amount of journeys made out of necessity means supply and demand and cost constraints are a lot less relevant to train journeys than many other things. Especially when the competition is nonexistent.

Depends if the competition is "transport" or "rail transport"

True, but even then the competition may not exist in feasible form. Train commuting into London being the obvious case.

Bus, natch. :l

Yes. First isn't crowded

Sure, in the short term, there is some inelastic demand.

But (a) I think that's a rather London-centric view of things that isn't true across most of the country. Going without a car and just using public transit is a luxury Londoners can enjoy that few areas can, but once you have a car the train is typically an option but not a requirement. And (b) in the long term, rail service quality will drive house purchase decisons which will drive rail service demand, even in London; so it looks less inelastic if you use longer timescales. Citation: house prices are already increasing near HS2 and Crossrail stations.

No I'm suggesting that nationalisation isn't going to lead to massively slashed ticket prices to the extent that demand rockets in the same way that the steadily growing ticket prices don't really seem to have reduced demand.

Quite. There have been several thousand homes built right next to the train station I use. The relative pricing of the train ticket is almost irrelevant; train use on my line is going to go up (unless they, like, put prices up by 1000%, and even then it'd still probably be busy).

Because there's more demand than supply (trains are overcrowded). Losing x potential customers through price matters not if you can only supply x-y.

You're still thinking like a Londoner. Commuters aren't the only people on the train.

No, but we're talking about overcrowding, and it's pretty reasonable to suggest that commuter trains have a massive overcrowding problem.

But it's not the fault of the train companies - they're doing a shit job, but the deck is massively stacked against them. They have to work with an ancient infrastructure and some of the tiniest trains that exist, satisfy an enormous demand and employ a workforce that has one of the most powerful unions in the country.

I don't think privatisation would help at all, even though I might directly benefit from any price cuts. Somehow, quite a lot of it needs to be dug up so we can start again.

I assume you mean nationalisation there.

I agree, on the whole. However, there's definite price-gouging going on. We have the highest cost/mile trains in Europe by a significant margin. Look at the stuff going on with Southern Trains, too - deliberately reducing staff numbers to a point where they can't staff trains so cancel services, then using the public furore as a reason for lobbying to remove the requirement for having guards on trains. That's just ridiculous.

I do seem to remember Mr Perkies saying a problem was that the train companies weren't actually allowed to buy trains. Because the government were responsible for that.

They are on my train!

Problem being is it takes a shitload of time and money. This is the disadvantage of being an 'early adopter' in terms of national rail infrastructure (and very much a problem with the tube). They are trying to do it; witness the billions of pounds being spent at London Bridge station, for a project that is lasting over three years.

It's a shitty problem, but the solution is always going to be hamstrung if the rail operators are subsidised AND need to make a profit. Privatisation only really has benefits where there is true competition (IMO), and that's simply not the case for most rail lines. I don't think nationalisation is a panacea, but the current situation isn't working very well.

Of course nationalisation won't solve this problem, it isn't a tool to resolve that - however, if the correct people are running the correct areas with the correct authorisation and a plan to resolve the issues, it doesn't matter who is running it, it comes down to cost and who any profit goes to.
As it stands, I wouldn't trust anyone in the Gov't to be able to coordinate and run an the trains, never mid coordinate a massive upgrade program with minimal disruptions.
~And I wouldn't trust the 3rd party companies to do it without ruining it for the consumer because of the inelasticity of demand and the poorly specced program definition that would come from the government,.

What did that chart look like before privatisation, though?

I agree Southern are being ridiculous, but then so is the fact that they (are being forced to) still use guards.

Also, I just looked up London to Bristol Parkway and it was £32.50.

Sure - but if you're forced to use guards, you hire guards. My company is forced to do a lot of annoying, costly shit, and we do it. We don't deliberately fail the requirement, cancel services as a result, then point the finger at the government saying it's all their fault when customers complain.

You don't address onerous operating conditions by fucking over the customer. Especially when there's no competition. That's abuse of market conditions.

That's not exactly what's happening though, is it? Isn't it more that everyone's realised that you don't need guards to do it, guards didn't like that and went on strike (who earn circa £50k a year, I read), resulting in cancelled trains?

Not even a little bit, no. There have been strikes, but for the last six weeks or so there haven't been strikes. Southern are running with a modified timetable that is mostly cancelled trains, because they sacked most of their guards, and are now short of the number they need to meet the requirement for minimum train staff to run a service. It's a clear attempt from them to make the regulator drop the requirement, and rely on public pressure to do so.

Yep. I don't think there seems to be much sense in what the guards are saying, but the sheer fuckwittery of Southern will make me support anyone in anything they are doing against the douchebags.

I thought it was all about who opened the doors on the train. The company said the driver can do it using CCTV and the guards could do everything else but that, and the guards said "we should do the doors, we fear job cuts if we don't do doors" and the company said "no you do everything but doors we still need you" and the unions said "no likey no lighty this door policy" and went on strike.

They're not on strike. All the current cancellations right now are due to southern not having the staff to put on the trains, not down to the staff being on strike.

...

Do i need to use them to get to Bracknell from KGX?

Nah.

That depends on where you think you're starting from.

Yeah, but no one wants to go to parkway. Temple meads is the main one. And typically more expensive.

Generally the walk-on fares are horrendous. Booking even a day in advance, longer if possible, brings the price down a lot, moreso if off-peak and with a railcard. I wish I'd heard of the Network Railcard a lot sooner - saved me loads on my regular trips to the Smoke. Shame it doesn't cover the whole country.

I'm getting to the age now where if it's only an extra £20 or so I'll pay for first class if it's a journey longer than two hours. Having a seat to myself is wonderful.

Booking ahead saves you money outside London, or long distance, but if you're on what is otherwise a commuter route, forget it - so Kent-London is always going to cost you >£20 return for a 60 mile trip.

Also, overland trains are priced to encourage returns, which is odd - a single might be £11, a return £11.10. So I could run to work, or run to the underground, and save £0.10. No real incentive there to get creative with my journey.

Shipley to B'ham new street is £127 day return.
Or £54.70 if you go Shipley to Sheffield day return, then Sheffield to derby day return and derby to brum day return.

And on the subject of trains, I find First Group's recent rebranding of their western franchise deeply deeply cynical.

The green livery is nice

Yeah, booking ahead on the Bedford line will save you bugger all.

as if you need more evidence that Farage is arsehole royalty, going campaigning for Trump is certainly an effective way.

Nope I think we all agree this has been proven, though he does seem to want to hammer that point home.

Which one's Mrs Brexit?

Its South West Trains that run that route, you will need to tube\taxi it from Waterloo to get to KGX though

Takes about an hour and there are no fast trains.

Its my local station:)